Oct 3, 2017

August 5, 1967: O'Keefe Center, Toronto, Ontario

TORONTO AUDIENCE APATHETIC

Something unfortunate happened at the O'Keefe Center in Toronto last Saturday afternoon. The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane were met by an unresponsive audience, and gave the audience what perhaps it deserved - an almost wholly uninspired performance.
Rock is an active art, demanding an active response. Active in this sense is subjective and broadly defined - it might be dancing, might be sitting while moving with the music, or even sitting motionless. None of these is inherently active or passive; what is essential is an effort to reach out and meet the music. Physical manifestations can easily be deceptive - they were last Saturday. The people dancing on stage were, for the most part, contemporary counterparts of those who were doing it on American Bandstand ten years ago. A few seemed to have really felt the music, but the majority were up there either because it was the thing to do or because they had a better view from onstage than from their seats.
Returning to the program itself, the planning was disastrous. It catered to the wishes of the audience, shying away from any attempt to change those wishes for the better. Thus, the Dead found themselves degradingly sandwiched between Luke and the Apostles (Toronto's most famous and most offensive white blues group) and a 20-minute intermission. Faced with poor programming, a hum in their sound system which forced them to eliminate everything soft and slow in their repertoire, and finally with an audience who came only to see the Airplane (just as they flock to hear Paul Revere and the Raiders), the Dead failed to bring across their beautiful and unified sound. The beautifully ugly Jerry Garcia smile was conspicuous in its absence.
As far as the musical quality of the performance is concerned, the Airplane clearly outclassed the Dead. The honor was a somewhat dubious one, however - it proved that the Airplane sound can survive even when they don't feel it, while the Dead sound loses its impact under such circumstances. In any case, it would be senseless to generalize from this performance, for it was the exception rather than the rule. But it points up a problem that these groups, and many others, will have to confront in the near future. It is this: that in order to succeed financially, they will have to perform in many cities to audiences even less receptive than in Toronto. Most likely they will fail there, as they did in Toronto, to turn people on to their music in the way they would like to. They will probably learn (and from some of Garcia's comments it seems they already have) that their music, powerful though it is, cannot break down the barriers which people have conditioned themselves to live behind. If their goal is to spread the love message throughout the continent, they will fail. It is for this reason that last Saturday afternoon was a sad one.
The Grateful Dead are at their best, it seems, performing to their own audience on their own terms, and this was obviously an impossibility at O'Keefe, since neither was the case. Due to the structure of the program, they were unable to let Pigpen go off into a 30-minute blues like Midnight Hour. He is the best white blues singer anywhere, but the crowd wanted none of it. Good Morning Little Schoolgirl was beautiful, but got neither response nor applause. The song that went over best was the folk song Rider (of Kensington Trio [sic] and Serendipity Singer stock), and I'm afraid it was accepted not on its own merits but rather because it sounded more like the Airplane than anything else they did.
The Airplane flew most smoothly when Gracie Slick sat down at the organ to let Marty Balin take over the lead singing. He is far better in person than on record, while the opposite is true of his female counterpart. Today (which is either cliche-ridden or brilliant, depending on the circumstances under which it is heard), was the best song of the afternoon, because Marty felt the music, as even this audience was able to discern.
Somebody to Love and White Rabbit, with Gracie singing lead, came across with too much strength. It seemed that this beautiful yet sinister evangelist was standing on stage imploring the audience to love, while as they had seen a moment before, she really didn't seem to practice what she preached. This overbearing evangelism (Feed your head! Feed your head!) grates on the consciousness of the listener rather than soothing it.
The difference between the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead is one of approach rather than message. The message for both is love (in case Time and Newsweek haven't reached you yet) and freedom. The Airplane screams the message loudest and least subtly, and thus seems to have reached more people (in terms of popularity). The Dead attempt to bring it across through their love for the music and for their audience (when it is theirs), and through a complete lack of pretension. Their subtlety is their greatest asset, and will prevent them from becoming commercially successful in the sense that the Airplane is. The Dead should not waste their sound on people who don't want to hear it.

