Today we commemorate the anniversary of the 1969 Rock and Roll Revival Concert at Varsity Stadium in Toronto. Rolling stone magazine cited this event as one of the most important events in rock history and played a great historical roll in rock history including;
1:The first time the four "kings of rock and roll" Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis played in one show.
2: Major multigenerational lineup including "Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent, Junior Walker and the All Stars, Tony Joe White, The Chicago Transit Authority, Alice Cooper, Cat Mother and the All Night News Boys, Doug Kershaw, Screaming Lord Sutch; local acts Whiskey Howl, Nucleus, and Milkwood; and headliner The Doors" http://nonozeroblog.blogspot.ca/2009/09/toronto-rocknroll-revival.html
3: The first public singing of John Lennon's "Give peace a chance"
But....the show was also famous for two key events in rock history
A Rock Tradition was born: In addition to this, a rock tradition was started that night. John Lennon (at that point with his Yoko Ono band) had serious stage fright, so the show's producer (Kim Fowly) went out on stage prior to Lennons appearance and asked all the audience members who had lighters to light them up as soon as Lennon came on stage. This had allegedly never been done before but created a sea of fire visual effect and started a rock tradition that lasts to this day.
Rock Infamy Occurred! Second from last was a young and at the time not well known Alice Cooper. At the end of his show someone threw a live chicken onto the stage (Alice didn't know how it got there). Alice picked up the chicken, thinking that as a bird with feathers and wings it should be able to fly and he threw it out over the audience expecting it to fly away. Due to the poor aerodynamic capabilities of poultry the poor bird landed in the audience and was torn to pieces by the crowd who then threw the parts back on stage (Alice felt terrible about this). By the next day, the papers were reporting that he killed the chicken himself. Some reports said that he performed some kind of ritual on stage, then bit it's head off and drank the blood. People were outraged and wanted him charged, banned..etc. Frank Zappa (who owned the label that signed Alice) called Alice and asked him if this was true. Alice was desperate to clear his name and told the whole story to Zappa, in hopes that people would hear the real story. Zappa, being older and wiser, knowing the value of controversy told Alice NOT to tell the real story because the exaggerated story being told in the papers was generating so much publicity. But don't take my word on this, hear it from the man himself;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEHy3JZljDY