Stony Brook
Following along the North Shore heading back toward "the city" (considered a dirty word out this far east) is Stony Brook. At one time, State University Of New York at Stony Brook was known as "The Fillmore East East." Bill Graham, owner of The Fillmor e East in NYC, held a contractual clause preventing his headliners from performing within fifty miles of his rock palace. Several shrewd students and booking agents realized that at 52 miles away, Stony Brook was a logical way-station. Produced by members of the Student Government (including Sandy Pearlman, R. Meltzer, Howie Klein and Alan Shapiro) in conjunction with agent Frank Barcelona, the Stony Brook Concert Series became the stuff of legend. It was here that The Allman Brothers spent a summer "practicing" in the deserted gym before performing live at The Fillmore.
It was here that Jackson Browne hung with The Soft White Underbelly (pre-Blue Oyster Cult) and with The Allmans as they performed for summer school students. These are the days referred to in "These Days."
It was over at Chester's where Topper, Wes Houston And The All-Star Space Band, and the reggae band, Full Hand reigned.
And it was here that a concert festival was planned for the summer of '69. Fortunately, the plans fell through and the concert never took place. New people got involved, hired some of the Stony Brook people and relocated the show upstate--first to Wall kill and then to White Lake. Frankly, I cannot hear "By the time we got to Stony Brook, we were half a million strong...", it just doesn't scan. Could you imagine what the Long Island Expressway (already "The World's Longest Parking Lot") would have looke d like?
Ten
years later, in August, 1979, several misguided entrepreneurs mounted "Woodstock
II" nearby at Parr Meadows, in Brookhaven. The show, featuring some of the
original stars of '69, flopped miserably. More wannabe hippies sat outside
the race track wa lls than were ticket-holders. "It's a free concert!"
