"And believe me, I want to say that I suffered right with you."

March 21, 2012 2:49 PM

60 years ago, two moments in musical history took place in Cleveland, Ohio: The first, being the original Moondog Coronation Ball, hosted by disc jockey Alan "Moondog" Freed; the event was hailed as the first ever rock concert, and continues in spirit with a commemorative anniversary performance featuring Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees, Sam Moore, and Creedence Clearwater Revisited. The second event was the subsequent riot which broke loose that evening, when a printing error on the venue's tickets caused twice the audience's standing capacity to be sold. Frustrated and impatient concertgoers surged into the building, which led to cancellation, a formal apology from Freed, and the cementing of the 50's music scene as dangerous and unruly.
posted by Smart Dalek (5 comments total)

Values of "dangerous" and "unruly" may be relative to current standards for "safe" and "orderly."

And it's amusing that the BBC news reports opens with hockey players pausing their civil card game to watch a crowd in chaos.

Also amusing: tickets were causing concert-goer grief from the beginning of rock concerts.

Another look at the birth of rock and roll, focusing on the role of Leo Mintz, who (as the story tells) was the one who got Moondog to play the crazy music in the first place.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:02 PM on March 21, 2012

Moondog - "In 1954, he won a case in the New York State Supreme Court against disc jockey Alan Freed, who had branded his radio show, "The Moondog Rock and Roll Matinee", around the name "Moondog", using "Moondog's Symphony" (the first record that Moondog ever cut) as his "calling card".
posted by unliteral at 3:08 PM on March 21, 2012 [2 favorites]

And in 1979, at the other end of Ohio, in Cincinnati, the deadliest rock concert tragedy (up to that date) occurred. It became a case study for crowd control professionals, and the subject of a 'very special episode' of WKRP in Cincinnati.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:41 PM on March 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, Alan "thieving" Freed is absolutely not Moondog, and nobody should forget it.
posted by koeselitz at 6:04 PM on March 21, 2012

Cleveland, indeed, rocks.
posted by slogger at 7:34 PM on March 21, 2012