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In reply to the discussion: What is the average age group of posters on this forum? [View all]mia
(8,360 posts)71. Thank you. Nice memories and poster!
Was living in the DC area in the 60s too and remember going to many a dance where local bands played. Missed going to the Ambassador Theater. It must have been wonderful! I still keep up with people and nostalgia from those days and enjoyed reading your story very much.
The Ambassador Theater and How It Rocked DC
The Ambassador was an enormous space. All 1500 seats had been removed. The Psychedelic Power and Light Company took over the balcony and used multiple projectors and black lights to fill the room and cover the walls with colors and images- a stand alone show of its own. Tickets were $1.50 on week nights, $2.50 on weekends....
A young guy named Jimi Hendrix had been touring with The Monkees that same summer, but his style didn't quite fit that double bill. His manager begged The Ambassador folks to let him play there for 5 nights that August, and Pete Townsend of The Who came to see him. (I'm not making this stuff up- ask Nils Lofgren) This all happened here.
More From Nils Lofgren:
"The room was humming, not only with the expectation of seeing the Jimi Hendrix Experience, but that Pete Townshend was in the audience, and it was just an extraordinary pivotal night for me. Hendrix came out and said he was going to dedicate the first song to Pete Townshend and he was going to do a rendition of 'Sgt. Pepper.' Now being naive, and being a huge Beatles lover, a lot of us thought 'well, you're only a three piece band, how can you play 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,' there's all these other guitars and strings.' We just didn't have a clue of what Hendrix was really about. He counted off the song and I remember he kind of disappeared, he just did one of those things where he fell to the floor, sitting on the floor rocking with the guitar between his legs kind of doing a 'Purple Haze/ Sgt. Peppers' riff, then he sort of bounces back up and does an insane version of 'Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.' And when he dropped to the floor everyone just jumped up to try to see him, and from that moment on everyone was standing and mesmerized by obviously the greatest rock and roll guitar player that ever lived... There were just a lot of inspired moments like that at the Ambassador; it was this dark, beautiful, haunted, inspired room that you could go to and get lost in the light show and friends and the camradarie and the excitement of being in the audience discovering all this great new music; it was this real pivotal place in Washington, DC for all of the music scene, young and old."
Canned Heat, Moby Grape, John Lee Hooker, Vanilla Fudge, The Fugs, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and more all appeared at The Ambassador. Our own Joe Dolan of The Beatnik Flies mopped the floors there. His cousin, Patty made this hoe-down poster.
The Ambassador was an enormous space. All 1500 seats had been removed. The Psychedelic Power and Light Company took over the balcony and used multiple projectors and black lights to fill the room and cover the walls with colors and images- a stand alone show of its own. Tickets were $1.50 on week nights, $2.50 on weekends....
A young guy named Jimi Hendrix had been touring with The Monkees that same summer, but his style didn't quite fit that double bill. His manager begged The Ambassador folks to let him play there for 5 nights that August, and Pete Townsend of The Who came to see him. (I'm not making this stuff up- ask Nils Lofgren) This all happened here.
More From Nils Lofgren:
"The room was humming, not only with the expectation of seeing the Jimi Hendrix Experience, but that Pete Townshend was in the audience, and it was just an extraordinary pivotal night for me. Hendrix came out and said he was going to dedicate the first song to Pete Townshend and he was going to do a rendition of 'Sgt. Pepper.' Now being naive, and being a huge Beatles lover, a lot of us thought 'well, you're only a three piece band, how can you play 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,' there's all these other guitars and strings.' We just didn't have a clue of what Hendrix was really about. He counted off the song and I remember he kind of disappeared, he just did one of those things where he fell to the floor, sitting on the floor rocking with the guitar between his legs kind of doing a 'Purple Haze/ Sgt. Peppers' riff, then he sort of bounces back up and does an insane version of 'Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.' And when he dropped to the floor everyone just jumped up to try to see him, and from that moment on everyone was standing and mesmerized by obviously the greatest rock and roll guitar player that ever lived... There were just a lot of inspired moments like that at the Ambassador; it was this dark, beautiful, haunted, inspired room that you could go to and get lost in the light show and friends and the camradarie and the excitement of being in the audience discovering all this great new music; it was this real pivotal place in Washington, DC for all of the music scene, young and old."
Canned Heat, Moby Grape, John Lee Hooker, Vanilla Fudge, The Fugs, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and more all appeared at The Ambassador. Our own Joe Dolan of The Beatnik Flies mopped the floors there. His cousin, Patty made this hoe-down poster.
http://cokinosgirl.blogspot.com/2007/11/ambassador-theater-and-how-it-rocked-dc.html
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OK. Now I understand. Young enough to care but not old enough to know history.
Kajun Gal
Jan 2018
#5
My brother just got me a poster from the Ambassador Theater in Washington, DC, 1967
DFW
Jan 2018
#31
I'm in my 30's and based on references and remembrances, most of DU my parents' age
Amishman
Jan 2018
#37