“California Jam” concerts in the 70s

Cal Jam II:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qc43BH3_mQ

https://i.imgur.com/IrYB5fx.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/YoYi6Js.png

https://i.imgur.com/RDhjoDN.jpg

Black Sabbath's and Deep Purple's sets from Cal Jam I are on youtube as well (I haven't looked for the other acts)

Rubicon are really high up on that bill for a band I've literally never heard of until seeing that photo...

XP There were some clips from the Eagles' set as well, not sure if they're still up.

IIRC, that Deep Purple set was the live debut of the Coverdale/Hughes lineup.

Somebody just uploaded a similar special dedicated Cali Jam I:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qznd2kZhhE

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e7/83/16/e783166a9117d80a107be47bfb139fea.jpg

https://i.etsystatic.com/11227324/r/il/5e42ab/1481109811/il_570xN.1481109811_bgem.jpg

Yeah, the Rubicon album is on Spotify. They...kinda suck.

I remember watching that first Cal Jam on TV. There was a lot of hype about Black Sabbath refusing to go onstage until it was dark out.

Yeah, the Rubicon album is on Spotify. They...kinda suck.

tbf, they did contribute 3 members to Night Ranger.

XP But they didn't? All the clips I've seen from their set were daytime. Further breaking the mystique, Iommi is even wearing an open Hawaiian-style shirt and is clean-shaven.

Watching the '74 special.

Man, ELP were really weird.

That YouTube of the '74 fest is pieced together from numerous sources, possibly including a "Keith Emerson Shreds" vid.

Supposedly Deep Purple was pissed that ELP was closing the show instead of them, so Ritchie Blackmore smashed one of the TV cameras with his guitar, ostensibly so that ELP’s performance wouldn’t look as good on TV. The replacement cost of the camera came out of, and may have been slightly more than, Deep Purple’s performance fee.

The Black Oak Arkansas clip is an amazing archival clip of it's time. They literally call in an airstrike on the fans as there is a helicopter buzzing the stadium throwing visors out the side in a strafing maneuver.

I love the segments that show the crowd, there is some amazing people in the audience.

Richie Blackmore let off a bomb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAUJoZvj0qE

Carl Palmer’s drums were 1/2” thick stainless steel shells. It took two people to lift his bass drum. There’s apparently an electronic component to his kit, but I’d have to watch the full ELP set to verify, and that will definitely not happen.

XP Somebody should show that to Greta Van Fleet: "This is how you showboat: play with your feet, blow shit up, have the bass player run for their life..."

Wiki on Deep Purple's performance:

Deep Purple's performance was one of the first with their third line-up, which included vocalist David Coverdale and vocalist/bassist Glenn Hughes. Deep Purple was given the choice of when to go on stage, and chose sunset, thus pushing Emerson, Lake & Palmer to the last performance. Having assumed that, as with all festivals, the show would run late, they nonetheless delayed their appearance even when the festival ran ahead of schedule. Angry organizers tried to force Purple onstage, and threatened to cancel their performance. A quick thinking announcer told the crowds that Deep Purple would be on "soon". The band made concertgoers wait nearly an hour until near dusk. Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore said the agreement was always for Purple to go on stage at dusk, and that the promoters were violating that signed agreement. In spite of this delay, the show did not end up running late. At the end of Purple's set, Blackmore threw a guitar and a small speaker monitor into the audience, and suddenly attacked one of the network's video cameras (the camera had been getting between the guitarist and the audience) with a guitar. Later on, a mishap with a pyrotechnic effect caused one of Blackmore's amplifiers to explode, which briefly set the stage on fire. Purple left the concert area by helicopter to avoid a possible confrontation with Ontario fire marshals and ABC-TV executives. The damage to the ABC video camera, estimated to be $10,000, was settled by the band's managers.

Apparently ELP didn't get onstage until after 1:00 AM.

Ah, it was the Purple who wouldn't go on until after dark! My faulty memory banks had Sabbath making that move. Blackmore/Black Sabbath, easy mixup.

Rubicon are really high up on that bill for a band I've literally never heard of until seeing that photo...

Indeed. Formed by Jerry Martini from Sly & the Family Stone! They had one 'chart' single, so anything from #1 to #200.

