Watkins Glen—-50 Years Ago Today…..7-28-73

My ducat. (Which no one ever collected). 
 

ABB -- Entire Sound Board

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFODdOJD0gQ&pp=ygUSd2F0a2lucyBnbGVuIDE5NzMg

The Band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am4zJ-FgZEc&pp=ygUSd2F0a2lucyBnbGVuIDE5NzMg

GD Soundcheck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km2MlSothJc&pp=ygUSd2F0a2lucyBnbGVuIDE5NzMg

GD Soundboard Entire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nmo3NKLB7s&pp=ygUSd2F0a2lucyBnbGVuIDE5NzMg

GD Sound Check 7-27-73

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8im5C1_ph8&pp=ygUSd2F0a2lucyBnbGVuIDE5NzMg

WOW !!!

great thread :)

One of my favorite GD experiences !!!

Wonder if there are any tapes of the late-night "super jam" referenced below???

From the New York Times 7/30/73:

WATKINS GLEN, N. Y., July 29—What had been a mammoth muddy outdoor dance hall for more than 15 hours yesterday turned into an immense garbage dump today as 600,000 fans streamed away from the site of the largest rock festival ever held in the United States.

Despite the hardships that seem to plague every large outdoor gathering like this— rain, mud, overtaxed sanitary facilities—the young people who had come from all over the country to the Grand Prix auto race course de clared that they had had a marvelous time.

Even more exciting for many of them was that they had been part of the crowd larger than the 300,000 to 400,000 who had gathered at the Woodstock Festival 160 miles east of here in 1969.

“We really broke the rec ord!” said Steven Gregorian, 17 years old, of South Wind sor, Conn., with a grin as he surveyed the nearly empty, filthy, concert site this morn ing. “That's dynamite!”

The “Summer Jam”—as the one‐day concert by the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers and the Band was billed—ended at 3:30 A.M. with most of the vast crowd still packed into the fence enclosed concert site, al though some had departed after a thunderstorm hit at dusk.

What they heard, basically, were three lengthy sets and a musicians jam of high energy, country‐tinged white rock ‘n’ roll, “boogying” mu sic that kept the crowd on its feet dancing and cheering in the mud.

The Grateful Dead, a band with its roots in the San Francisco rock renaissance of the late nineteen ‐ sixties, opened the bill at noon with a typical four‐hour set punc tuated by several patented, extended Jerry Garcia guitar solos.

As rain clouds blocked the hot sun shortly after 5 P.M., the Band, a tightly knit quin tet of musicians who initially gained recognition as Bob Dylan's back‐up group, took the stage.

It was during the Band's set that four skydivers from Syracuse jumped out of a single‐engine plane overhead and floated down into nearby fields, holding orange‐smoke flares to mark their descent.

Later, one parachutist, Wil lard J. Smith, 35, was found burned to death in a wooded area nearby. His flare had apparently ignited his clothes on the way down.

The Band had to cope with natural as well as man‐made distractions. Around 6 P.M., a thunderstorm broke out, twice forcing the group to halt its set. By the time the Allman Brothers came on at about 9:30 P.M., significant numbers of soaked concert goers were heading for their cars. But most stayed.

As the Georgia‐based All mans swung through what was essentially a recap of their best‐known Southern white blues numbers, young people jumped into mud pud dles beneath the stage — the only really open spaces avail abe—and danced ecstatically.

At times, the scene in the moist darkness resembled a Bosch painting — half‐naked bodies coated with brown slime moving rhythmically to the music amid huddled fig ures curled sleeping in the mud at their feet in barbitu rate or alcohol‐induced stu pors.

The musicians from the three groups wound up the night with a two‐hour jam. Afterward, throughout the predawn hours, the roads leading from the site were clogged with cars, motor cycles, vans and hikers on their way home.

Hundreds of young people, many of them shivering in wet clothes, wandered through the streets of Wat kins Glen three miles away, while others slept in door ways, all‐night laundromats or on the sidewalks.

By mid‐morning, the exo dus was in full swing. Roads leading out of the town were filled with hitchhikers hold ing aloft hand‐printed signs showing their destinations— Florida, Ann Arbor, Montreal, Syracuse, Cape Cod and else where.

Meanwhile, the concert site, which had started out as a 90‐acre grassy knoll, was nothing but an ocean of reeking garbage—so strewn with debris that a walker could not see much of the ground.

The concert promoters, Shelly Pinkel and Jim Koplik, said that a $12,000 clean‐up operation by bulldozers would begin as soon as all the peo ple had left.

Mr. Koplik and Mr. Finkel grossed $1.5‐million on ticket sales for the concert—150,000 tickets at $10 each. However, Mr. Koplik said today that after expenses, they probably would net only about $200, 000. The concert was recorded for a possible album, but Mr. Koplik said the promoters had signed no contract for one yet.

