Bernie videos on YouTube and other video sites

[UndertheWire]

Thanks for finding Bitter Creek. It's my favourite Leadon song.

The video description translates to "Bernie Leadon 's "Bitter Creek" live performance in Japan."

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/berni...-43dbcfdb.html

Also: https://www.eaglesonlinecentral.com/...dontokyo91.htm

[Delilah]

"Bitter Creek" is my favorite Bernie song as well. Thank you for translating the description. For a second I thought this might be the show where Bernie appeared as a special guest with Poco during their Japan tour (as posted in the "Earlybird-The Band" thread in the Former Eagles sub-forum). And I started getting excited at the prospect the whole concert was recorded! But Poco's tour was October 1990 and didn't involve Nicolette Larson.

It almost seems like Bernie did more solo shows in Japan than in the U.S.!

[UndertheWire]

I didn't know about the Poco show. I can't be sure this is the other one. There was a video of several songs, including Bitter Creek, from the Hiroshima show on youtube a few years ago but it's gone now.

[Delilah]

Here's Bernie playing the mandolin at a 1999 Gram Parsons tribute. Unfortunately not the best quality but he's on stage with Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle, among others. He's mainly featured at 2:25.

[ame]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L9fqOGZu7v8[/ame]

[NightMistBlue]

Holy frijoles, Bernie was at Altamont!! That’s a humdinger for the resume, huh? “Survived Altamont.” [ame]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hIgMN7Kd7u8[/ame]

[peneumbra]

A Few (actually a lot of) Words About Altamont

The members of The Flying Burritos - Bernie, Rick Roberts, Chris Hillman, etc. - were simply stunned by what they saw at Altamont Speedway. They played fairly early in the day, but the whole day was bad. So bad that The Grateful Dead, who suggested using The Hells Angels as stage security, decided not to play after seeing the mayhem taking place.

About that mayhem: The Angels have consistently been blamed for the violence at Altamont, but that is far from the entire story.

The overall organization of this free show was horrendous - it was exactly the WRONG way to put on a huge concert. The "organizers," having failed to hold the show in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, were offered the use of the remote and decidedly bleak auto racing facility at Altamont, at the very fringe of the Bay Area.

The massive crowd that turned out for what was billed as The Rolling Stones' "gift" to their fans at the conclusion of their American tour, has been estimated at possibly 400,000. The traffic was a nightmare, parking was totally haphazard, and no one had thought to provide the needed infrastructure (bathrooms, medical staff, professional security) for such a huge mob.

And in many ways, it was a mob. A large segment of the crowd was loaded on everything from beer to acid to angel dust. By the time the concert actually started, things were already out of hand. "We just sensed that this thing was gonna go really bad," said one guy who worked on the stage crew. "You could just feel the vibes getting sour."

The Angels should never have been hired as stage security; when people started pushing over their bikes - the only thing of value many of them had - they reacted like… like Hells Angels. And everything went downhill from there, propelled, no doubt, by Sam Cutler, The Stones' manager, who insisted that fans be kept off the stage "no matter what you have to do."

Thanks, Sam.

The 18-year-old guy who was killed by an HA member was brandishing a loaded gun; he had gone back to his car to get it, and, according to his girlfriend, was going to kill Mick Jagger because the girlfriend said that Jagger was "sexy as hell." The member saw the gun, drew a knife, and stabbed the guy before he could get a shot off. After an investigation, it was determined (correctly) that his action was legally justifiable.

[NightMistBlue]

Oh wow, bro. You should write your memoirs.

Why/how did a major big-time band like the Stones allow such amateurish, poor planning? Maybe they thought, like Woodstock, everything was going to turn out alright.

It’s kind of poignant to watch Jagger in the Gimme Shelter film. You can see on his face that he realizes the vibe has gotten dangerous and he tries to go all peace and love on the mob “brothers and sisters” but it’s already out of control.

[peneumbra]

I apologize for strong-arming this thread. No - hijacking. Whatever; I have really strong feelings about that Altamont thing - it pretty much killed off the idea of large outdoor concerts outside of stadiums, etc. There were other large outdoor shows (Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers at Watkins Glen, NY, which was reportedly the largest concert crowd ever) but the debacle at Altamont was a disaster for free concerts.

Back then, people had little experience putting together large events, which is why The Stones thing went so wrong: nobody knew better. I take that back - Bill Graham knew better, but he also knew better than to get too close to this show.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled thread.

[LuvTim]

P, I agree with NMB, you really should write your memoirs.

That said, Bernie is awesome, and anything new that can be found and shared, refreshed or restored, I'm for that.

Thanks, everyone, for sharing these "finds."

[Delilah]

Didn’t Bernie have a quote about Altamont: “when someone is being killed in front of the stage as the Rolling Stones are playing, that is not a little ok” or something like that.

The FBB set was short and Bernie has said that there good vibes while they performed their upbeat country rock tunes. The Angels calmed down and temporarily stopped beating up people. For some reason they started up again when CSNY next took the stage.

For a great overview of the concert and the terrible decisions that led up to the tragic events (in all 4 people died at the concert), I recommend Joel Selvin’s book, Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hell Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock’s Darkest Day.