Next week the Spectrum will publish a review of this concert by Eric Steese, in "The Grump."

(by Danny Rotholz, from the Spectrum, Buffalo, 11 August 1967)

* * *

THE GRUMP

When I sort of talked myself into attempting a review of the Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, and Luke and the Apostles as they appeared in Toronto, it appears that I considerably underestimated the task. Those who try to dabble in words forget that there are things subjective left in the world, or I at least committed such a transgression.
I find myself confronted with the problem of trying to conceive of a program of music and color in very cold and inadequate words of black print. I do not readily see a solution that I can approach in less than a few thousand carefully chosen words, but bear with me and we will try.
Chronological order of program - Luke and Apostles, the Dead, an intermission and the Airplane. The first is a Toronto group added to the program after appearing with the other two groups in a free concert in front of the Toronto City Hall - and how would that turn Frank Sedita on? [The mayor of Buffalo - ed.] Two light groups involved - Headlights from San Francisco providing a rear projection operation directly back of the performing group, and Sensefex from New York attempting to befuddle the rest of the theater.
And whence from here? - into a sort of never never land where the main object seems to be to overwhelm the defenses of the individual and pull him into a world where color, patterns, and music relate in a fashion which invalidates cause and effect, action and reaction, and simply exists.
Into a wall of sound, color, movement and activity where it is impossible to notice everything at once even though the mind desperately tries in order to have something concrete to fix on, a tie to a normality it can understand and remember.
It turned out to be a mixed success. It drove a number of people out of the theater, but it also pulled a crowd of devotees to sit and dance on those portions of the stage not occupied by the performing group. It appeared to my rather unknowing eye that some of the devotees may have had a little something extra in the way of pharmaceuticals of one kind of another going for them, but that is purely subjective. Suffice it to say that the groups accomplished their desired effect - if I am right about what it was - in at least as many people as they drove out.
I would guess again, that the largest portion of the audience, including myself, were torn in a variety of directions. Ego dominated, and raised on the Protestant Ethic, we knew that this was bad, way down in our heart of hearts. But because of embarrassment, stubbornness, or fascination, we had no real desire to leave.
One hears much talk of hippies these days, and these three groups seemed somehow to speak of that movement. I have watched and listened to a fair number of jazz groups but I do not ever recall seeing an as impromptu, instantaneous, spontaneous and unconcerned performance in my life.
In trying to analyze my own feelings about the seven hours or so I spent in the O'Keefe Centre I am not even sure I enjoyed it. I suspect that you can write a review of an evening like that only if you can remain completely apart from it. This I could not do, yet neither could I allow myself to become a part of it and try and describe it from the inside. I was only a befuddled observer, which I expect is obvious from this word hash.
Let me say that I was not prepared for the musical talent I found. I am lyric oriented usually, having at best a very poor ear, but both the Grateful Dead and the Airplane managed to convey something to me through music alone - even if I am unable to express what it is they transmitted. And I have come to the conclusion that it really is not that important to understand the words to the songs, especially of the Airplane. The voice is simply another instrument to be blended into a collage of color, sound, and moving bodies. With one exception, Miss Grace Slick.
Miss Slick, to crib a line, makes the Airplane fly. She is the only difference in their first and second albums, and the difference is large. Good they were, now - they may very well be something unique and impossible to classify. She should have no voice left by the end of one song - much less a performance, but it never seems to crack, squeal, or even waver. It simply skewers you into a seat and holds you, especially if you are male.
I quit, I have tried, and I suspect failed, to communicate the happening - and I finally think I have an inkling of what that word means now - at the O'Keefe.
And if you ever, ever, ever have a chance, see the Jefferson Airplane, and the Grateful Dead - then sit down and write me a letter describing it. 
The imagery must exist, but it is beyond me.

