Bring up the date July 28, 1973 and there is a certain percentage of music fans that will immediately know its significance, as it saw three of the most iconic and influential bands of all-time – the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers and The Band – perform at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Raceway for Summer Jam ’73. While there’s been plenty written about this historic concert, which reportedly drew a larger crowd than Woodstock, we’ve got a pretty cool homemade video to share with you today from a group of friends that documented their journey to the fest from Chicago. The nine-minute documentary of sorts, has some fantastic visuals from their road trip, as well as some shots of the Dead and The Band on stage, with the narrator chronicling the entire thing. Let’s check it out…
7 Responses
Jeffrey, thanks for the post. I shot it on Super 8 film, converted it to video about 20 years ago and promptly lost it. Discovered the video this past Christmas while looking for seasonal decorations in my basement. Put it together with my son. Best part: within a day of posting it on Youtube, I heard from three of the people in the film, one of whom was trawling for Dead material when he found it. btw, almost all the audio is from the soundcheck or the show.
pb
Thanks for sharing Pat! It such a great treat for those of use who weren’t even born yet when this happened, and also great to see that as much as things have changed in the last 35+ years, they’ve also stayed the same. – JG
I was at this show and my memories were a bit sketchy but you video help jar them. Thank you.
Jeff,
I believe i found myself in your film at about 4:54. I traverse the screen from left to right and piroutte. Dark hair, no shirt, right after you say your friends are all right. Looks like I have a head band and smoking or eating.
Thanks for the memory. Most of it is a blur until now.
Any chance you can do a screen shot still for me? When I blow it up, it gets very blurry.
BTW, I loved your movie. I think the truck behind that shot is the one we camped under during the heavy rains. And possibly I saw your buddy with the flag on the camper on the ride in to the concert.
thanks again.
mike
I went with friends from Westfield Pa. SAM LOUKS, and friends and co workers from Electirc cord manufacturing co. Got seperated from my group, spent the night with a girl from La. Found my friends in a restaurant in town on the way home. What a blast. My son was born on Nov.7 of that year.
Hey Pat Brennan- part of a team working on a potential 50th anniversary documentary including the original promoters – i would love to be able to directly contact you to discuss your home movies of the concert and experience – my email which you can publish here is ([email protected])
It was an amazing experience. I was 15 and visiting my girlfriend and her family at their summer home in Cazenovia, NY, when we saw the concert advertised in the paper. We decided to go, and her parents were cool enough to take us into Syracuse to buy our tickets. We decided to go the afternoon before the concert so we could get a good seat. We went as far as we could by car until we met an enormous traffic jam. At that point we felt we could walk to the entrance faster, so the four of us walked with our sleeping bags the rest of the way. Darkness fell as we approached and we could hear the music from the stage–it sounded like the Allman Brothers were doing sound checks. Excitedly, we walked through a dense forest over a hill as a shortcut, and ended up at a fence, still a long walk from the main entrance.
We tossed our sleeping bags over the fence and climbed over, and a security guy admonished us. I remember him saying, “That’s a good way to lose your sleeping bag.” But he let us in, since we had tickets.
We found a spot about forty yards from the stage. The next morning, I remember waking up and seeing a sea of people around us. When I looked towards to the rear, it was almost terrifying: the people seemed to disappear over the horizon. Then the music started and it was an amazing day, all the way into the night.
Some people will remember that when The Band was on stage, there were parachutists using flares to make patterns in the sky as they landed nearby. One of them caught on fire, and I remember Rick Danko pointing at him as he descended. The guy ended up dying.
Other than that, it was a great, unforgettable experience.