Austin Concerts of the '70s: Let's Take It Outside

A Bash, a Barndance, and 2 Breaks

March 18, 1973: Willie and the Elevators at Hill on the Moon

In the early ‘70s, everybody was trying to put on the next Woodstock. The Dripping Springs Reunion of ‘72 (pictured above) posed as the country version. The Austin rock crowd’s greatest attempt was 1973’s “Last Bash on the Hill,” a free all-day festival starring the 13th Floor Elevators just a couple months after Roky Erickson was released from Rusk State Hospital for the criminally insane. Also on the bill at Hill on the Moon, off City Park Road, were Jimmie Vaughan’s Storm, Conqueroo, Freda and the Firedogs and a surprise guest who turned out to be Willie Nelson.  

“Willie showed up in a Winnebago with Sammi Smith,” recalled Roger Collins, one of the organizers. Smith, who had a big hit with “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” was married to Willie’s guitar player Jody Payne, and they had a baby named Waylon. “He drove right through the crowd down to the stage. He was amazed by the number of people there. He would talk about that concert for years.” Willie’s first Fourth of July Picnic was four months later.

A crowd of 3,000 was expected. But when local radio stations talked up this free concert with the 13th Floor Elevators back together again, 15,000 showed up. RR 2222 was backed up for miles and folks were ditching their cars to hike up the hill.

Brothers Crady and Barry Bond, who owned the scenic 10-acre festival site, which sloped down to a creek, had put on a few outdoor concerts there previously. But the local police, assisted by Texas Rangers and DPS, had been regularly hassling and arresting attendees and staff. The Bonds’ security crew wore American flag armbands for identification, and when one wore his upside down he was taken to jail for desecrating the American flag. Another 58 were arrested at the Hill in August 1970, with three cars and a truck seized for containing narcotics, and sold at auction.

Barry Bond, 22, was found dead five months later at the base of Mount Bonnell, though it was never determined if he jumped or fell or died from another cause. The Hill on the Moon concerts weren’t much fun anymore, so Crady’s partners in police harassment, the One Knite, suggested a  final blowout. They’d book the bands and bring the beer. “We just wanted to have the biggest party Austin had ever seen,” said Collins. All the businesses listed on the poster contributed to the beer expense- 62 kegs of Lone Star which would be given out free. “We didn’t care about making money, just like at the One Knite.”

Songwriter Harvey Thomas Young had moved to Austin from Lubbock a year earlier “and I was wondering what the big deal was,” he said. “But then I went to that concert at Hill on the Moon and that changed the way I thought about music. That show made me realize that rock and country and blues could all fit together.” Was there another city in 1973 where Willie Nelson and Roky Erickson and Jimmie Vaughan and Marcia Ball could share a stage while 15,000 drank for free?

Sept. 1, 1974: ZZ Top’s Barn Dance- “First Annual?”- not a chance

Memorial Stadium Sept. 1974.

In September 1970, UT sponsored an unnamed rock festival at Clark Field, the old baseball diamond at Red River and 26th, featuring the Allman Brothers (with Duane and Berry), Leon Russell and It’s a Beautiful Day. The concert went off swimmingly, but the next big outdoor festival at a UT sports facility would not be such a groovy affair. On Labor Day weekend 1974, ZZ Top headlined an all-day blowout at Memorial Stadium that would have Coach Darrell Royal screaming, “No more concerts!” What that crowd did to his precious football field! Just two weeks before the home opener.

To celebrate the breakout success of Tres Hombres and FM radio smash “La Grange,” the rockin’ trio from Houston hosted the “First Annual Texas Size Rompin’ Stompin’ Barn Dance and Bar B.Q.,” featuring Santana, Joe Cocker and Bad Company, with Jimmy Page on guitar.

The University was ready for a crowd of 40,000 max, but nearly twice that showed up for the only Texas show of the tour. Many without tickets crashed the gates, as overwhelmed security could only watch. The stadium ran out of food and water even before a very drunk Joe Cocker was finished heaving onstage in the brutal afternoon heat. Anarchy reigned, as fans found a mattress in a Longhorns office and set it on fire. The plywood field-covering was pulled and many in the crowd tattooed their initials in the brand new astroturf with lit cigarettes. A more adventurous crew of vandals carved an outline of Texas on the 50-yard-line. Coach Royal was well-known as a music fan, but you can bet he never listened to ZZ Top after that.