Was the rainbow one of Deep Purple's stage props? Blackmore had his own band Rainbow off and running the year after this, and used a similar backdrop.

https://i.imgur.com/jjvczyv.png
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relax bruh

Mahogany Rush, like Rubicon, were another of those bands who always seemed to be on major festival bills but had zero in the way of radio airplay. There was an undoubtedly self-perpetuated myth at the time that Frank Marino was literally possessed by the spirit of Jimi Hendrix, who channeled his guitar-playing skills to him.

Wikipedia says that Cal Jam II also had a performance by... Jean-Michel Jarre?

As a devoted FM listener as a kid from the early 80s, I knew a couple of Mahogany Rush tunes from the radio. Their stuff like lots of bands got squeezed as classic rock playlists shrunk up, but I knew their live cover of "Johnny B Goode" and "Dragonfly" as a kid. Q95 in Indy played a lot more hard rock at night back in those days. Frank Marino did not have that one tune like say Head East, Donnie Iris or Ram Jam that caught on and stayed in the play list as 1 hit wonder kinda bands.

is he like a poor man's Robin Trower?

Spacey guitar sound yes, but he is a bit more hard rock and Marino was an early play as fast as you f'n can type guitarist. Trower's style might have led the Vaughn brothers to fist fight, but he's got quite a bit more taste and restraint than Frank Marino. I think Trower's music is actually fairly R&B, but the guitar effects bring out the psychedelia. It's really similar to the type of blues that Floyd/Gilmour do and kinda became that Euro/Blues sound of which we kinda had a thread about a few months ago.

Eagles and Earth Wind & Fire in the under card on Cal Jam I, that's pretty wild. I knew an old rocker as a teenager who talked about seeing The Eagles open for Yes in West Lafayette @ Purdue's campus. Same dude said also saw the infamous Hendrix open for the Monkees at the Muncie Fairgrounds show. Dude made me a cassette dub of Captain Beyond and Nektar, I always took his boasts as possibly legit.

As earlnash said, Marino was more of a post-Hendrix pre-EVH shredder. I used to own several of his albums (they were being sold as 2-for-1 CDs a while back and I grabbed them on eBay) but they were almost entirely unmemorable. Trower does a mellow psychedelic blues thing with a little R&B thrown in, and I love his stuff. His 21st century albums are as good as his 70s material, btw. Aging suits his voice and his style.

Marino & Mahogany Rush had their own Dodge Omni Pro Stock dragster

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7914/40075877363_3cd0c205e0.jpg

https://bangshift.com/bangshift1320/the-former-mahogany-rush-hemi-dodge-omni-pro-stocker-is-for-sale/

I've been on a deep dive into 70s hard rock for like 15 years, I'd say both Black Oak Arkansas and Mahogany Rush are two of the stranger outfits. "World Anthem" is a pretty weird tune. Marino was a teenager on the first records, he was like 17 when they cut the first album. Black Oak Arkansas has all sorts of weird and slightly odd things in their tunes, starting from the fact on some tunes the dude sounds so much like a bullfrog it is enjoyable just in a WTF is that kind of sound.

I like Black Oak Arkansas a lot; Mangrum is a whole lot closer to Captain Beefheart, vocally, than I would ever have guessed from photos alone. And yeah, they had some pretty great songs.

The Mahogany Rush discussion is interesting. I remember being a kid and seeing t-shirts, posters, etc. featuring their logo in ads in old rock music magazines but was always kind of mystified as to who they were or what their deal was -- as mentioned above they never seemed to get airplay on the classic rock stations, and didn't have any "hits"... my only other reference for them was seeing a couple of their cassettes at the home of a guy who had grown up in Chile. I wonder if they were a relatively big deal in parts of s. america.

Same goes for Uriah Heep and Black Oak Arkansas!

So awkward when Stevie nicks comes out to support bob welch’s set in II

Uriah Heep are another band whose 21st century output is astonishingly good (assuming you're into mainstream-ish hard rock). IMO their current work is comparable, but superior, to Deep Purple's.

XP Got a lol out of his guitarist sheepishly ceding his mic to her.

Heart's performance in Cal Jam II is fire. Fun to watch Roger Fisher with his guitar-shredding and whammy bar action.