The Don of Rock Concerts

The Don of Rock Concerts

This week the rock world lost one of its biggest bosses and if your musical upbringing took place during the 70‘s, there’s a good chance you felt the impact of promoter and producer Don Kirshner. During that era, he was the man and his late night TV show was the end all. Maybe our youth wasn’t filled with the internet, texts or tweets, but we did have Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert and it was awesome long before awesome was even awesome. Seeing down and dirty live performances of everyone from The Stones to Earth, Wind and Fire to Lynyrd Skynyrd front and center was beyond thrilling. And we’re not even talking HD. It was usually on a crappy little black and white with foil tweaked wire and bad sound but it didn’t matter. It still rocked our world week after week. Whether you think music back then was better than it is today or not, it’s tough to argue that the simple ways in which we were introduced to and experienced great artists were supremely more mind blowing. And we have Don Kirshner to largely thank for that. To think, he also gave us The Monkees and The Archies?! That spells legendary with a capital f***ing L. To honor his legacy and pay our respects, here’s a vintage 1973 clip of The Steve Miller Band performing the yet to be recorded “Fly Like an Eagle.” That’s what I’m talking about right there!



*Sorry if you missed this truly rockin’ clip but all of DKRC videos have been removed. We don’t believe in piracy so we completely understand. The bigger bummer is that none of the shows are available to view anywhere. It’s screaming DVD package…hopefully somebody hears it soon.

Links:
Don Kirshner’s NY Times Obit