Tuesday, August 2, 2011

First Psychedelic Rock Concert in Richmond (and Virginia) took place 44 years (& 2 days) ago on W. Broad Street, August 4, 1967.



The image above is the poster for what was billed as the first psychedelic dance (rock concert) in Virginia - which took place in Richmond on August 4, 1967 at the Tantilla Gardens Ballroom on West Broad Street. The band was called the Actual Mushroom - made up of students from Richmond Professional Institute (now VCU). It featured a female singer. I believe this was the only time they performed together.
Colored lights provided by the crew that became the Air Flow Light Show (headed by Chuck Wrenn, Richmond's Rock-N-Roll impresario). I'm certain that Chuck did the artwork for this poster. Check out the places listed on the poster where you could buy tickets. All gone now.

Ross Mackenzie covered the event for the Richmond News-Leader and wrote that the band sounded like a “streetcar screeching to a stop.” Another account of the show (most likely the Richmond Times-Dispatch) stated that the dance was attended by “about 1000 people." Very Groovy.

Check out this site for more about Richmond and Virginia's Rock-N-Roll History. The Library of Virginia also has other images of posters from the Tantilla Gardens Ballroom.


- Ray B.  [This is a re-posting of an earlier post - we've been on vacation but will be posting more starting next week.]

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great poster. I remember Gary's at Willow Lawn. I bought my first 8-Track there.

Anonymous said...

The Actual Mushroom band played that one event, though most of the members worked together in other outfits, before and after.

Ron Courtney, lead leader, guitar, vocals
Jan Russell, vocals
Duck Baker, keyboards, guitar
John Harbough, rhythm guitar
Bert Holland, bass guitar
Dickie Parrish, drums

Anonymous said...

Also, Ron and Jan were RPI students. Duck And Dickie never went there. Not sure about the other two.

Airflow was Chuck Wrenn and Eric Bowman, and they had done some shows with the Bosom Blues Band, and perhaps other groups, at the Scarlet Griffin earlier that year.

Alia parker said...

nice

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