Archival Buffalo News feature articles

  You know how Seinfeld is a show about nothing? Here’s a review of a show that didn’t happen.     July 21, 1975   Summerfest Gets Rained Out; Same Lineup Scheduled Today             It’s 5 p.m. Sunday and you’ve found the rest of your party over in Section E-10. They’re huddled under what looks like a tent, eating chocolate chip cookies.           It rained on the way out to Rich Stadium for Summerfest VI, but not like it’s suddenly starting to rain now. It’s like heavenly retribution for the corruption of neighborhood lawns and children by the rowdy denizens of Summerfest V last week.           The stands become a good-natured, what-the-heck area of orange, yellow and green raincoats. A section of tarpaulin near the 50-yard line is lifted up and a couple hundred folks duck underneath. Everything gets wet. Matches, s...

  July 22, 1975   Postponed Summerfest Weathered the Storm             “Well,” Jim Seals says, looking into Monday’s sun and wind from underneath his ever-present cap, “it looks like we finally made it.”           As proof, Seals & Crofts strike up the opening chords to “Hummingbird” and Summerfest VI gets under way in Rich Stadium Monday, 24 hours after a torrential storm washed out the regularly scheduled show.           Of the 21,000 who came Sunday, about 16,000 are back to see a display of good old showbiz determination. Everyone has stuck around so the show could go on and it goes like clockwork.           For the headliners, Seals & Crofts, there are two shows. One here, one in Pennsylvania . They go on first so they can do both of them.     ...

  The rock concerts in Rich Stadium hit their stride in their second season in 1975.   July 13, 1975   Summerfest Is a Big Rock Party; What a Difference a Year Makes             Balmy weather, fine music, a revised security plan and the surprise appearance of Gregg Allman made Summerfest Part 5 Saturday the best rock concert yet in Rich Stadium.           With 47,000 fans sprawled across the tarpaulin-covered Astroturf and up through the lower stands, it felt like a loose and enormous BYO party, beginning 20 minutes before the scheduled 5 p.m. start and ending a few moments after midnight.           There were leftover holiday fireworks, Confederate flags, balloons, many Yes T-shirts and banners, show-offs shinnying up the end-zone ropes, occasional fisticuffs and even a streaker or two.      ...

  Anyone out in the rock clubs in Buffalo in the late 1970s has fond memories of this group.   June 21, 1975   A Danceable Mixture in British Rock Band   COCK ROBIN TOOK THE PLUNGE this week. They quit their day jobs. That wasn’t too hard for guitarist Dave Bienek, who works in his father’s restaurant, the Depot. But for guitarist Bill Shaver, who’s head chef in the kitchen of a leading Niagara Falls hotel, it was a big jump.           “It’s been a big problem,” Bill says, “working and playing part-time. We could only play three or four nights a week – maximum. So we planned this a couple months ago and set a date.”           Cushioning their leap is the imminent release of their first record on the Amherst label. It’s entitled “Very Fine.” It’s due out in about a week and it looks like it could go places. * * * WRITTEN by bass player Steve Keenan, it has ever...

  A steamed-up night in more ways than one.   May 31, 1975   Skynyrd Unleashes Steamy Celebration             No sir, you can’t say Buffalo didn’t try to make the Lynyrd Skynyrd group feel like back home down South Friday night, at least the six out of the seven of them who showed up onstage in the nearly full Century Theater.           There was a kid down front waving a big Confederate flag. And then there was the heat – good old bayou-swamp humidity that plastered your hair to your head.           So maybe your “yes” was wilted when singer Ronnie Van Zant asked if you were havin’ a good time.           Then again, he and the other guys could step back after singing something like “Whiskey Rock-A-Roller” and take some refreshment in the wings.     ...

  When the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame got started in 1983, these guys were the first to be inducted.   May 31, 1975   Talas, 3-Man Dynamo, Rockin’ Crowds   THE MOST SUCCESSFUL ROCK BAND in the Buffalo area this year is a three-man dynamo called Talas. The bumper stickers proclaim it, the crowds attest to it and the group reaffirms it six nights a week onstage.           “You’d better get there early,” their manager Fred Saia advises in advance of a Tuesday night appearance at the Barrelhead in West Seneca . “When they play, it gets filled up pretty quick.”           Saia, who’s guided plenty of big local groups in recent years, thinks Talas may well become the biggest. They’re even selling out high school dances.           “You could tell it last year,” he says. “It was like a solid … monster. They’ve got this followin...

  Another entry on my list of greatest concerts of the 1970s:   April 26, 1975   A Glittering LaBelle Group Shines in Silvery Setting             Two questions are floating through Kleinhans Music Hall Friday night. One is: “Where’s the party?” The other one is: “Where’s your silver?”           For some folks, you don’t have to ask the second question. You don’t ask the two girls sprouting tinfoil tiaras. Nor the guy who’s painted up like he’s the head for some new coin at the mint.           As for the first question, that’s taken care of by the group LaBelle, who are the ones who said wear something silver in the first place.           Their opening set, in fact, is titled “Prelude in Silver,” and the three of them glide out like space goddesses a few minutes later than 8...