Three Nights in the Valley

(Edited to add, and then fix, second WNEW link. There seems to be some recurent weirdness with permanent links over there; if I give you one that won’t work, try the main page instead.)

I saw an item over at WNEW this morning reporting that an outdoor arena in New Jersey is banning pre-concert tailgating for certain events this summer after a couple of alcohol-related deaths at concerts last summer, and hundreds of arrests for underage drinking. The venue is being selective about it: No tailgating for John Mayer, Linkin Park, and similar artists, tailgating OK for the likes of James Taylor, Rush, John Mellencamp, Kenny Chesney, and the Police. Apparently we mature types don’t put away the Miller Lite and Goldschlager like the young folk do. Precisely what young fans are supposed to do before their shows, I dunno. No blankets, no frisbees? Neither am I sure how officials at the venue intend to police the restrictions. It would be easy to enforce rules against coolers and grills, but are they going to bust people eating outside the car?

Over the last 25 years or so, tailgating has become as much a part of the summer concert experience as the show itself. But in my experience, the tradition started out of necessity. Alpine Valley Music Theater is centrally located between Madison, Milwaukee, and Chicago. It opened in 1977, and has the usual covered pavilion with reserved seats backed by a giant sloping lawn area used for general admission. My first show there was in 1979, when a bunch of us scored pavilion seats for the Doobie Brothers. We got to the venue, parked, and walked in. We were happy with seats 15 rows from the stage, and we got even happier as we passed a couple of wineskins back and forth. After the show, however, it took us nearly three hours to get out of the parking lot. The next year, when we went back for the Eagles, we showed up at mid-afternoon, but not to tailgate: We had lawn seats and we’d have to get in line early. The tailgate would be after the show, since we knew we wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.

Wineskins had been banned inside the arena by then, leaving two options for those in search of a buzz—pay $4.50 (in 1980 dollars, remember) for warm Budweiser, or breathe—you could apparently bring in as much weed as you wanted. I joked that the next year, they’d be taking peoples’ dope, too, but selling joints inside for $12 each. We went back again in 1981, again for the Doobie Brothers, again with lawn seats. The security guard doing patdowns at the gate copped a feel on The Mrs. that would have gotten him arrested anywhere else, concession prices were even more extortionate than they’d been the year before, we were farther away from the stage than ever, and we saw more of the asses of the idiotic couples in front of us, who insisted on standing from opener to encore, than we did of the band. And it still took us three hours to get out of the parking lot. After that, we decided that no show was worth that much aggravation. We’ve never been back to Alpine Valley.

Having said all that, though, I’ve got some good memories of those Alpine Valley shows. I’ll never forget going to the Doobies in ‘79 with a bunch of the guys, high school and college pals hanging out—and eventually dancing in the aisle to “What a Fool Believes.” (Yes, even me.) The night of the Eagles show, an enormous full moon rose over the stage as they played a long set of acoustic stuff, “Lyin ‘Eyes” and “Desperado” and “Best of My Love.” After that show, as we waited out the post-concert traffic crunch, we turned on an album-rock station from Milwaukee and listened to one of our college friends on the air. And even the ‘81 Doobies show, for all its hassles, had its moments. The Doobies always put on a good show, it was the largest crowd in Alpine Valley history up to that point, something like 25,000 people, and it was a thrill to look back up the hill and see so many enjoying the same thing we were.

And to know that those people behind us had even crappier seats than we did.

Feel free to contribute your outdoor concert experiences in the comments while you listen to the Doobies, from a live radio concert in Los Angeles on that 1979 tour, a couple of weeks before we saw them at Alpine Valley.

“Take Me in Your Arms”/”Depending on You” (live)/Doobie Brothers (bootleg; get the whole show here)

(Also at WNEW.com: Rockin’ the Produce Aisle.)