After watching the college football bowl marathon I came away with memories of time in college. Since a lot of these bowls have been played for years there were a lot of references to the different years big events happened. I remembered that forty years ago this February when I was in college there was a big event in my life and forty years later it’s come to life again.
In 1968 I was part of a group of students that promoted a concert at our college. It was in Sacramento and it was the second time we, as a group, had promoted a concert. To say we were naïve rookies is an understatement. We were basically clueless to an extent. Sure we were promoting rock and roll and loved it, but our knowledge of the workings of the business and the logistical end of promoting was limited.
We were young students with big dreams when we discovered we could throw shows in the Men’s gymnasium if we had an “official” group. We went through the formal process, threw our money in the pot and promoted our first show with an up and coming band, Big Brother and The Holding Company with Janis Joplin. We got together a light-show, a stage, a band with a good PA system and filled the gym. It was beginners’ good luck and good timing and suddenly we became a viable entity for major music booking agencies. Next thing we knew we were handing out flyers promoting our next big show and next big band; Jimi Hendrix!
The town was buzzing, the radio stations were on it, the TV stations called for interviews and we eagerly awaited the date in early February. After a wild game of phone calls and inquiries with the booking agent and airlines we, as a group, arrived at the Sacramento International Airport and welcomed Mr. Hendrix, Noel Redding, Mitch Mitchell and the rest of the colorful English crew to Sacramento and spent the rest of the evening at the Holiday Inn and several nightclubs getting to know each other.
The next day the show went off spectacularly and opened the door to many more concerts over the next year. Our group changed somewhat and became more professional but that night with The Jimi Hendrix Experience always stuck with me. That’s what brings this up today. A year or so ago I wrote a story of that concert which appears on a web site from Hollywood. Not long after the story appeared I got an email from an Italian magazine called UNIVIBES, a quarterly magazine dedicated to Jimi Hendrix.
They wanted to use the article in their upcoming Spring edition. I agreed they could and today almost forty years after the concert in Sacramento I spoke with two of the original members of our group about using photos they have. I also spoke with a gentleman in Seattle who has written a book on that concert and has photos of autographs Jimi signed and the publisher of the magazine in Italy.
As I spoke with my old college buddies I had to laugh at the way an event like that has managed to live on in at least some of our lives. Yesterday I was rolling my eyes when the football announcer was going on about the big event “back in ‘68” yet today I was burning up the cell phone and email wires with details of the big event “back in ‘68”, but you know; it’s just Time!
To reach Rick Schultze email: yarick@pioneer.net