My pal Rob invited me to an exhibition of photographs a few months ago. A Chelsea fan, he loves rock groups.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it.
But we went to a preview of another exhibition on Tuesday night.
It was a Proud gig at The Stables in Camden, the area with cobbled streets.
I would’ve liked to talk to Elliott Landy, a very famous photographer, but he wasn’t there.
His exhibition of expensive photographs is Woodstock Vision : The Spirit of a Generation.
It’s on from Aug 12 to Oct 4.
My two favourite pictures are Richie Havens strumming his way offstage & young promoter Michael Lang with two assistants.
There’s a nice infra-red shot of Bob Dylan leaning against the trunk of an old black gangster car. But that photo doesn’t look as half as good online as it did on the wall last night.
With free beer from sponsors Budweiser, and lots of friendly young people, Proud proved to be a nice venue with good acoustics. Live bands were playing and we had a pretty good time.
A film-maker and his Dutch partner introduced themselves to us. His name is Malcolm Hart and he was originally hired by Michael Lang to shoot documentary footage about the building of the stage.
He said, “The promoters were very altruistic people. Michael Lang was great, he gave me a load of money to rent a car and all the equipment we needed. He was expecting 20,000 people. A few days later, another 14 camera crews arrived. After it was all over, Lang said, ‘I’ve lost a million dollars.’ But they got it back from the film.”
That’s what he said : Michael Lang was expecting 20,000 people.
That’s life as a promoter. You put on a gig and hope people will come.You’re surprised when 500,000 turn up.