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World Series of Rock concerts - Cleveland Stadium

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heineken515
(@heineken515)
Posts: 2010
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After reading a story about Joe Perry leaving Aerosmith 36 years ago after their performance on July 28, 1979 at the World Series of Rock at the old Cleveland Stadium, I looked up this concert series on Wiki and posted it below.

I was at that show in July of '79, quite a spectacle.

Me and my buddies went up the night before and partied in the parking lot all night before going into the General Admission show the next day.

Cleveland Stadium (now gone) was the old stadium. I recall standing in a huge crowd waiting to go in. Someone from inside an office high up looked out an open window and couldn't believe what was happening down on the ground below - when all of a sudden a barrage of beer bottles started being thrown towards that window. Shattered glass rained down on our heads. There were barefoot people everywhere, crazy, crazy stuff.

I recall Bon Scott carrying Angus Young on his shoulders as he played guitar, walking through the crowd on the field at the stadium. Bon did this frequently at their shows, saw them many times at smaller venues, I was just surprised he did it with that many fans around.

Anyhow, how cool were these shows?

Anyone else attend any of these? How cool would it have been to see Floyd in '77 there?

World Series of Rock
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The World Series of Rock was a recurring, day-long multi-act summer rock concert held at Cleveland Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio from 1974 through 1980.[1] Belkin Productions staged these events, attracting popular hard rock bands and as many as 88,000 fans. FM rock radio station WMMS sponsored the concerts.[2] Attendance was by general admission.

The World Series of Rock was known not only for its arena rock spectacle, but was also notorious for the rowdiness, rampant drug use and drunkenness of the crowd.[3] As a result, concertgoers occasionally fell—or jumped—off the steep stadium upper deck onto the concrete seating area far below, causing serious injury.[4] The Cleveland Free Clinic staffed aid stations in the stadium with physicians, nurses and other volunteers, and through 1977, made its treatment statistics public. From 1978, Belkin Productions conditioned its funding of the Free Clinic on the Clinic's nondisclosure of the number of Clinic staff on duty at the concerts, the nature of conditions treated, and quantity of patients treated.[5]

Cleveland Stadium was the home field of the Cleveland Indians baseball team, so Belkin could only schedule stadium concerts for dates when the Indians were playing out of town. Stadium officials allowed seating on the playing field, which required fixing the turf before the Indians returned home. The fourth concert of 1975 was followed by heavy rain the next day, leaving the field in poor condition for the remainder of the season. Following the 1975 football season, groundskeepers completely resurfaced the field, and installed a drainage system, to repair damage from the rock concerts. The first concert of 1976 was scheduled for July 11 with Aerosmith, Todd Rundgren's Utopia, Jeff Beck (with the Jan Hammer Group) and Derringer. However, the concert was canceled after stadium officials refused to allow seating on the field to prevent damage to the new turf and Aerosmith would not play without fans on the field.[6] No concerts took place at Cleveland Stadium in 1976 though Belkin resumed the series in 1977 after stadium groundskeepers employed a field-covering system consisting of plywood and outdoor carpeting.

The third concert of the 1978 season featuring Fleetwood Mac, originally scheduled for August 5, had to be canceled at the last minute due to a sudden illness suffered by Lindsey Buckingham. The rest of the band, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks, flew to Cleveland to hold a press conference to explain the cancellation. The concert was rescheduled for August 26, forcing the cancellation of the fourth World Series of Rock featuring Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, Todd Rundgren and Utopia, Blue Öyster Cult and the Cars that was originally scheduled for that date.

Violence outside the stadium marred the July 28, 1979 concert. There were five shootings (including one fatality), dozens of robberies and numerous incidents of violence around the stadium in the early morning hours before the concert, where thousands of fans waited overnight.[7] The next concert featuring Foreigner, Kansas, the Cars, the Tubes, David Johansen and Breathless was originally slated for Sunday, August 19, 1979. At the request of city officials, the concert was rescheduled to Saturday night at 8:00 pm for security reasons, but after receiving many complaints from parents about the late ending time, Belkin canceled the concert.[8] Afterwards, Art Modell, the head of Stadium Corp., stated there would be no more World Series of Rock concerts held at the stadium.[9]

The last World Series of Rock concert took place on July 19, 1980. The ticket price was $12.50 (equivalent to $36 in 2015).

Cleveland Stadium was demolished in 1996, and replaced with Cleveland Browns Stadium built on the same site. County Stadium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin staged its own series of rock festivals, also called the World Series of Rock, in the early 1980s. Since then, "World Series of Rock" has become a generic term for multi-act concerts.

June 23, 1974[10]

The Beach Boys
Joe Walsh and Barnstorm
Lynyrd Skynyrd
REO Speedwagon
August 4, 1974[11]

Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Climax Blues Band
James Gang
September 1, 1974[12]

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Santana
The Band
Jesse Colin Young
May 31, 1975[13]

The Beach Boys
Chicago
June 14, 1975[14]

The Rolling Stones
Tower of Power
The J. Geils Band
Joe Vitale's Madmen
July 11, 1975[15]

Yes
Joe Walsh
Michael Stanley Band
Ace
August 23, 1975[16]

Rod Stewart & Faces
Uriah Heep
Aerosmith
Blue Öyster Cult
Mahogany Rush
June 5, 1977[17]

Ted Nugent
Todd Rundgren's Utopia
Nazareth
Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes
June 25, 1977[18]

Pink Floyd
August 6, 1977[19]

Peter Frampton
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band
The J. Geils Band
Derringer
July 1, 1978[20]

The Rolling Stones
Kansas
Peter Tosh
July 15, 1978[21]

Electric Light Orchestra
Foreigner
Journey
Trickster
August 26, 1978[22]

Fleetwood Mac
Bob Welch
The Cars
Todd Rundgren & Utopia
Eddie Money
July 28, 1979[23]

Aerosmith
Ted Nugent
Journey
Thin Lizzy
AC/DC
Scorpions
July 19, 1980[24]

Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band
The J. Geils Band
Eddie Money
Def Leppard

 
Posted : July 28, 2015 6:04 am
fanfrom-71
(@fanfrom-71)
Posts: 1081
Noble Member
 

I recall Bon Scott carrying Angus Young on his shoulders as he played guitar, walking through the crowd on the field at the stadium. Bon did this frequently at their shows, saw them many times at smaller venues, I was just surprised he did it with that many fans around.

My wife slapped Angus on the ass at a show on that tour. 😛

 
Posted : July 28, 2015 6:23 am
detterm
(@detterm)
Posts: 197
Estimable Member
 

The Rod Stewart / Faces show was in '75. I still have my ticket stub Not sure what exact date as those were the days when they ripped your ticket in half on entry. $10 bought you the whole day.

 
Posted : July 28, 2015 5:06 pm
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