(ignore May 1, 2017 publish date – this was published on February 21, 2020)

I was gonna call this “Hey, Getcha Programs Here!”, but that sounded too much like a scorecard vendor at Yankee Stadium…….and probably every other stadium (but without the Noo Yawk accent). Besides, I’m not here to sell programs.

In total, there are close to 100 programs in this post, but fortunately for you, some individual images have as many as 16 programs in them.

Obviously, I’ve had some of them for over 50 years, but I’ve never kept them together or even knew where they all were. Basically, it was throw ‘em in a drawer and forget about ‘em.

So you can imagine how much time it took to find and collect them all. Then it’s, “Now what do I do with them? How do I present them in any sort of a cohesive manner?”

I settled on various combinations of venues and years.

I’m going to start with years. Most of the items from some years come from many venues. Some venues had many shows that I attended, so it makes sense to group those together.

After I had finished all the photography and scanning and figured out what I was going to do, I realized – speaking of Yankee Stadium – that I had a 1959 program signed by Yankee announcer Red Barber after a game and I had already posted it here: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=2954

 

1968

This might be the rarest item of the bunch. I’ve never seen one of these anywhere EVER and never met anyone who attended this show…..or even heard of it.

I don’t know how I found out about this (most likely it was in the Village Voice). I was trying to impress a girl named Ginny, who I started dating and this “Channel One” thing somewhere in Manhattan’s East Village sounded promising:

 

I started having second thoughts when I had to help her step over drunken bodies on the sidewalk as we approached the venue.

The show was a bunch of strung-together funny bits that I don’t recall……….except for one, called “Safety Sam”, which you may have seen 6 or 7 years later in the “Groove Tube” movie. It starts off strange and, as the camera slowly zooms in, it elicits a lot of “Oh, my god! Is that what I think it is?” reactions.

The Safety Sam video can be found on YouTube. However, my date could not be found after seeing the Channel One show (“Tell him I’m not home”).

What WAS found was that one of the cast members shown on the back of this 6” x 4.5” handout became a big star 7 years later on SNL:

 

Here’s what was written on the inside:

 

A couple of months later, I was dating a girl named Holly, whose friend came from a well-off family that was about to spend a week down the shore in Point Pleasant. Holly and I were invited to stay with them, even though I had never met the parents before. Nice people.

A new nearby venue called the Garden State Arts Center – now the PNC Arts Center – had just opened the month before. The fairly-hip family took us all to the Supremes’ opening show of a 6-night stand:

 

This review was in The Record the next day:

 

1969

Although no programs were handed out at Woodstock, I DID get one when I saw Jimi Hendrix at Madison Square Garden 3 months earlier:

 

Here are a couple of the included photographs:

 

In case the year wasn’t clear:

 

I don’t know where I got this similar collection of photographs – I didn’t see Zep live until 1971:

 

And it’s another 1969 Visual Thing thing:

 

(“Thing thing”………….ithn’t that a prithon?)

 

 

 

1972

 

One good show and one bad……..

Let’s start with the bad:

 

Sounds like a pretty good lineup, doesn’t it?

There are a lot of online reviews from people who attended this show. Some think it was the greatest concert ever; the rest think quite the opposite. I (and the people I went with) lean toward the latter group.

It was pouring rain, we had no protection and we all had a negative reaction to something…………maybe it was the mud.

We weren’t there long. I think I recall seeing the Groundhogs in the afternoon. All we needed to hear was “rain delay” and we were out of there. I read that one lengthy delay lasted until 4am.

Oh yeah…………Black Sabbath and Badfinger canceled.

Here’s what was written inside the program:

(You failed)

 

A MUCH better time was had when the Stones came to Madison Square Garden a couple of weeks later – the first time I saw the Stones live. It was a great show that had Stevie Wonder as the opening act. It was also Mick Jagger’s birthday, so a big cake was wheeled out as the house sang “Happy Birthday To You” (Stevie joined the band).