(by Eric Steese, from the Spectrum, Buffalo, 18 August 1967)

* * *

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE BUZZES CANADIANS

TORONTO - The Jefferson Airplane landed in Canada recently with the Grateful Dead aboard and proved a big success for their hippie and pseudo-hippie fans, at free "we love you" concerts in Toronto and Montreal, and a slightly better than 50 per cent draw at the O'Keefe Centre in Toronto at a $4.50 to $2 ticket scale.
The July 30-Aug. 5 engagement of the Jefferson Airplane, RCA Victor artists, and Grateful Dead, Warner Bros. artists, at the O'Keefe Centre was heralded by SW Magazine, a national publication with a circulation well over half a million, as "the coming of age of rock 'n' roll," as much because of the setting as because of the sound.
Certainly the two San Francisco groups, plus the local Luke and the Apostles, and the light show by Headlights supplemented by Sensefox Inc. [sic] of New York, made up the furthest-out attraction yet to play the O'Keefe, which brings to Toronto top Broadway musicals, ballet, opera, drama, and such concert stars as Harry Belafonte, Liberace, Judy Garland, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
For the first time in the eight-year history of the prestigious, 3,200-seat showplace, patrons climbed on stage to dance or listen, danced in the aisles, and stayed after the concert to dance on stage again to improvisations by all three groups playing together.
Audience reaction to the O'Keefe Centre performances again reflected the power of records, as The Airplane's biggest disk hits, "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love," drew the strongest response.
The Airplane and the Dead reaped maximum exposure in the press and on radio and TV during their Canadian visit. Their free performance in Toronto's City Hall Square a week prior to their O'Keefe opening drew crowds estimated at from 10,000 to 40,000, only exceeded by the wordage covering the event in the three daily papers. They co-operated fully with TV and radio interviews.
Another free performance at Place Ville Marie in Montreal drew 20,000 to 25,000 and again, full media coverage. They returned to Toronto Aug. 7 and 8 to tape an appearance on an upcoming CBS-TV "O'Keefe Centre Presents" show and drew a capacity audience for the taping sessions.

(by Kit Morgan, from Billboard, 26 August 1967)

Thanks to Dave Davis.

See also:
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/july-31-1967-okeefe-centre-toronto.html 

11 comments:

  1. A fascinating new discovery - twin reviews of the Airplane/Dead shows in Toronto, from student writers on the Spectrum (the University of Buffalo newspaper).

    The first reviewer attended the matinee performance on Saturday Aug 5 - it's hard to tell if the "uninspired performance" and "apathetic audience" were due to it being an afternoon show, or if he would've been dissatisfied at any of the shows. (Our tape is apparently from the evening performance.)
    It's possible the audience was more receptive to the Dead than he thought - he's even skeptical of the dancers onstage. He says everyone came to see the Airplane, which was probably true (the Airplane had two top-40 singles; the Dead were relatively unknown).

    He was clearly a Dead fan who had seen them before - in fact, he writes of them so knowingly that at times he sounds like a reviewer from the future who'd been plopped into a 1967 show. (He's a Pigpen fan, familiar with 30-minute Midnight Hours, Garcia's already-well-known smile, and their whole approach to their audience - I wonder what "Garcia comments" about their audience he refers to.)
    He was disappointed not to get a long Midnight Hour (I would be, too, if the Rio Nido version was typical for that year), but he calls the Schoolgirl beautiful, and he mentions I Know You Rider as an Airplane-type folk song. (There is no other known performance of it in 1967, though that's certainly just due to the lack of tapes. He just calls it "Rider," as it was called on the Kingston Trio & Serendipity Singers albums.)
    He mentions the "hum in their sound system which forced them to eliminate everything soft and slow in their repertoire" - whether or not it affected the setlists, it certainly bugged the Dead. Unfortunately he doesn't mention how long the Dead played - hopefully longer than the 20-minute intermission afterwards!

