Sunday, September 1, 2013

Flint Artifacts: Deep Purple at Atwood Stadium, August 18, 1985




13 comments:

  1. Knockin' At Your BackdoorSeptember 1, 2013 at 3:49 PM

    Diep Purdle at Artwood Stadium

    http://pics.ww.com/d/195750-1/1985+-+Flint_+Michigan.jpg

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  2. Two things I noticed...
    The $15.00 ticket price and the $0 service charge.
    I miss good concerts. No one comes to where I live now, and when they do, it's really expensive.

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  3. I saw Journey, Pat Benetar, and Eddie Money - triple bill - at Atwood Stadium in 1980. I'll have to dig out the ticket stub, but I'm pretty sure it was $11.50. Concert prices really started to skyrocket during the '80s.

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  4. Where is Atwood Stadium? I saw concerts at the IMA; but most all the concerts I saw between 1969=1979 were at Pine Knob, The Palace, that stadium in downtown Detroit (I forgot the name).

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    1. it was quite close to the ima. It was pretty much just a small town/city football field. I just read a mention it only had 300 parking spots and was located where people around the area could just walk or ride bicycles to it. I didn't know they turned ima into the autoworld theme park (which only lasted about 6 months). As for the Detroit venue between 69-79 probably would be cobo arena or the olympia. I think cobo had alot more concerts than the olympia. Joe Louis arena opened in 1979 and that seemed to really take over the concerts which I always thought was a shame. Cobo had alot better acoustics than Joe Louis arena. I started going to shows at both arenas in about79/80, but by then almost all the shows were at "the Joe". The Palace (I am assuming Palace of auburn hills)was opened late 1988 but is set to close as a event venue shortly and the Joe is supposed to be torn down shortly. Cobo has been drastically altered and isn't a concert type venue. Kind of sad to see the places go. I saw alot of shows at those venues and I live about 3 hours away from them. I met the guys from AC/DC and Ronnie James Dio and his band at the time over the years at the renaissance center in Detroit. Alot of shows.

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  5. I was at that show... Blackfoot opened... a truly amazing show.

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    1. Yes. A beautiful day and a packed house, essentially in a residential neighborhood! Great gig and it eventually turned dark in time for a superb light show.

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  6. I was there and it was so big to me and my friend annie as we were in high school and we could be apart of a event that now is a part of our mind that oh my god we were there I wont ever forget the lights people music it is always in my head and never forgot thankyou annie , Theresa mack for letting me have fun!!!!

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  7. sweet concert! I remember the Journey/Pat Benetar concert I think WWCK sponsored it. My friend and I rode our bikes up to the atwood wall to hear some of it. Did I mention we rode from court and franklin and I was 10 and I still have not told my mom and dad yet.

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  8. I was there and I saw someone else's comment on another site about the number of people and 'sold out show" but I could swear there were only about 500 people there? My friend and I freaked out when we first got there because it looked like a high school football field and it seems like the stage was just some flatbed trailers. Around that time ( I think it was around that time , early 80's) there was a group of guys playing and calling themselves deep purple but they weren't the actual band. It seemed like maybe one guy at one time had something to do with the band and then he formed a band and played shows using the deep purple name. So when my friend and I got to the football field we immediately thought it was going to be the "imposter" band because there was no way the real deep Purple would be playing the place. We even were joking with each other about what Blackfoot would be like (as in it would probably not actually be Blackfoot) . But it turned out to be the real bands. My friend and I were right in front of the stage and there just weren't many people there. I mean we walked away and went to the bathroom or where ever and then walked right back to the same spot we left, just no people to contend with. On another site there was a setlist for Blackfoot but the song "fly away" wasn't on the list and I know they played that. There's a part in there where Ricky Medlock sings something about "havin' a smake pass it to me for a little toke" (or something like that). That was pretty much the highlight of the night. My buddy and I thought Blackfoot blew Deep Purple off the stage. We ended up leaving about half way thru Deep purple's set. On that picture of the ticket it has a number 381 on it . That may be how many tickets were sold. As for a comment about sold out, my friend and I had no plans to go to the show, we lived about 3 hours away and that day at like 3 in the afternoon we decided to go. We thought we'd just buy a ticket once we got there but it seemed like we ended up just walking in. We really didn't even party all that much compared to the amount of partying we usually did before a concert, so being fairly level headed along with everything being so strange made it pretty much the weirdest concert I've ever been to, and I've been to alot of them.

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    1. Only 500 people? You must've snorted too much cocaine. There were - easily - 10,000 fans jammed into that stadium. I always pushed my way to the front to see Purple at concerts. But this concert was so jam-packed I had to watch it from 100 yards away. A gorgeous, sunny evening and Purple was great. Ritchie Blackmore (guitar), Jon Lord (organ) and Ian Paice (drums) were phenomenal. Ian Gillan could no longer hit the high notes like he did in the early Purple years, but still sounded good. Blackfoot opened the show and was very good, as well.

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    2. Someone posted the concert video online; proof there were many thousands of people there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNdpKKegFck&fbclid=IwAR36FFqxJL3K-Sc0ZNqILLPp9KNtLhtrxB2UEgbE2j-aOUrDVFyQRvUFp5w

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  9. I remember working as one of their bouncer at the concert and spending the night at mid-field

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.