The Good Life

by John Rockwell
New York Times
June 3, 1977

EVER SINCE WOODSTOCK, the ultimate image of the rock-and-roll concert has been the mass outdoor summer festival, with hundreds of thousands of young people clustered together. But there aren't going to be any such concerts in the entire metropolitan area this summer, and the lack sets one to pondering.

First of all, the Woodstock sort of festival was quickly abandoned. Communities proved hysterically resistant to the notion of half a million young people littering the landscape, and promoters were equally unhappy about trying to defend the barricades against crashers.

The alternative is enclosed spaces -- stadiums, raceways and such. That cuts the crowd to 100,000 or less, but it means people can be admitted with tickets and that parking is manageable.

The two most obvious locales for such concerts in this area have been Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium, but both are almost ruled out by their grass infields. The resident teams refuse to allow fans to occupy the grass, and as a result any concert would become an impossibly distant affair, with the performers out around second base and the fans in the stands.

The new Meadowlands sports complex in New Jersey has artificial turf, and the logical promoter for concerts there is John Scher, the leading concert producer in the state. Mr. Scher says that the Meadowlands management is still feeling its way in the concert field, and that apart from a possible adult-pop or country event guaranteed to attract a less-than-capacity audience, there will be no concerts there this summer. But, he adds, he has a "strong dialogue" under way about concerts in 1978, which could attract as many as 90,000 people.

With Roosevelt Stadium in New Jersey eliminated because of local opposition and its hopelessly dilapidated condition, the only functional facility of the sort is the Roosevelt Raceway on Long Island. Owned by Madison Square Garden, this was the site of a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young--Beach Boys--Joni Mitchell fiesta in 1974 that attracted 80,000 people.

But Joe Cohen, who runs the Garden's concert operations, says that there are distinct problems with Roosevelt as a concert site. Unless a whole series of concerts could be mounted, the costs of preparing and dismantling the facility cut heavily into the gross. Parking on Sundays is fine, but if rain should force a postponement, the weekday parking problems would be horrendous.

The principal site of large-scale concerts this summer will be the Gardens itself, which so far has announced Led Zeppelin; Crosby Stills and Nash; Fleetwood Mac; Pink Floyd; Emerson, Lake and Palmer; Bad Company, and Yes, with more to come. Mr. Scher is also planning an outdoor concert with Fleetwood Mac for the afternoon of July 10 at the Freehold Raceway in New Jersey, which can accommodate about 20,000 people -- the same as the Garden.

Ron Delsener, the area's most active promoter, thinks there will be local outdoor concerts in 1978, but that the majority will still be indoors. Mr. Cohen argues that acts can earn almost as much at the Garden as they can outdoors, that there is a national trend towards indoor summer events and that audiences around the country have shown resistance to stadium and raceway events by slackening off on their ticket purchases.

"It's a reversal of a trend, the end of the Woodstock phenomenon," he says. "More and more artists are coming to the point of view that indoor concerts better serve their audiences. There are some people who think the Garden is too big. And when you multiply those distances four and five times ..."

Mr. Scher - with the 1978 shows at Meadowlands a tangible possibility - thinks otherwise. "Some artists who are less sure of their draw and of their ability to put over their show to a large audience will always prefer to play indoors. But the giants of the music industry will want to play outdoors. Certainly, you can make a lot more money going outdoors. And there is no substitute for the spectacle, the event of an outdoor show."

On a somewhat smaller scale, the principal outdoor sites in the metropolitan area have been the Garden State Arts Center in Holmdel, N.J., and the Wollman Rink in Central Park. Holmdel is a good way from New York--halfway to Philadelphia--but it is the principal facility of the Tanglewood sort in this area: the kind with a shell that covers around 6,000 people in seats, with a flexible additional number able to spill out onto the lawns in the back. Most of these facilities nationwide, which form a sort of circuit unto themselves, are geared by the conservative tastes of their managements and by the attitudes of the surrounding communities to the folk-rock of the James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris or Seals and Crofts type, the kind guaranteed to attract reasonably genteel, white, somewhat older audiences than the deep-down-dirty rockers or soul acts.

This is precisely the policy that is being adopted at Wollman Rink, where Mr. Delsener will be producing a series of shows between July 6 and August 27. The series will open with Manhattan Transfer and will include artists like Harry Chapin, Judy Collins, Phoebe Snow and Richie Havens. Mr. Delsener describes the expected audience as "more family, less rock, less violent" than Schaefer Festival crowds of the past.

Nobody epitomizes the appeal of bouncy, bland but amusing pop music of the mid to late 1970's than Neil Sedaka and the Captain and Tennile, and coincidentally both have new record releases.

The kinship between the two--a sort of updated, soft-rocking mutation of the Brill Building pop of 15 years ago--is made manifest by two songs on the Captain and Tennile album that Mr. Sedaka wrote in part. There is another similarity, too. Many middle-of-the-road acts get by with their wispy-voiced singing. Both Mr. Sedaka and Toni Tennile have strong, individual voices that would ensure them success in many kinds of repertory.

The new records--Mr. Sedaka's, his first for Elektra, is called "A Song," and the Captain and Tennile's is called "Come in From the Rain"--will not disappoint their fans. Both are filled with the ballads and buoyancies that won them their fans in the first place. And although both don't wander far from the formulas of past hits, both are at least partly redeemed by performing strengths.

Joni Mitchell was hospitalized recently for an undisclosed ailment. She is out now, and reportedly feeling better, but she has canceled her entire summer tour.