That early 70s touring lineup of The Beach Boys included drummer Mike Kowalski who was a session drummer for the ISB. He probably put in a good word about them.
I just listened to an interview with Eddie Angel of the instrumental (kinda Surf) band Los Straitjackets. He said the only restriction they put on opening acts is that they can NOT be a Surf band.
I don’t know if this counts, but one of my early 70s college friends played in a band that can probably best be described as “last-ditch San Francisco sound.” Made one think of Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Moby Grape, etc.
They opened for Chuck Berry in a medium-sized venue. The reason for this was that Berry used local musicians and didn’t tour with a band. (And he paid virtually nothing, since he felt the exposure was enough for the musicians.) My friend’s band played about half a dozen songs before Berry came on and it was quite a change when he did.
Which led to a great story. Since Berry always showed up just a few minutes before going on stage, the lead guitarist reasonably asked, “What songs are we going to play?”
Reply: “Chuck Berry songs.”
It was a real life version of Back to the Future where the ban just tried to hang on while Berry started playing a song. Sometimes it worked.
I saw Chuck Berry around 1988 or so. He was late. Very late. When he came on he asked the audience to call out songs. Then he played them and expected the band to know it. Since there was absolutely no plan to his set list Johnny B Goode was like the 2nd song played.
One of Bruce Springsteen’s early bands once had such a gig as Chuck Berry’s local (must have been Jersey) backing band. He described the experience exactly like you and your friend.
Did not know that. So, my friend could have gone on to become a Springsteen?
Back to the real world. My friend’s band was called something like “The John Smith Blues Band” and played SOME blues, but mostly psychedelic rock. That college student’s concept of being coolly ironic, I guess.
They later opened for B. B. King, who literally came from the back of the theater, down the aisle, and up on stage clutching Lucille after taking a cab from the airport.
The Springsteen reminiscence and a break down of Chuck Berry’s county fair barnstorming is nicely related in the 1987 documentary Chuck Berry Hail! Hail Rock n Roll (the one where Keith Richards nearly drives himself to an early grave trying to direct Berry in the studio).
This is what I remember from that film;
The promoter was responsible for securing a band that knew all of Chuck’s songs (or could fake it) and payment in cash. Chuck would roll up on the venue in his Cadillac minutes before he was scheduled to go on (if he was on time at all). He would make a beeline for the back of the stage where he expected to be handed an envelope full of cash. Only after the money was counted, he would go back to the Caddy, put the cash in his trunk, and pull out is guitar and a cord to be plugged into the pick-up band’s amp. Two minutes after the 20 minute set and one song encore, he was back in the Cadillac and headed to his next gig.
Maybe the one thing that could potentially kill Keith is an obnoxious Chuck Berry, one of his idols.
To be fair, this was probably an ingrained thing from his early days when getting stiffed by promoters was common.
This is a great CB story. It tops the “Chuck and Yoko” stories by a mile, except there’s video evidence of the latter, especially Chuck’s facial expressions.
I saw Jake Shimabukuro with Leo Kottke. There was pretty much no overlap in fans…one as a YouTuber with tons of tween girl fans, the other with 60+ year-old folkies. It turned out to be a brilliant show though, and I think they both picked up crossover fans as a result.
I met Chuck in about 1982. Came into the coffee shop I was working and sat at the counter for a cup of joe. He was rough. About 90 pounds and a million miles.
When I saw Captain Beefheart in the mid-70s the support band was experimental rock band Henry Cow. One of their percussive sections consisted of Fred Frith (I think) repeatedly, but quite slowly, dropping a large ball bearing onto the wooden stage. He liked the noise it made!
Much more recently I saw Rod Argent & Colin Blunstone open for the Zombies! The band came on and Rod announced they’d be playing a selection of their hits (including songs by the Zombies, Argent the band and Colin).
After an intermission they came back on with some additional musicians and performed their 1967 album Odessey and Oracle in it’s entirety..
I came in here to say this. Saw the show at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. Johnny Cougar was decently received. No booing. Maybe cuz he’s from the Midwest and we stick together.
I saw The Clash open for The Who at Shea Stadium during The Who’s first farewell tour. The two crowds of fans mixed about as well as oil and water.
I also saw Dweezil Zappa and his band open up for Spinal Tap. That was a fantastic show. Perhaps the best part was when Spinal Tap invited guitar legend Steve Lukather up to play with them. They announced him as “Steve Lucifer”. When he said, “Actually, my last name is Lukather”, they looked at him with disgust and said “who the fuck are you?” Of course, they all knew him well because he worked with them on their album, but it was pretty hilarious.
I have the live album from the Clash’s gig at Shea Stadium. It’s obvious that there were tensions between the band and the crowd, at one time Joe Strummer goes on a rant against the audience.
I’ve seen both of them and that pairing makes perfect sense to me. Maybe some of the younger fans didn’t know who Kottke was but there’s no way that Jake was unknown to most of the older fans who are all music nerds.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I saw the Indigo Girls around 1992 at a college in Maine…Bates? Bowdoin?..with un-announced special guest Siouxsie Sioux.
When I saw him he played 40-45 minutes. We were OK with that. We were college kids and just wanted to see him once before he died. He was about 60 years old at the time. As a 59 year old that makes me cringe. He lived another 30 years, but I’m not sure how many of those years he was routinely playing.
About a minute after he walked off the stage, the announcer came over the PA and said “Chuck Berry has left the building.”
Atlanta, 1978, the Agora Ballroom. I saw what was billed as “An Evening of the Avant Garde.” Leon Redbone opened for Tom Waits. It was as amazing as you would imagine!
I saw Whitesnake open for Jethro Tull, and the Waitresses for Oingo Boingo. Neither of these was at all a match, even if (at least) Tull and Whitesnake shared some blues rock roots.
This is incredible.