Apart from their numerous hit singles and albums, Grand Funk Railroad have been proving their immense reputation as a dwell act from the tip of the Nineteen Sixties onwards. Within the ultimate month of the last decade, for instance, they have been enjoying on the Fillmore East in New York; in 1970, they starred on the Cincinnati Pop Competition, then the New York equal, sharing the invoice with Jimi Hendrix.
Numbers didn’t lie
However on June 5, 1971, even the media representatives who had by no means favored their populist onerous rock model needed to concede that GFR had turn out to be one of many largest bands of their technology. The numbers didn’t lie: they offered out their forthcoming look at Shea Stadium in New York, breaking the field workplace file held by The Beatles.
The Liverpool idols first appeared on the stadium in August 1965, to a file viewers of 55,600, after which once more a 12 months later. The approaching Grand Funk live performance – with help by Humble Pie – matched that attendance file, however offered out in a mere 72 hours, whereas The Beatles’ present took significantly longer. 55,000 tickets went on sale at 10am that Friday, priced at $4, $5 and $6, and by Monday morning they have been gone.
As these tickets flew out of the door, Survival, Grand Funk’s fifth album launch within the area of two years, reached No.6 within the US. It was their third Prime 10 LP in a row and one other platinum disc; their cowl of Dave Mason’s “Feelin’ Alright,” which was first on Visitors’s self-titled 1968 debut, was a modest Sizzling 100 entry.
From Hyde Park to Shea Stadium
The Shea live performance itself came about on July 9, after an enormous North American tour and a few European reveals that included an look in Hyde Park in London six days earlier. The set included their very own hits in addition to covers of the Animals’ “Inside Looking Out” and the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” which GFR had recorded because the closing observe on Survival. The Shea Stadium model, featured beneath, grew to become obtainable a lot afterward Grand Funk’s Reside: The 1971 Tour album, recorded at varied stops on the tour however not launched till 2002.
Band supervisor Terry Knight, speaking after a poorly-attended press convention to announce the Shea date, noticed the media’s sniffy perspective to the band by saying: “Any person in the business knows that to announce you’re playing Shea Stadium is news…the fact of the matter is, it is news to announce that anybody is gonna play Shea Stadium. But it’s equally big news to announce that no American entertainer in history has ever attempted it before.”
Knight concluded: “It was never our goal to ‘sell out’ Shea Stadium; we just want to fill it with our people.” They received their want.
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