Sunday Break Concerts 1976

The big rock festivals moved to the fields. On May 2, 1976, a 28-year-old first-time promoter from Dallas named Win Anderson and financial backer Jack Cooper, who owned Houston tire stores, drew a crowd of 56,000 to raw acreage near the intersection of Hwy 290 and I-35 for a “Sunday Break” concert with America, Santana, Peter Frampton, Gary Wright and Cecilio & Kapono. Fools, with Van Wilks and Tommy Shannon, were the unbilled opener, a favor for manager Bill Ham. Booking Frampton for middle act money, then watching his Frampton Comes Alive album become a monster as the festival neared, was a grand slam for Anderson’s Mayday Productions, which split a profit of $120,000 with Cooper.

That was easy, let’s do it again!

Scheduled for the Sunday before Labor Day ‘76, “Sunday Break II” hoped to attract 100,000 fans to the much-bigger Steiner Ranch near Lake Austin, with a bill of Chicago, Fleetwood Mac, the Band, Steve Miller Band, Firefall and England Dan and John Ford Coley. Tickets were $10 in advance and $12.50 at the gate ($50 and $60 in today’s money) for that lineup, but with only one two-lane road leading to the site, traffic backed up for over 10 miles and only 6,000 tickets were sold at the gate. Total paid attendance was just 28,000, but many of those never made it. The only option was to ditch your car and walk several miles, but it’s hard to fully enjoy “Landslide” and “The Joker” with a tow truck on your mind.

It was even harder for Mayday to enjoy the festival when they paid the bands over $400,000 (Chicago got $210,000), against total ticket sales at around $350,000. The Band made $50,000, but they had to cancel the next week’s shows because keyboardist Richard Manuel suffered a neck injury on Lake Austin when a speedboat he was riding in hit a wave.

Promoters lost nearly half a million dollars, and stiffed day workers on their $3 an hour wage.

Stevie Nicks backstage at Sunday Break II

For those who did get in, and acquired some immunity from the 95-degree heat by having attended the Willie Nelson Fourth of July Picnic in Gonzales, it was one helluva festival! Great performances from everyone, top flight production, plenty of room.  Who cared that promoters were losing their asses?

Five lawsuits were eventually filed, including from the Houston bank that lent Mayday $415,000. Landowner Tommy Steiner received $10,000 upfront to rent his ranch, but not the promised 10% of the gross.

As if it made a difference, Mayday blamed the financial fiasco on counterfeit tickets- 70,000 in all! But those upstarts didn’t even keep ticket stubs. Going through the trash that hadn’t been hauled away, Texas consumer affairs officials found about 3% of the tickets- not 70%- were fake.

The Band at Steiner Ranch Sept. 1976. Photo Scott Newton.

DPS officials had put the crowd estimate at 100,000, but they always pad those numbers to make themselves look more heroic in controlling the masses. An aerial photograph was examined by crowd-counting experts who estimated 24,000 were in attendance.

Mayday Productions filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and was never heard from again. Their only concerts were the two that bookended the summer of ‘76. Win Anderson passed away in Tennessee in 2017 at age 69.

Covering the messy aftermath for Texas Monthly, Richard West found a curious incident in Anderson’s background. In 1973 he pleaded nolo contendere to the charge of setting fire to the Texas School Book Depository building. Anderson worked for the building’s owner Aubrey Mayhew, a record producer and songwriter who discovered Johnny Paycheck, and started Little Darlin’ Records in 1966. He was also a Kennedy fanatic with dreams of turning the tragic building into a memorial. But the venture was a money pit. Anderson and accomplices poured gasoline and lit matches on five floors of the building in July 1972, but the sprinkler system and nearby firemen put out the fire in 24 minutes. Damages were only $5,000. Mayhew was never charged in the arson, but the building’s ownership reverted to D. H. Brand.

There was one more music festival at Steiner Ranch, two weeks after SB II. The Bicentennial Outlaw Concert, starring Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Tracy Nelson, Asleep at the Wheel, David Allan Coe, and Marcia Ball, needed to sell 25,000 tickets to break even, but only 6,000 showed up. Promoters blamed the low turnout on negative press concerning automobile access to Sunday Break.

This is an excerpt from Michael Corcoran’s history of the Austin music scene coming in early 2024 on TCU Press.