    He's disturbed by the lack of audience response - how could everyone not love the Dead? - and worried by the thought of them playing in one unreceptive city after another, failing to turn people on. He knows the Dead "are at their best...performing to their own audience on their own terms," and fears they'll never find commercial success with a mass audience, and shouldn't try.
    Though it was like that in many cities in the '60s as the Dead tried to find a national audience, by 1970 the Dead had largely turned things around and started attracting more fans. Or one way to look at it is that they created their own audience, an unforeseen turn of events back in 1967.

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    1. I was at the Aug 4th show... backstage standing stage left. Saw the Dead and the Airplane did not catch Luke and the Apostles. But saw them many times in TO

      The memory I have is the atrocious sound. Noise. Screeching and feedback. Just awful. And I was a musician then, and still am now. Small amps tiny PA columns. The tech of the time.

      The audience for the 4th was not terrible but not liek I had seen at other concerts in TO.

      Both bands are credible of course and the scene in Toronto in 67 I would call uptight at best!

      I doubt there were many good vibes to go round.

      But it was an "event" the music secondary. Like the Stones' first Garden's show. Couldn't hear anything. An event.

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    2. Yeah, the first reviewer called the Toronto audience very unresponsive (though that may just have been from his viewpoint). You weren't alone in being upset by the sound - the reviewer mentioned "the hum in their sound system" affecting their performance, Garcia complained about "the huge loud buzz...the buzz was louder than the music," and Lesh also remembered "the sound system had a buzzsaw noise in it." The Dead felt these shows were terrible and they'd played badly. Another negative reviewer thought the Dead were "nothing but noise" (though they took that as a badge of honor).
      So much for the San Francisco Sound!

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  2. He seems to have less respect for the Airplane - though their performance was better, they're more popular because they're less subtle. The Toronto Star reviewer (linked) had a much more positive reaction to the Airplane - he liked the Dead's "free" music and improvisations, but said they were "less inventive" and had less substance than the Airplane. Fair to say most people probably liked live Airplane more than the Dead's 30-minute jams with few recognizable songs!

    The second Spectrum reviewer is a total contrast - befuddled by the show, seemingly new to rock concerts, he gives the impression of being a much older, or more pretentious, writer. (He mentions being into jazz, and comes across as unacquainted with any new '60s trends.)
    I think he attended a different show - he says it was an evening show, and that he was there for 7 hours. (Considering the shows started at 8:30pm, that seems unusually long for '67.)
    He doesn't have much to say, but a few things come across - he mentions people leaving the theater, but he was struck & surprised by the musical talent. Contrary to what he expected, the music was actually comparable to jazz. Since he has "a poor ear" and apparently no familiarity with the music other than the Airplane's albums, he can't describe it and it's all just "a wall of sound." He's a particular admirer of Grace Slick!

    The Billboard piece, though more of a "music industry" summary of the Toronto run, has some interesting tidbits. It mentions the O'Keefe audience "staying after the concert to dance on stage again to improvisations by all three groups playing together." (Also mentioned in the review of the 7/31 show - but I don't know if this happened just on the first night or more often during the run.)
    Billboard is a little misleading in pairing the Airplane & the Dead at all the Toronto events. The Dead didn't play the free Toronto show in City Hall Square on July 23 (they were playing in San Francisco), which was the Airplane's way of publicizing the upcoming O'Keefe shows. (The Airplane apparently played another free show there on Aug 4, surprisingly without the Dead.) The Dead also parted ways with the Airplane after August 6, heading on to New York (and I don't know if the Dead took part in "TV and radio interviews" in Toronto, though the thought is tantalizing, as well as the "full media coverage" of the free Montreal shows).
    The Airplane appeared in the first episode of the "O'Keefe Centre Presents: The Rock Scene: Like It Is" TV show - taped not at the O'Keefe, but at the CBC-TV Studios, lip-syncing to album tracks. The article says this was taped on Aug 7-8; but the old Airplane setlist site says it was taped Sept. 14; I'm not sure which is correct, but it was broadcast on Oct. 16.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dua3O8U3OE - White Rabbit (new audio)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbCYbiN-mYk - Two Heads
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqsFPbh2ze8 - Pooneil

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    1. As late as 1973, the same column in the Spectrum comments on the 1967 show in a discussion of the Dead in Buffalo in March 1973. I'll try to link to it.

