7/2/77 - Oakland Coliseum Skynyrd

Was living in SF at the time but didn't go.

Billy Powell was one of the great rock n roll piano players for sure and the whole band was kicking hard on all cylinders at that point.  RIP Ronnie.

Wasn't that stadium the scene of the crime involving the Led Zeppelin a few weeks later?

Sword fight!

Allen Collins and Steve Gaines are shredding hard during the finale.

The kids really liked Skynyrd.  
 

The crowd is pretty white bread.  Well, sunburned whitebread.

It boggles my mind that a band that had hit the peak they were on couldn't have afforded a better jet to tour in than the old turbo-prop with non-functioning fuel gauges they crashed in.

 Wasn't that stadium the scene of the crime involving the Led Zeppelin a few weeks later?

.Yes it was.

I liked the band at that time and a couple of my friends went to that one but I passed. I guess maybe it's too bad I didn't go. I would have hated it but that would have been my one chance to see them, as I wasn't into them the times they came in the past, and they never came back.

I hated DOGs; total shit-shows, bad sound, broiling hot, huge drunken (and puking) crowds. As my snobby friends & I would say at the time (because we were SO experienced) Day On The Greens were for the amateurs.

It would have been fun to hear Freebird in a non ironic fashion. 

Graham soon saw those reputations played out. When one of Graham's crew made what Grant took as a remark about his weight, Bindon approached the man and knocked him out. After the show, another of Graham's staff, Jim Matzorkis, saw a boy removing a sign with the band's name on it from a trailer door. Matzorkis took the plaque back, explaining that they needed it for the next day's show. The boy was Grant's son. Bonham saw the incident and reported it to Grant, who went looking for Matzorkis. Graham tried to intervene, but when Grant and Bindon found Matzorkis taking shelter in a trailer, they threw Graham out, shut the door and began to work the staffer over seriously. Graham tried to get back into the room to stop the beating, but Cole guarded the door, wielding a pipe. Matzorkis later said that when Bindon tried to gouge his eye out, he summoned his strength and escaped the trailer, bleeding. Graham had him rushed to the hospital.

The next day, before Led Zeppelin took the stage, one of the band's lawyers required that Graham sign a letter of indemnification, releasing the group and its organization of any responsibility for the beating. Graham signed. He didn't want to risk the chance of a riot if the band wouldn't play. He also knew that the letter didn't bind any of Matzorkis' legal options. Plant tried to reach some sort of conciliation, but Graham wouldn't speak to him. Disheartened and angry about the whole matter, Page played guitar sitting down for much of the show.

The next morning, an Oakland SWAT team surrounded Led Zeppelin's hotel, and police officers arrested Grant, Cole, Bindon and Bonham. They were all charged with assault, and Matzorkis filed a $2 million civil suit.

Went to it

loved  day on the greens saw   Zepplin  and Leonard Skinner and many more GREAT  bands

And who's dead back to back

 you lightweight  tom. Jfc big holes in your resume

And you didn't have to be the one puking 

u blew it too Thom 

Caught 4 of them:

Dead/Beach Boys/ NRPS/ Cody   74

CSNY/ Band / Barnstorm   74

Dead/ Who  76

Heart/ Sabbath/ BOC/ Molly Hatchet  - 81

The last one with a free ticket from a chick I knew at the time. Really enjoyed BOC's set.

Dug all the other shows as well- except the  Who - I thought they sounded like shit that day- but I was past them at that point.

At 9:40 there's one black guy in the front row with a slightly confused look.... 

"Not a very popular place with the brothers."

Never saw Skynyrd but saw Rossington/Collins band twice in Md. at Merriweather Post and Capitol Centre in 80/81?  The Cap show the Outlaws played also. Sad about Allen Collins.

>>>Jfc big holes in your resume<<<

I don't keep a resume. And even when I was 17 I had no interest in doing something because "Everybody's going! It's the place to be!" Meh.

Those original DOGs were the shallow end of the concert pool, and you know who plays in the shallow end and what they do there, right?

>>>And you didn't have to be the one puking<<<

Who else had any fun at those things?

Wild eyed Southern boys.

Never saw the original Skynyrd, but my mom was teaching some of the band's and crew's kids when the plane went down.

Never seen the new Skynyrd either, but one time when I was back home for X-Mas, my friends and I went out to the beach where the drummer, Artimus Pyle, had opened a new bar/venue.  Now Artimus had been having some (cough) "legal problems," and was estranged from Ronnie's widow and the rest of the survivors, but he had a bar on the beach with all his gold records displayed and where his new band played.  Anyway, we showed up and the bouncer stopped me at the door, pointed to my tam, and said the owner had a "no hats" policy.  I dutifully took off my hat, went inside, and there was ole Artimus behind the drum kit, shirtless but sporting the biggest ten-gallon cowboy hat that side of the Mississippi pounding away.  His band kicked ass. 

Artimus is the driving force behind the new documentary that is coming out.  It's his version of what happened with the plane crash.  He claims that he was cleared of all the charges against him, was being framed and is back in good standing with what's left of the Skynyrd organization.  Apparently he was able to walk away from the crash and went looking for help, only to get shot in the shoulder by some kid at some farmhouse he walked up to.  His grandfather and dad were both in plane crsshes too.

"u blew it too Thom "

Except that I had already seen them at the Spectrum (4/16/76) and frankly once was enough.  My greatest memory of that gig was Ronnie swigging out of a bottle of Mateus and then spitting it out on the folks down front.  When they complained he told them to shut up because it was only wine.  Classy guy.

Going to see a band that played every song pretty much note-for-note the same every time (and by their own admission considered that a good thing) in a football stadium had zero appeal to me.  You might as well play the records, the sound would be better and you wouldn't get a sun burn.  They were a great record band, but see them once and you'd have seen it all.

I would have liked to have seen once, but not in that setting.

I did see Bob Dylan's band play the Freebird jam at the Greek while Dylan danced around on stage, grinning.

That was fun.