50 years ago this week - 11-1-64 – the Rolling Stones made their first San Diego appearance, playing an evening show at Balboa Park Bowl, having appeared that afternoon at Long Beach’s Civic Auditorium, aka Long Beach Arena. Tickets cost $3.50, with the show starting at 5:00 p.m. Various local acts opened, including Joel Scott Hill and the Invaders, Rosie and the Originals, and famed local garage band the Misfits. The shows promoter Danny Millsap, who ran a local record store, told the Reader in an April 1998 article that he paid the Stones $400. “I remember paying Rosie and the Originals $500,” he recalled of booking the popular local group known for their hit song “Angel Baby” (later recorded by John Lennon). Only around 300 people were in the San Diego audience that Sunday, despite the Stones having drawn around 13,000 earlier that day in Long Beach., and 5,000 the night before at San Bernardino’s Swing Auditorium. On Friday, they had headlined the famed TAMI show at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, alongside James Brown, Chuck Berry, and the Beach Boys. Reportedly, the gates were essentially abandoned and anyone in Balboa Park who happened to wander by was welcome to walk inside and checkout the show. “We figured what the Hell,” says Millsap. “We had made everything we were going to. Might as well let everyone enjoy themselves…I think I lost about 500 bucks on that show. It was no big deal. The kids had a good time.” Danny Millsap’s son David, a high school junior at the time, recalls “Because the crowd was so small, you could actually hear what the Stones were playing…they sounded better that night than any time I’ve heard them since.” Local opening act The Misfits featured future Moby Grape singer/bassist Bob Mosley. “We played a lot of places around town,” he recalled in a 2005 interview, “but [the Stones show] was the biggest thing we’d done.” At the time, the Misfits were signed to Imperial Records, whose roster included Ricky Nelson and Fats Domino. Their single “This Little Piggy,” released just before the Stones show, was appearing in Top 30 surveys for radio station KDEO - which hosted the Stones concert - as well as at KCBQ and KGB.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 01:05:17 +0000
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