{"id":2446870,"date":"2019-07-28T08:00:35","date_gmt":"2019-07-28T14:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=862536"},"modified":"2019-07-28T08:00:35","modified_gmt":"2019-07-28T14:00:35","slug":"flashback-grateful-dead-and-friends-draw-600000-to-watkins-glen-summer-jam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/flashback-grateful-dead-and-friends-draw-600000-to-watkins-glen-summer-jam\/","title":{"rendered":"Flashback: Grateful Dead and Friends Draw 600,000 to Watkins Glen Summer Jam"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s a safe bet that when Woodstock co-founder Michael Lang approached Watkins Glen International to host the still-up-in-the-air Woodstock 50 festival this summer, he had visions of Summer Jam in his head. On July 28th, 1973, a mere four years after Woodstock, a concert at the same upstate New York racetrack featuring only the Allman Brothers, the Band<\/a>, and the Grateful Dead<\/a> drew an estimated 600,000 people \u2014 enough to earn it the Guinness World Record for the most attendees at a pop music festival. By comparison, Woodstock attracted a minuscule 250,000 people, according to the New York Daily News<\/a>,<\/em> though legend has it that the fest drew up to 400,000.<\/p>\n

Tickets to the concert cost $10 and included parking and \u2014 even though it was a one-day event \u2014 camping, according to posters on Syracuse.com<\/a>. By the afternoon before the day of the concert, the promoters had sold 125,000 tickets, making it a \u201csell out.\u201d Since Summer Jam was already a success, the organizers left the gates open, allowing the other 400,000-plus people to saunter in freely. The crowds were enough to paralyze the small town of 2,700 people at the time, yet somehow there were no reports of violence. Some of the attendees left their cars as far away as 20 miles from the venue.<\/p>\n

Openers the Grateful Dead played two sets. They opened with Skull & Roses\u2019 \u201cBertha,\u201d and played a variety of fan favorites including American Beauty\u2019<\/em>s \u201cBox of Rain\u201d and \u201cTruckin’\u201d and covers of songs by Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, and Merle Haggard, among others. A recording of the set lasts nearly four hours.<\/p>\n