 

This was a program worth getting:

 

This one might be better-placed in a subsequent listing, but it encompasses a lot of what 1973 was all about, whereas the other listing just shows the covers:

 

A list of the upcoming shows:

 

A local ad:

 

A ticket service I don’t remember, but sounds interesting (but apparently not enough to succeed). I enlarged the text to see if it refreshes anyone’s memory:

 

Did NOT make my Top 100 Concerts of All Time list:

 

I like Tull, but don’t recall this show at all:

 

1974

Off-Broadway (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band On The Road – Beacon Theater):

 

Madison Square Garden shows

David Bowie:

 

Elton John: this is the night (11-28-74) that John Lennon joined Elton onstage (while I was sitting next to Yoko Ono in the 11th row). It was Lennon’s last public performance and both I and Yoko took pictures of that performance with my camera (all on http://bobleafe.com) – one of the best shows ever:

 

George Harrison played two shows on December 20: 4:00pm and 9:30pm (I shot both – see my site):

 

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones!” movie from the ’72 Garden show I attended. The premiere run was at Manhattan’s Ziegfeld Theatre. My date and I were there on April 20. Here are the front and back covers. Inside, I found my ticket stub taped.

Debbie and I also each wound up with one of the promotional styrofoam Frisbees:

 

 

1975

 

Long Island shows

Pink Floyd (Nassau Coliseum):

 

Bruce Springsteen (C.W.Post)

Not exactly a program, but this handout is all I have from that show (besides my photos). The reason this show was special is because this was where his famous live version of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” was recorded. I can specifically remember him saying the “… not many, not many – you guys in trouble out here” line:

 

The First Rockages Rock and Roll Flea Market:

 

As you can see on the first inside page, this was held at the Hotel McAlpin in Manhattan. Note that the inside cover is a full-page ad for Hackensack’s “Record King”:

 

This famous shop still exists directly across the street at 303 Main, just a couple of blocks from where I live:

https://www.facebook.com/The-Record-King-215194853837/

 

The list of professionals and dealers shows someone by the name of Robert Leafe, probably because that’s what it said on my check:

 

The Second NYC Beatlefest was held the previous month at Manhattan’s Hotel Commodore, but I didn’t attend as a dealer. My roommate’s North Jersey band – Pegasus – was performing at the Fest as “Northern Song” (how Beatle-y) and I was there to photograph them.

As you can see on the below page, the Beatles’ road manager – Mal Evans – also made an appearance at the Fest and wound up getting friendly with Northern Song and shook a tambourine with them onstage.

I have pictures of that and an interesting short story about the pairing on http://bobleafe.com/ (Scroll down to “P” and click “Pegasus”):

 

1976

Madison Square Garden shows

The Who (lots of Who pix and stories on my site):

 

Peter Frampton – at his peak – had a 3-night stand at the Garden (same deal here – pix/stories of it all are on my site:

 

1978

The fourth Rockages Flea Market was held in Manhattan. This time, BOB Leafe was a dealer there (#22):

 

Stiff Records promoted the hell out of their Be Stiff Route 78 tour. This was a big deal. As I recall, several Stiff groups flew in from England to do two shows a night for four nights at the Bottom Line. The thing was, the shows were each about 3-4 hours long. I shot the first one:

 

Trade publication Record World made a big deal out of it and put this out:

 

I’m guessing that these two handouts were available at the Bottom Line during the run and not in the Record World publication:

 

1979

Supertramp’s “Breakfast in America” tour (3rd pic added in case the listed cities were too small to read in the 2nd pic):

 

Even though Polydor Records put this Quadrophenia brochure out, I think I got it because of the 1979 movie (the album came out in 1973, when I didn’t exist in the industry):

 

This 6-page brochure was put out by Thunder Road Magazine for a Jackie Wilson Benefit concert at The Fast Lane in Asbury Park, NJ.

In short, the legendary Jackie Wilson, collapsed of a heart attack while performing on stage for Dick Clark’s “Good Ol’ Rock and Roll Revue” at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, N.J on September 29, 1975. He quickly lapsed into a coma and was in a virtual vegetative state until his death on Jan. 21, 1984.

