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THE PRICE OF THE TICKET What does it take to get to see your favorite band? From The New Yorker The rock-concert business began on the evening of November 6, 1965, outside a loft building on Howard Street in San Francisco. Bill Graham, a thirty-four-year-old frustrated actor from the Bronx, had organized and "appeal" for the Mime Troupe, a radical theatre group he managed, whose leader, Ronnie Davis, had recently been busted for public obscenity. Graham was more hustler than hippie, but he understood the kids, and he had arranged for several local rock bands, inclusing Jefferson Airplane and the Fugs, to perform at the benefit. Arriving on a motor scooter with Robert Scheer, the managing editor of the magazine Ramparts, Graham saw a long line stretching down Howard Street—"Huge hordes of people," as he recalled in his autobiography, "Bill Graham Presents," written with Robert Greenfield. Turning to Scheer, he said, "This is the business of the future." Click here to read the rest of Don't Shoot. (708kb pdf)
Copyright © John Seabrook 2009. All rights reserved
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