Ritz Theatre

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The Fillmore East used International Ticket Co. The RITZ used Globe Ticket Company
I found Central Park and Schaefer Music Fest tickets too.
Will continue searching for the RITZ photos and tickets beyond what’s been already posted.
More RITZ stuff though includes:
During WWII – no I’m not that old. Admission to a movie included the show, a news reel (aka propaganda) and a piece of dinnerware (aka depression glass. Young women would collect for “the war effort” outside the RITZ, often in ethnic clothes of the allied country of ther forefathers, whose sons were now US GI’s

farmersdtr

i’d like to swap .jpg images with you if you are willing and able to scan or take camera images of some of the items you mentioned. any chance you can get in touch with me at my home email?

I’d like to send you images of the ritz ticket stubs that I have and get your feedback. i’ll also send you some images of my stub collections.

I’m at

Thanks

x

Didn’t Jimi also play the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium? He opened for the Monkeys.

FE tickets:
5/10/68, 11/11/68, 9/27/68,12/26/68, 12/31/68
9/13/69, 10/4/69, 11/28/69, 12/31/69
2/28/70, 3/19/70, 4/28/70

OK, I found one from the RITZ. This is alot of work…..
JAN'RY 31 1970 Upper Balcony $3.50
Section C Row I Seat 22

Above dates are all RITZ

ok, the FE playbills have real dates inside.
Accordingly on 2/26, 1970 it was advertised that:
TYA (Ten Years After)
Zephyr
John Hammond
Joshua Light Show was to perform
Same line up on 2/27 – 2/28 but with Doug Kershaw in place of John Hammond

Farmersdtr

Wow that is quite a find. The 5x7 cards are fabulous momentos to that golden era, 1968-1971. Some of them are worth lots of money,(but most of us music purists have no interest in selling them. They range in value from $20 – $200. Since I have the entire schedule of the Fillmore East through all 3 years of its existance, it is quite easy to identify the year of the billboard cards. Treat them well as they are wonderful and precious items.

Ticket stubs values are much more dependent on who the acts were. Again, give me dates and I’ll tell you all 3 bands who performed that evening. I love stubs beccause I find that the 1 ½" torn squares really bring back the memorable moments of the evening. And best of all, they take up almost no space, very important when you live in manhattan.

But most important, let me know how i can get feedback on the ritz stubs i have.

I was a dedicated concert goer from 1969 to 1978. Having worked for Cash Box magazine (a worthy competitor to Billboard in the mid to late 60s), I went to concerts at least 3 times a week. The record companies gave out tickets generously to people like me, as they were always fishing for editorial favor, or better position on the top 100 charts. Besides, the tickets had a face value of $5-10 dollars back then, and the record labels gladly reimbursed the promoters for those freebies. Sadly, like everything else done in excess, going to concerts so often can make you lose your taste for the live experience. And don’t be fooled by the Bill Graham approach of “3 acts for $5”. In the days of the Fillmore East, those 3 bands would introduce styles and sounds that would ultimately shape the music we grew to love. But by 1976 we were being force fed crap by bands like Wet Willie or J.F.Murphy & Salt. Recycled pop version of their ground breaking counterparts.

I stopped attending concerts in 1978 having had more than my fill of music. Passion, innocence and the love of music , the founding qualities of rock and roll were long gone, replaced by a record label “corporate sensibility”. Gone were the days of LPs, soon to be know as “product”. Record store chains and retailers, who once bought albums from their local “one stop” distributors soon became slaves to the regional corporate “pipeline”, often force fed retail garbage that was imposed on them if they expected to get their Frampton Comes Alive order filled.

Punk came along to “save the day”,having injected the scene with a genuine angst ridden urgency. But those of us who grew up in the 60s couldn’t help but see that the punkers were “working too hard” at it, as if they were trying to convince themselves along with every other person they could intimidate. It smelled like a marketing scheme covertly disguised as a grass roots uprising, and financed by the major record labels. And of course it wasn’t a scheme when it first laid its roots, but punk became the property of clothing retailers just a little too soon, and a little too blatantly. The record labels spoon fed us The Knack, an innocuous, run of the mill group of wannabes,who were signed to Capitol Records after a protracted bidding war that could only be compared to the Yankees signing of Carl Pavano (who accepted a four year contract worth $39.95 million with the New York Yankees before falling off the map). The Knack, just punk enough to attract the loyalists who were looking for an icon, just pop enough to become a #1 album. I was on my knees, begging for mercy with the release of that album. If the Knack was the future of music than Lord Strike Me Deaf.

