YES goes roundabout 1978

 TARRANT COUNTY CONVENTION CENTER

Prog-rock legends Yes performed at the Tarrant County Convention Center arena in Ft Worth Texas on October 1st 1978. The show featured a round stage that spun slowly one direction and then the other direction when a new song started and vice-versa. This allowed all the amplifiers and PA systems to be suspended in the air above the stage. They all pointed outward in a radial configuration.
As a result the sound quality was EXCELLENT. Probably the best of any concert I ever attended. The stage was situated at the opposite end of the floor from a normal stage location, so the usually bad loge and balcony seats were now great seats. The floor seats were facing a reverse direction than normal and were on an inclined set of risers. As a result there were no bad seats for this show. The band was touring for the "Tormato" album with no backup band. They played approximately 3 hours and incorporated songs from every album released up to that point. I was always a huge fan of this band and was mesmerized by this show. They managed to sound just like their studio albums, and I think the sound was much better than on the "Yessongs" album and film(which is still really good). The ticket cost was $8.00 for the balcony. The band lineup was Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman and Alan White. True professional musicianship. No stage gimmicks needed...Postscript: I saw this same lineup(i'm not totally sure Alan White was the drummer) at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell pavilion in the Woodlands TX on august 15th 2002. Another fantastic show, but not in the round at this open air pavilion.

TEXXAS JAM # 1 Summer 1978

The first TEXXAS JAM was held July 1st 1978 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas during a brutal heatwave. The all day and most of the night show cost $12.50 a ticket. It was co-headlined by Aerosmith and Ted Nugent. The rest of the lineup consisted of Blackstone(winners of a local battle of the bands to open up the show), Walter Egan, Van Halen, Head East, Eddie Money, Journey, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Heart, and Mahogany Rush. The TJ was mc'd by Cheech and Chong. The heat caused alot of problems, especially for the people on the field. Large firehoses were sprayed on the fans near the stage to help them cope with it. Blackstone played for about 30 minutes, and the non-headliners each played about 45 mins to 1 hour. The headliners played about an hour and a half each. There are some bootleg videos from this show that are circulating around. Most of them are from Aerosmith's performance. I have seen an official Aerosmith hits vhs video that includes scenes from this performance included in one of the songs on the tape. I can't remember which song it is, but its the one where several women are flashing their breasts.
    There were at least 3 TEXXAS JAMS, possibly 4. I attended the first and third ones. There will be another post for the third one later. The acoustics at the Cotton Bowl were horrible, but overall the shows were great. Cheech and Chong were perfect as meecee's. One of the more entertaining sights during the day involved some fans climbing up some of the PA speaker poles that surrounded the field level. They were climbing to swipe some banners(flags) that were flying from the top of these poles. The poles were at least 20 feet tall. Luckily no one fell or appeared to get injured. The police did confiscate the banners from the ones they could catch, but they didn't get them all. There must have been about 10 or 12 swiped while the crowd cheered them on. When it comes to bang for your bucks this show was the best....

KISS alive 1975

KISS performed live at UTA's (University of Tx,Arlington) Texas Hall 11/8/1975. This show occurred about the time that the first "Alive" album was released. The tour through Texas was promoted as "The eyes of Texas tour" featuring posters of the first album cover artwork. The backup act was "Mott" who were carrying on after Ian Hunter had left "Mott the Hoople". They were promoting the album "Drive on" which is out of print these days. It's actually a pretty good album.
  The setlist for KISS was exactly the same as on the "Alive" album. This was before KISS was big news in the rock and roll universe. I was only familiar with the "Hotter than Hell" album when I attended the show. I liked it , but it wasn't a favorite of mine; however I had heard that they were great live and had to be seen to be appreciated. The show that night was AWESOME. These guys really understood how to entertain an audience. I was a senior at Arlington High School at this time and a fellow classmate was in the first or second row center stage. He had put on a white T-shirt he bought at the venue and got it covered with the blood that Gene Simmons barfed as part of the show. I remember this guy running around after the show proclaiming that he would never wash that shirt as long as he lived. Later in the school year he and 3 of his friends re-created this concert by lip-synching a stage show for the annual Colt County Fair. They re-created the show really well with homemade costumes and everything except the fire, blood and rising drum kit. It took alot of courage to face your fellow classmates and risk ridicule, but they pulled it off nicely. Back to the real concert.
   The real show was jaw-dropping visually and musically. The rock critics used to slam the band for their musicianship, but I never agreed with them after this show. The fact that the band is still touring and more popular than ever 39 years later validates that they are one of the best rock bands ever!!!!! I will go to my grave remembering how much I enjoyed this show.

A FLYING SAUCER INSIDE A BIGGER FLYING SAUCER 1978

Electric Light Orchestra(ELO) performed at the Tarrant County Convention Center arena on 9/1/1978. They were promoting the "Out of the Blue" album and had a stage shaped like a flying saucer. This struck me as ironic since the TCCC arena resembles a large flying saucer in downtown Ft Worth TX. There was no backup band so they played for about two and a half hours. Great show with really good sound system. I really enjoyed this show. Jeff Lynne and company were amazing. They are the only rock band that sounded good with strings. I also enjoyed Bev Bevan's drumming. Since that time I have really come to appreciate just how much of a musical genius Jeff Lynne really is. The show's encore including "Roll over Beethoven" was rock and roll at its finest. Bar None....

THE THIRD TEXXAS JAM DALLAS 1980

 The third Texxas Jam(real name: Texxas world music festival '80) was held June 21st 1980 at the Cotton Bowl at Fair Park in Dallas Texas. The lineup for the all day festival had The Eagles as headliner with Foreigner, Cheap Trick, April Wine, Sammy Hagar, Christopher Cross, Point Blank and Le Roux preceding them. It was a hot day but not bad, and not anyway near as bad as the first Texxas Jam in 1978. I was working on an oil pipeline near Beaumont Tx that summer and drove to Dallas early that morning with a co-worker. The tickets cost $16.50 each and were printed in a large, multi-color format. I'm going to try and include a photo of my ticket in this blog. It's really artistic for a concert ticket. The Eagles show(including Joe Walsh and Don Felder) was definitely the highlight of the festival. They came onstage after dark and opened with "Hotel California". I was surprised by this being an opener instead of an encore song, but it worked out great. Before they took the stage there was a huge trash fight at the southwestern end of the stadium between fans in the upper level and field level below them. Someone in the upper level started throwing junk at the lower level and  the fans below started throwing trash back at the upper level. Before long everyone in those areas joined in and the trash was flying fast and furious. It was hilarious to watch from a distance. The upper level won because they had gravity on their side. As far as I can tell no one got hurt, and I didn't see any fistfights(there may have been some I didnt see). Foreigner was good and Cheap Trick and Sammy Hagar really put on high energy sets. Christopher Cross had a tough gig though. He was soundly BOO'ed during his act and actually cut his set short after throwing up on stage due to heat exhaustion. I'm not sure why he was billed on this festival. He was a talented musician with several radio hits at the time, but was not a Rock and Roll act!!! Point Blank and Le Roux were good, but I was not familiar with their songs at that time and spent most of their sets obtaining beer and weed.
Found alot of both. Yum Yum...... All in all a great festival and lots of sunburned fun, but the drive back to Beaumont in the early morning hours was less fun... There's always some price to pay.......