Fifty years ago, Neil Young and the Santa Monica Flyers walked on stage at a brand-new Sunset Strip nightclub and the Roxy Theatre was born.
On Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023 – 50 years to the day later – Young returns to the West Hollywood theater to celebrate the kind of anniversary few music clubs ever achieve.
In the half-century in between, the club co-founded by Lou Adler and the late Elmer Valentine, and still co-owned by Adler, now 89, with his son Nic Adler, has held a rare place in the history of pop culture and the dreams of artists and fans alike.
Between Young’s six shows over the Roxy’s first three nights and the end of 1973, the Roxy hosted multi-night runs by Cheech & Chong, Linda Ronstadt, Frank Zappa and Genesis.
And throughout the ’70s and ’80s it continued its role as the premiere small venue to play in Southern California, especially for newer artists poised on the precipice between unknown and famous.
In 1975, the Roxy booked significant shows by Billy Joel, Bob Marley & the Wailers, Bruce Springsteen, and Patti Smith. A year later, Jimmy Buffett played at least three different multi-night runs and the Ramones made their California debut. (A few years later, the Ramones filmed their concert scenes for “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” at the Roxy.)
Many of those, and more that came later, were recorded and released as live albums, including Springsteen performances from 1975 and 1978, a 1976 Marley show, Zappa’s 1973 shows, and Young’s club-opening run.
The Young album, “Roxy: Tonight’s the Night Live,” includes not only the first music ever played on the Roxy stage, but in Young’s wry banter a nod to the building’s previous life as Largo, a swanky strip and burlesque club.
“First topless girl we get up here gets one of these boots,” he says at the outset, referencing the cowboy boots that along with hubcaps and fake palm trees decorated the stage that night. (At several points in the live record he also…
Read the full article here