Before his upcoming performance at the Family Arena in Missouri on October 19, Grand Funk Railroad’s Mark Farner discussed his career with Rock History Music. During the chat, he touched on the band’s 1971 concert at Shea Stadium and compared it to that of The Beatles in 1965.
Mentioning what put GFR above The Beatles at the time, Farner said:
“We knew that we’d sold it out in a shorter time period, but we knew that they were hamstrung by the PA system. They called the game on. It wasn’t made to play rock music on, brother. So, they were hamstrung by that, and I felt for ’em because, man, here we had a great big PA system, we had lights, you know.”
He also commented on the band’s musical approach:
“So, we had a little advantage as far as the sound goes, but the popularity… I think people then were expressing and congregating to what love was drawing us all to. And because the topic – in most of my songs, I’m leading people to think about, to consider love – the love in things – and from a loving point of view and not railing against or trying to anger anybody, but just to inform people. That was appreciated by that New York audience. It was really appreciated, and I believe that those people that showed up slept on the lawn.”
Six years before Grand Funk Railroad, The Beatles performed at Shea Stadium to a crowd of 55,000 people. The venue’s sound system consisted of four amplifiers distributed around to deliver 175W of sound from each. This setup turned out to be insufficient against the screaming audience that night.
Three decades later, Ringo Starr reflected on the experience in ‘The Beatles Anthology’ by saying:
“What I remember most about the concert was that we were so far away from the audience. And screaming had become the thing to do. Everybody screamed. If you look at the footage, you can see how we reacted to the place. It was very big and very strange.”
You can check out Mark Farner’s interview on the matter in the video below.