In 2002 or 2003, my buddies convinced me to see the Allman Brothers Band again. I had last seen them in 1971 at Carnegie Hall, a few short weeks after Duane died. Living in New York City I had the good fortune of choosing from a run of 12 ABB shows at the Beacon that year. At worst, I owed the band a thanks for the wealth of options. Thursday nights werre always my favorite night of the week, and so getting tickets for a Thursday was a breeze. I also began shopping on Craigslist for tickets under $100 each. When a band plays 12 consecutive nights, you’re gonna get some get choice seats for under $60. All the disdain, the greediness and the jacked up ticket prices were put aside for that night.

I had heard about this boy wonder Derek Trucks, and I had heard about this rock and roll “torch bearer” Warren Haynes. But I never expected that the ABB would find two musicians that could bring back the fire, I mean BRING BACK THE FIRE that so drew me to the band the first time around. I saw Duane Allman play with the band on 5 seperate occasions. I loved Duane, but with all due respect, Derek Trucks was a better guitar player, and he was humble, passionate, sincere, and the real article in a world or grunge posers. And Derek always paid homage to the musicians who inlfluenced him, the musicians on whose shoulders he stood.

More recently I had the good fortune of seeing Zappa plays Zappa at the very intimate Blender Theater in New York City, Maybe, just maybe it seats 500. And then I saw Warren Haynes and Govt Mule play at the Angel Orensanz theater, an acoustic, and a laid back electric show. Maybe, just maybe the Orensanz Theater ( a preserved and converted Jewish temple) sat 250 people. Was there a movement back to intimate venues again, spearheaded by the very same arena bands who got rich filling stadiums. Hmmmmm, I was beginning to see a little light here, a movement, a newfound respect for individuals like who put down their hard earned cash to listen to 2 short hours of musical entertainment. Small venues eh… a place where a band could really connect with their audience,. And was it true what I had heard on the radio? The entire Zappa band had agreed to stick around after the show and sign autographs until the very last person in the audience got his or hers? It was true. I have my Dweezil signed laminated necklace. And on the backside, a secret code that would allow me to download a free copy of the show we had just heard. Wow, integrity had returned to the music scene. My vote counted. They respected me.

Which brings me back to Woodstock. Do I think a Woodstock can ever happen again? Innocense is fleeting, and once the Genie gets out of the bottle there’s no putting it back. Do I think music will ever be the mouth piece of a political movement again, the soundtrack to a countercultural revolution. NOT IN MY LIFETIME. And will tickets ever come back to affordable? Hmmm maybe…if this recession keep up it just might.

Music will never be again what it was in the 60s. And that’s sad, but progress is progress. BUT remember on any given night a band can sneak up on you, come around the bend slow and easy, then blow you away with a musical crescendo so dynamic that it can make the hair on your back stand up. Yes there are still magic moments. And these magic moments remind us that we humans can still move still the world forward, one tiny step at a time.

Movie your right. Something like Woodstock will never happen again but the promoters did antisapate a crowd of up to about 150,000 people. What they werent expecting was the other 350,000 or more people that showed up. Considering there was no such thing as the internet and Ticketron was not even in the picture at that point ticket sales were done through a series of outlet stores. Also it was a general admision so that meant where you wound up is where you wound up. However some of the unknown bands cought a big break up there and some of them eventualy had a chance to play at the Ritz. I had to toss that in here to get this back on topic.

But also long gone are the days of going to a show and seeing 2-3 top bands on the same stage for under $5 especialy in 2000-4000 seat theatres. The Ritz was a good example of that. It also gave the residents of Staten Island a place they could call their own and not have to pay to get off the island. Staten Island has always been sort of isolated from the rest of the city. The Ritz at the time was the Fillmore East of Staten island. That was up until the Pagans MC nearly cause a riot out side the Ritz at a Badfinger concert.