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  3. By the way, the Dead themselves hated these shows; though they were recorded, they later taped over all but the two short fragments we have.
    Garcia said, "They were terrible shows. Oh, we played so badly. There was a huge loud buzz, and we were ready to fire Weir - I mean, the band was in total turmoil during those gigs. We were coming apart at the seams... Those gigs were terribly fuckin' depressing. Our stuff didn't work right and the buzz was louder than the music. We were really going completely nuts. We were so relieved to get out of there." (Jerry on Jerry, p.171)
    Phil wrote: "The sound system had a buzzsaw noise in it, probably caused by one of the stage-light dimmers. Also, for the first time, Jerry and I started grumbling to each other about the music. With too many shows and not enough rehearsal, the music wasn't moving forward to our satisfaction... We confronted [Bobby] after the show about working harder to keep up... [But] we all played better the next night." (Lesh p.109)
    Lesh loved the Toronto Globe and Mail's review of their first show: "five simian men, presumably reeking with San Francisco authenticity...not volume, not intensity, but noise...like a jet taking off in your inner ear, while the mad scientist was perversely scraping your nerves to shreds." (Now that's a review I'd like to find!)

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  4. Some more assorted scrapings:

    A lengthy secondary-source account of the Airplane & Dead shows in Toronto, from Stuart Henderson's book Making the Scene (p.360-364) includes more quotes from Urjo Kareda's extremely negative 8/1/67 Globe and Mail review.
    http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/OKQ/TC-OKQ-820.pdf

    Kareda on Luke & the Apostles: “Amid their self-conscious, pretentious and stupefyingly awful performance, there was not a shred of talent.”
    He did like the Airplane, but not the audience: "It was a pity that the audience response which the group inspired was frequently so superficial. One revolting sub-teen stood onstage trying out a variety of Judy Garland gestures with no greater interest than having himself photographed. There were many like him; an objectionable distraction for those who had come to listen, and not to indulge in ludicrous self-exposure."

    And more in:
    https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/arts/avenging-angelo-is-taking-forever/article1025849/
    "Some editor at The Globe and Mail in July, 1967, must have thought it a good idea to send a 24-year-old Kareda to review a triple bill at Toronto's O'Keefe Centre...
    The resultant review, published Aug. 1, 1967, was such a masterpiece of vitriol that the Dead made a point of clipping it and filing it in their archives. To this day, it remains one of the band's favourite negative reviews...
    Of the three acts, Kareda liked only the Airplane ("the single one to which the term musician may be applied"), while the Apostles and the Dead convinced him "apocalypse [had] come."
    Here's what he said of the Dead, who were positioned between the Apostles and the Airplane on the bill: "Worse was to follow, in the persons (and how hesitantly I use that word!) of the Grateful Dead, five simian men who presumably reek with San Francisco authenticity.
    Not only were they clueless enough to repeat a song, which had just been played by Luke and the Apostles (and Good Morning, Little School Girl scarcely deserved a single hearing), but their time on stage was nothing but noise. It bounded like a jet taking off in your inner ear; while the mad scientist was perversely scraping your nerves to shreds."

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    1. There was also a program for the O'Keefe Centre shows with blurbs on each band - unfortunately, I could only find a small & blurry image online:
      http://www.cashboxcanada.ca/sites/default/files/images/Luke%20and%20the%20Apostles%20Jefferson%20Airplane%20at%20the%20O'Keefe%20Centre.preview-small.jpg
      Hopefully a better scan of the text can be found.

