That’s incredable my and OMG that’s the coolest concert bass drum in the world! My concert BD is about half that size (38”) and it rattles your teeth - that is at least a 66 incher! Awsome. Oh, and Mike and Frank were cool too, lol.
The Monkees show in July of ‘67 was at the Alan B. Shepard Civic Center aka The Virginia Beach Dome. In those days there were 7:30 and 10:00 shows. The Experience opened the early show with a relatively tame (lackluster) set of Hey Joe, Wind Cries Mary, Little Miss Lover an abreviated Fire, Foxey Lady and Purple Haze. The crowd of little girls and their mothers hated it and chanted for “Davey” all through the 40-minute set. The Monkees were visibly embarrassed, and asked the crowd to give the Experience a second chance at the late show.
At the second show after three songs by the Sundowners, The Experience were back and did at least an hour and it was awesome (adding Stone Free, Red House and an extended jam of Highway Chile and Remember). They cranked the amps and drowned out the Monkees chants, but the house PA was unable to keep up, lol. At the end he smashed a watermelon on the stage in leiu of burning a guitar or in frustration at the pre-teeny-boppers. The Experience left the Dick Clark tour just a few days later after shows in New York. Those Monkees fans just didn’t get it. I was lucky to see him, because following that summer there was no venue within 200 miles big enough for the Experience and I was only twleve. (That was the week I changed the name of my band to “Third Stone From The Sun”. Two years later I ran away from home and tried hitch-hiking with friends to Woodstock, but we were turned back in New Jersey. The New York Throughway going North was closed!
What an amazing recollection!
Thanks for sharing that.
I ran with some of the peripheral folks around Glass Harp in the day.
The world was different then
BTW Love “Stone Free”