Friday, January 31, 2014

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....

No comments: