Kind of a fun article in the
Baltimore Sun from the other day.
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Playing our song With Merriweather's future up in the air, readers look back on 37 years of outdoor musical bliss.
By Rob Hiaasen
Sun Staff
Originally published October 11, 2004
This is not an obituary for the
Merriweather Post Pavilion. Columbia's woodsy amphitheater - host to every major act (well, not Springsteen or the Stones) - ends its season today with an Incubus concert.
We refuse to allow Merriweather to end on that note.
The Rouse Co. wants to sell the 37-year-old venue to Howard County as an enclosed theater. Merriweather's management wants the pavilion to remain an open-air venue, and has a contract allowing it to book acts for one more season. But after that, the pavilion's future is up in the air.
Its past, however, is rock solid. When we asked readers to send us stories about Merriweather, their memories read like love letters to a place - and the people both on and off stage.
They wrote about seeing everyone from Jimi Hendrix (pink bell-bottoms), Janis Joplin, The Doors, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, Frank Sinatra (Chivas Regal in hand), Metallica, Madonna, Pearl Jam and Stevie Nicks. And Willie Nelson. And Barry Manilow. And Rick Springfield. And the classic Jackson Browne concert. And, and, and ... The point is: The Beatles might have played the Baltimore Civic Center in 1964, but everybody else after them played Merriweather.
Encoded in our otherwise dim and static memories, music places us in a specific time and location with specific people - often not our current spouses. All those nights tiptoeing between the lawn blankets, inhaling pockets of pot smoke and braving heat and rain. Just the whiff of a possible closing has stoked memories of the aging, funky, blue-seated pavilion - for sheer bookings and lore, a sort of mid-Atlantic Fillmore East.
Where else were tent sections installed in the early 1970s to, as the sign says, "guarantee the booking of superstar Tom Jones?" Do other venues have signs that read, "Motown 515 Miles," and this perfect concert directive: "Have Fun." There are "People Watching Stations" and sushi and barbecue and Amstel Light and Inglenook wine for sale. Inglenook? Why, when we were younger, we drank Boones Farm at Merriweather. Why, when we were younger, lawn seats were $3.
Merriweather's location has always been neighborly. If the wind is blowing your way, you can sit on your deck and hear Jimmy Buffett's Parrotheads wasting away again in Margaritaville. Or a drum solo by Iron Butterfly. Or have Elton John's Lion King music lull your 3-year-old to sleep.
But nothing beat those holy pilgrimages into the park, onto the lawn, into the music. At Merriweather, it's always been about the bands:
"Too, too many," writes Roger Sweren of Houston. "Jim Croce opens for Loggins and Messina just weeks before he dies tragically in a plane crash. The Band, in their heyday, plays 'The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down' but the ultimate for me ... a relatively new British blues/rock band called Led Zeppelin opening for The Who."
Sweren and others remember The Who - and this is hard to believe - apparently inciting destruction of property! Golf carts reportedly were burned. Fences downed. A near riot in Columbia! During an unscheduled performance of Tommy, Pete Townsend screamed at the crowd, "Shaddup, will ya? This is a bleeding OPERA," recalls Kevin Kelehan of Baltimore.
The dead zone Jenn Leonard of Federal Hill remembers being a 10-year-old Columbia kid when the Grateful Dead descended on Jim Rouse's planned community. "I remember seeing Deadheads in the fountains at the Columbia Mall," she says. "But the biggest surprise was when my family woke up the next morning and found two Deadheads passed out in the back yard."
So shoot me Jimmy Buffett - like Chicago, Elton John, the Beach Boys and James Taylor - has been among Merriweather's regulars. At one of Buffett's 42 shows here, the singer took pictures of the audience and threw the photos into the crowd. "Well, I caught one and immediately a guy comes up to me and offers me money for the picture," says Mike Gimbel of Timonium, a four-decade Merriweather veteran. The man believed his date would be so impressed that certain post-concert activities might occur. "Being the supportive guy that I am, I gave it to him for free."
The cheap seats Others clearly remember Harry Chapin sitting on the edge of the stage asking people on the lawn how they were doing.