Among those who chose to relax at the site before start ing the trek home were a group of seven from Haw thorne, N. J., who were non chalantly cooking ribs and scrambled eggs on a hibachi in front of their two neatly mounted tents.

Not far away, 12 mud caked teen‐agers from James town, N.Y., were sprawled under a tree, staring glassy eyed at a collection of 15 empty wine jugs.

“Kathy, is that your blood?” mumbled blond, bearded Mike Hilldale, point ing at the stain on the foot of the girl across from him.

“Maybe it's Joe's; he bleeds a lot,” she mumbled back, showing no concern whatsoever.

There were no deaths re ported other than that of the parachutist. About 150 people were treated at near by hospitals for minor in juries and a few for reaction to drugs. One young man was in critical condition from a drug overdose and two were in critical condition with head injuries sustained when they fell off cars.

According to physicians and toxicologists who worked almost without a break for three days here, the main problem drugs at the event were “downs” (barbiturates and the sedative‐hypnotic methaqualone), alcohol and an animal tranquilizer called PCP that was being passed off by dealers as THC, a hallucinogen.

Dr. Willard Nagel of El mira, who was In charge of the medical operations, ex pressed concern over the extent of adulterated and falsely labeled drugs.

“I've got the opinion that since the vendors are selling bad stuff and no one's going to arrest them, and since the kids are going to use drugs anyway, the best thing to do is to have clean stuff avail able by the promoters through people with drug abuse experience,” Dr. Nagel said. He said he was thinking in terms of small doses of LSD that might deter young concert‐goers from using more dangerous larger doses.

Cap-Tabs?

Wonder if there are any tapes of the late-night "super jam" referenced below???

https://archive.org/details/gd1973-07-28.150454.SBD-AUD.composite.t-flac16

I: Bertha, Beat It On Down The Line, Brown-Eyed Women, Mexicali Blues, Box Of Rain, Here Comes Sunshine, Looks Like Rain, Row Jimmy, Jack Straw, Deal, Playin' In The Band
II: Around & Around, Loose Lucy, Big River, He's Gone> Truckin'> Nobody's Jam> El Paso, China Cat Sunflower> I Know You Rider, Stella Blue, Eyes Of The World, Sugar Magnolia
E: Sing Me Back Home, Not Fade Away*, Mountain Jam*, Johnny B. Goode*
(Summer Jam; the GD opened, followed by The Band, and the Allman Brothers headlined; *w/Allman Brothers and The Band)

Ok Doc, but the Dead played first, at noon or so, so what was the late-nite encore???

Sing me Back Home was the the GD afternoon encore. 
After the Allman Bros  their set, various members of all three

bands joined in on the "super Jam Encore. To see Dicky Bette, 

Robbie Robertson & Jerry play together was (at least For me) very special.  
 

Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course, 

Watkins Glen, NY, USA 7/28/73

Set1:

Bertha - Beat it on Down the Line -Brown Eyed Women -

Mexicali Blues - Box of Rain - Here Comes Sunshine - Looks Like Rain -

Row Jimmy - Jack Straw - Deal - Playing in the Band

Set 2:

Around and Around - Loose Lucy - Big River - He's Gone >  Truckin' >

Nobody's Fault But Mine > El Paso -

China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider - Stella Blue -

Eyes of the World - Sugar Magnolia
Encere:

Sing Me Back Home

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Band

Back to Memphis

Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever

The Shape I'm In

Stage Fright

I Shall Be Released

 Don't You Do It

Endless Highway

The Genetic Method >

Chest Fever

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Across the Great Divide

Holy Cow

Tell Henry

Life Is a Carnival

Saved

Up on Cripple Creek

Share Your Love With Me

This Wheel's on Fire

The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

Slippin' and Slidin' 

Encore:

Rag Mama Rag

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Allman Brothers Band 

Set I

Wasted Words

Done Somebody Wrong

Southbound

Stormy Monday 

In Memory of Elizabeth Reed

Come and Go Blues

Trouble No More

Blue Sky

One Way Out

Set II

Statesboro Blues

Ramblin' Man

Jessica

Midnight Rider

You Don't Love 

Les Brers in A Minor

Whipping Post

Encore: (with members of all three bands)

Not Fade Away

Mountain Jam
Johnny B. Goode

I Was There!

pretty good recap of the event at this link:

https://liveforlivemusic.com/features/summer-jam-festival-1973/

"While Robbie Robertson references the day as one of The Band’s finest moments in his eyes, Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks offered a differing opinion in an interview for Forbes when the subject came up: “I think a lot of those people came to hear the greatest jam of the three best jam bands in the country. So after we finished playing, we all came out for the jam and all I can say–I’ve heard the tapes–is it was an absolute disaster. I kept listening and listening, then thought about that night. It was a jam that couldn’t possibly have worked because of the mixture of drugs. The Band was all drunk as skunks, The Dead was all tripping, and we were full of coke.”

Box of Rain goes on hiatus, next Hampton '86

No summer 73 for me .

Just Winterland in November .  Poor me.