Wilson was singing his hit, “Lonely Teardrops,” when he suffered the massive heart attack. When he collapsed on stage, audience members initially thought it was part of the singer’s act.

There’s a lot more information to be found online:

Late additions: early to mid-80s. Three weeks after I made this post, I found four major programs:

I have pictures in the last two, but only BOC credited me:

 

VENUES

By far, I’ve seen more shows at John Scher’s Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ, than at any other venue on Earth. I attended the very first concert there in 1971 and was fortunate enough to be made the Capitol’s house photographer c.1978. Eventually, this title applied to all venues where/when John promoted shows and you’ll see some of them named in upcoming venue listings.

John had a great lighting director named Moyssi who also designed/drew all the program covers, which begin here in 1978 (John made some good choices in ’78!).

I’m not going to list all the performers (you can go to https://moyssi.com/ to see more than 300 program covers he created AND the names of all the performers).

I’ll point out some of the bigger show programs in these ’72-’78 images, such as Bette Midler (first row, in pink) from 1973, the Rolling Stones (1978, third row, pointing woman), and Bruce Springsteen (1978 third row, third pic……….and it was a three night stand – good things DO come in threes!):

 

Capitol 1979: The Who first row, middle pic (two nights!):

 

Capitol 1980: The Clash (Row 1, #1), Tom Petty (Row 1, #4), Jeff Beck (Row 2, #2, The Police (Row 4, #1):

 

Capitol 1982 (Rows 1 and 2). Capitol 1983 (bottom row): The Animals (Row 3, #1), Eddie Murphy, (Row 3, #2):

 

Two special editions:

1. The left one advertised the services of John’s company, Monarch Entertainment, such as artist promotion, management, tour management, the Grateful Dead movie, and college show booking:
2.  I could have listed the right one above as Capitol 1981, but it’s for a special show – the Capitol’s 10th anniversary – and is much thicker than the usual Capitol program.
   

Here’s who played at the anniversary show (as listed in the program alphabetically):

Allman Brothers

Gary U.S. Bonds

Jack Bruce and Friends

Dave Edmunds

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes

Uncle Floyd

Edgar Winter

(with a special performance by the Bayonne Bear [otherwise known as Vin Scelsa from WNEW-FM])

Eleven of my pictures are in these two editions (he mentions for no particular reason).

 

South Mountain Music Fair, West Orange, NJ – 1981

These are the only programs I have from this venue:

1. Jefferson Starship/.38 Special
2. Santana/Gary U.S.Bonds
3. Squeeze/Greg Kihn Band

 

“John Scher Presents On The Boardwalk” refers to shows at either Convention Hall or the Paramount Theater (directly across the boardwalk from the Hall) in Asbury Park, NJ. These 6 shows occurred between 1978 and 1980:

 

Brendan Byrne Arena, East Rutherford, NJ 1982,1983

I shot a ton of shows there, but only have these 3 programs featuring Journey, Supertramp, and the Police:

 

Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ 1978 to 1980

Top row:

1978 – (First Giants Stadium concert ever): Beach Boys, Steve Miller Band, Pablo Cruise, Stanky Brown

1978 – (Second Giants Stadium concert ever): Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Journey, Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush

1979 – Boston, The Outlaws, Todd Rundgren & Utopia, Poco

 

Bottom row:

Giants Stadium rules & regulations from the first show (+enlargement below that)

1980 – The Eagles, Heart, Little River Band

 

Those were ALL John Scher shows.

The rest are not.

 

Three other venues:

Fillmore East (1971 – my only Fillmore program): Mountain, Mylon, T. Rex

Island Music Center, Commack, NY (1975) – Blue Oyster Cult, Strawbs, Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express

Montclair State College, Panzer Gym, Montclair, NJ (1978) – Meat Loaf

 

Two final venues:

Playhouse on the Mall, Paramus, NJ (1972) – Bette Midler, Ace Trucking Company

The Bottom Line, New York, NY (1978) – Rory Gallagher

 

 

 

                                                                 DONE!