Losing a foothold Things could get ugly at Merriweather. Katie Mullen Cole was at a Moody Blues concert with her boyfriend Bob. He hoisted Katie, then 17, onto his sturdy shoulders, so she could better see the stage. He kicked off his shoes for balance. "The world's ugliest feet were revealed, and I never could look at Bob quite the same way," she says. "Those feet! They haunt me to this day!"
Wet and wild During a steamy July 4, a fan remembers Neil Diamond telling the crowd: "I'm sweating in places I didn't know I had sweat glands." And despite Hendrix's having played here nearly four decades ago, many readers vividly remember that stormy night. "The Star-Spangled Banner" never sounded more electric.
"The thunder and lightning added some remarkable special effects. Then it started to rain and they called off the show," says Joe Hopkins of Annapolis. "The girl I was with (waaay before my wife) wore a new dress just for the concert, it was ruined ... but we had a great time trying to dry out."
Pick me Scott Belanger took a header for a Ted Nugent guitar pick. He dove headfirst into the seating area after Nugent flipped a pick into the crowd. "Unfortunately, my momentum and my head were stopped by the first row of bolted chairs." Belanger wrapped his bloody forehead with his T-shirt and stayed for the entire show. Many stitches followed that night.
"The guitar pick lives."
CSN&I Anne Blakeley and her sister, Allison, recall "chatting up" Crosby, Stills and Nash behind the stage. They had found a secret place behind a fence to meet the musicians. Crosby had recently been released from jail. "I remember my profoundly brilliant statement to him. 'Glad you're out!'" says Blakeley, of Rising Sun. The audience knew and sang every word of their songs. "That is Merriweather."
Willie and Jimmy And what about the time Willie Nelson was in concert and feds in suits were everywhere? "We thought it was because of the occasional illegal activity that used to happen in the woods before and after the concerts. We were on our best behavior," says Debbie Stipa of Cockeysville. For his encore, Nelson sang "Georgia on My Mind" and the reason for all those be-suited men became clear: then-President Jimmy Carter joined him on stage.
Years later, Tipper Gore came to Merriweather to see an Elton John concert. No one, though, wrote us about that.
Barenaked niceness Two young boys sat near the stage during a Barenaked Ladies concert, prompting the band to invite the boys up to sing. And Hetty Haden, a "very middle-aged lady" from Reisterstown, had a backstage pass to meet the "gracious, kind and attentive" band members before their 2001 show. "When we arrived at our seats, I was the envy of all the young people in our section."
Our song Jeff Griffin's best memory?
"Easy one. Our 'first dance' at our wedding was a song by Chicago, and by luck/coincidence they appeared at Merriweather on the exact date of our fifth wedding anniversary," he writes. The band played "You're My Inspiration," their wedding song. "I surprised my wife with an anniversary ring."
Oh, won't you stay No concert, with the exception of Hendrix's show, generated more comments than Jackson Browne's Aug. 27, 1977, appearance. Browne immortalized Merriweather by recording "Running on Empty" and "The Load-Out" during his Columbia concert. They were included in his 1978 live album, Running on Empty.
Richard Madow of Reisterstown went to the concert with his future wife, Anne. (People have fallen in love at Merriweather's will-call. People have met their future spouses. It happened to long-time general manager Jean Parker. She also had the pleasure of not only meeting Jackson Browne but playing softball with him back when bands had multiple dates. "They'd stay awhile.")
Madow remembers the lyrics to "The Load-Out," which Browne played first in public at Merriweather as a tribute to roadies:
But when that last guitar's been packed away
You know that I still want to play
So just make sure you got it all set to go
Before you come for my piano.
"The only thing that marred this perfect night was some overly zealous fan," Madow says. The guy wanted to hear "Road and the Sky" and wouldn't shut up. When Madow bought the live album, the first thing he heard was that guy screaming. Others still believe they can hear themselves on the record.
Endings are tough. There's been rumors of Merriweather's closing for years, but this sounds more serious. It's not up to us, of course. But when that last guitar's been packed away, they should know we still want them to stay."