      Some Toronto Star clippings are transcribed here:
      http://www.thebigj.demon.co.uk/garden/v03.htm
      - 7/24/67 Charles Gerein, "Concert Ends As Free-For-All in the Big Pool," an account of the free 7/23/67 Airplane show.
      - 7/29/67 Volemar Richter, "Even the Jefferson Airplane Can't Define Psychedelic Music"
      - 8/1/67 Volemar Richter, "Kids Dance in the O'Keefe's Aisles" (also posted here)
      - 8/4/67 "Airplane Stag Charge Stunt"

      Rock Scully also had a brief, fairly accurate account of the trip to Canada in Living With the Dead (p.113-14).
      "We aren’t all that well attended in Toronto. The first couple of nights are sold out, but after that the hall is barely half full. Bill Graham has been perhaps a wee bit optimistic." [Billboard said they were "a slightly better than 50 percent draw."]
      After playing free shows in Montreal, "the Airplane, stars that they are, head down to do a Canadian Broadcasting System [CBC] show. We are cordially not invited along." [Confirming Billboard's account that the Airplane taped the TV show immediately after Montreal.]

      And lastly, a brief memory from a teenage attendee:
      "I remember that at the end of the Airplane's show people actually were allowed to go on the stage for the jam held by Airplane members... It was the Airplane that held my attention, especially Grace Slick (I was seventeen, what can I say?) so, the Dead were not a big priority at the time. All I remember of them was they were somewhat mellow and pretty loose."

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    2. My attempt to transcribe the Dead blurb from the Toronto concert program:

      "THE GRATEFUL DEAD
      You can't really understand or fully appreciate The Grateful Dead unless you are aware of what they are spokesmen for. The scene in S.F. is largely generated by the rock and roll. It is the main source of income for the whole community. It started with the young people getting turned-on by the rock music at the Fillmore and Avalon. Then before long it began to follow them home, very soon it was definitely part of their lives.
      In Haight-Ashbury, where the band's home is, the streets are filled with young people who are vitally concerned with the well-being of each other, and the rest of the world too.
      All this love has several energy points - one big one is the Dead. They were the first to play in the Park for free, now it is happening every week-end, and sometimes during the week - all the top bands, all the little bands, and everyone turned-on in the bay area get together and rave for a day.
      In the past several months, the Dead have been doing filming for two very interesting and different programs. The first one filmed was with a crew from England's BBC. The film, called "The Scene" will be the first color TV broadcast in England. The show included shots of the Dead at home, at the Avalon Ballroom, and in a new S.F. rock club, The Rock Garden."

      I'm guessing this is the "Whicker's World" TV show with a clip of 'Golden Road.' The second film isn't named but is probably "Petulia."

      The rest of the program hypes how popular & successful the Jefferson Airplane are, and how their live music is "[improvised] freely, building climax upon climax in songs that run on sometimes for twenty minutes at a time." Luke & the Apostles are called "one of Toronto's best known groups... Invited to play at the free concert in Nathan Phillips Square July 23rd, Luke and the Apostles so impressed Bill Graham that they were asked to join this program." The O'Keefe show is said to be "a total San Francisco Production" that brings Toronto "the feeling of the new wave from the West."

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    3. I found some audio from a show apparently taped during the O'Keefe appearances. A conversation with Grace Slick, Bill Graham, Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh and Rock Scully. I have uploaded it to You Tube. Was on set of intriguing tapes I acquired but I don't know what the source TV show may have been as it's not noted on the tapes:

      https://youtu.be/6UxbE35loFQ

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    4. Thanks for sharing that!

      The name of the show isn't mentioned in this portion of tape, but I gather it was some local Toronto TV talk show, broadcast on 8/1/67 and covering the first O'Keefe show from the night before. It was a half-hour show and this episode was devoted to the visiting San Francisco groups.
      The first 12 minutes are an interview with Graham & Grace; the next 12 (unfortunately in worse quality) with Jerry, Phil & Rock. The Dead discussion is very philosophical; the interviewer seems mainly interested in the philosophy of these SF representatives. But there is some discussion of last night's show, as the interviewer describes a long Dead jam. Remarkably, Phil & Jerry quote that day's review from the Globe & Mail! "It sounded like a jet taking off in your inner ear; while the mad scientist was perversely scraping your nerves to shreds." Clearly this line grabbed the Dead right away.

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