The country is abuzz right now with heavy metal, rock, soul and hip-hop artists criss-crossing touring cities across the map. Primus and Tesla, The National and Arcade Fire, Foster the People and Liz Phair, the Beach Boys and the Isley Brothers, Jay-Z with Beyoncé.
If you’re a fan of any of these nationally touring bands, you’re going to have to do what they’re all doing now: Hit the road. Because they’re not coming to Long Beach.
At the risk of sounding old, music lovers have to be AARP-eligible to recall a time when the biggest and best rock bands regularly put the Long Beach Arena on their tour stops, and most were at the peaks of their careers.
Today, the Arena/Pacific Room is practically a black-tie event space. It’s as gorgeous as it is spectacular and we can hardly blame its operators into muddying up the joint with rock or its many spin-offs. (I’m using the term rock for just about everything but classical, jazz and show tunes here.)
The official reason for the death of arena rock in Long Beach, according to Charlie Beirne, the general manager of the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center, is, simply, “We’re too busy.”
“It’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing,” said Beirne. “We’re just booked with conventions and other events and we just don’t have dates open for the bands.”
The center’s Terrace Theater is the one bright spot for fans of major rock acts, though local stops are exceedingly rare, with a couple or three major performers of a quieter sort stopping by — in recent years there have been Terrace concerts by Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and Crosby & Nash. Next up is a blues show by Joe Bonamassa on Nov. 23.
But, otherwise, fans of arena rock and roll are left stranded in the old days of Wolff & Reismiller shows, usually held in conjunction with radio stations, including KLOS and Long Beach’s old KNAC (they also promoted the Santa Monica Civic, another venue that’s pretty much disappeared, and the Forum).
The glory years were the 1970s, and you can be old enough to run for president and not recall those concerts. A list is called for, and it’s pretty impressive.
What follows are some of the acts that played the Long Beach Arena from 1969 through 1979.
A year-by-year best of that 10-year run:
1969: Creedence Clearwater Revival, Simon & Garfunkel, Three Dog Night
1970: The Doors, the Moody Blues (with the Steve Miller Band and Poco), Jethro Tull
1971: Deep Purple (with opening act Rod Stewart), the Who, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath
1972: The Allman Brothers Band (with the Marshall Tucker Band and Boz Scaggs), the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Leon Russell, Santana, Elvis Presley and the Grateful Dead
1973: Traffic, Chicago, David Bowie & the Spiders from Mars, Stephen Stills & Manassas
1974: Neil Young, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, ZZ Top, Frank Zappa
1975: KISS, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Aerosmith
1976: Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Black Sabbath, Willie Nelson
1977: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Yes, Blue Oyster Cult, Queen, Kansas
1978: Styx, Journey, Van Halen, Ted Nugent, Cheap Trick
1979: Elvis Costello & the Attractions, AC/DC, Marvin Gaye
Those days are 40 years in the rearview mirror, and if you’re hoping for their return, you’d better be well-versed in cryogenics.
But, while arena rock is dead in this town, the local club scene still has some life. Both Alex’s Bar and diPiazza’s carry on with plenty of live shows, though they seldom book blockbusters.
Remember Vault 350? Not too long ago it had stars like Boz Scaggs, Bob Weir, TSOL, the Killers, Cheap Trick and BB King. But now it’s been shuttered for a decade. You know who plays there now? Crickets. The insects that make the sounds of silence, not the Buddy Holly backup band.
The Queen Mary, now that Goldenvoice has taken over the music on and around the ship, offers a glimmer of hope for occasional festivals and concerts. The ship’s next show is the Nov. 3 and 4 Tropicalia Festival, with dozens of bands including headliners Morrissey and Cardi B, with Mazzy Star and Mac DeMarco.
And there’s a nice big dose of rock, again in a festival setting, as Music Tastes Good returns to Long Beach for its third year, carrying on the legacy groundwork of the late musician/promoter Josh Fischel, who died just after the wrap-up of the inaugural festival in 2016.
Volume 3 of MTG will feature a mess of great bands (and chefs) over two days, Sept. 29 and 30 at Marina Green Park. The performers include New Order, James Blake, Janelle Monae, Broken Social Scene and, just because we like them, Manuel the Band.
So rock isn’t dead in Long Beach, it’s just left the building. Now you’ll find it in the great outdoors which, in the sunniest city in the country, might just be where it belongs.