Monday, July 6, 2009

May 12, 1967 Marigold Ballroom, Fresno, CA: Grateful Dead/Road Runners


Dead.net shows the Dead playing Fresno on Thursday May 11, but in fact the show was May 12 (two shows 9:45 and 11:15). David Hale reviewed the show fairly favorably (for a 1967 daily paper). He mentions the songs “Golden Road, “New, New Minglewood Blues” and “Viola Lee Blues,” but his language doesn’t make it certain that they actually played them.

(The excerpt is from David Hale's review in the Fresno Bee on May 13, 1967)

11 comments:

  1. FYI, I found a "confirmed" location for the Marigold Ballroom. I found a photo at Yelp pulled from the Quality Concession Trailers website. The caption for the photo says "Our 9,000sf building used to be the Marigold Ballroom and the Grateful Dead & Jefferson Airplane played here in the 60's!" I can't find the photo at the actual QCT website so Yelp must be pulling it from an old version of the website. The photo is on Yelp as of 9/4/13.

    Note that the address for QCT is 1828 E Hedges Ave, but the building in the photo is across the street.

    Of course, they may be wrong about their building but based on earlier research I did, this is the location within a block or two.

    Photo at Yelp: http://tinyurl.com/pzcgvuk
    Quality Concession Trailers (no, it's not a plug :): http://www.qualityconcessiontrailers.com/

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  2. LOL! I just discovered that you have the exact address (1833 E. Hedges) in your April 2012 post on Selland Arena shows. Where did you get the address? It's not on the handbills.

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  3. Some years ago when I started this research, I used to write everything down that I found on the web. Some relatively old documents that I have contain all this information. In a number of cases, some information from older, Geocities type websites has now disappeared.

    So I don't know where I got it specifically, but its on one of my Word doc venue lists, and some of that information can't seem to be accessed anymore. Nonetheless, it's good to have it confirmed.

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  4. Yeah - vice versa for me - good to have two sources to confirm it. I also found a couple pics of a local band playing there in 66 or 67 though it doesn't really show you what the inside was like. But I found another recent photo where a guy is working on something and they point out the alcove behind him where the stage used to be. I'll put them up on my blog...uh...someday...

    The official GD Online Archive has a section with all the venues pinpointed in GoogleMaps except there are a few where it says it's only a general location and ask for help with the coordinates. The MB was one so I sent them the coordinates (as I did for a couple others).

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  5. I think I found your source for the Marigold's address - Art of Rock has a Charlatans poster with the address on it.

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  7. The quality concessions trailer building is the actual site - still has the parquet floor inside from the 60's. The Marigold was owned by Pete Argain who still lives in Fresno at the age of 96

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  8. The quality concessions trailer building is the actual site - still has the parquet floor inside from the 60's. The Marigold was owned by Pete Argain who still lives in Fresno at the age of 96

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  9. I attended the show and I was there early. I was one of the few people in Fresno with long hair. The Greatful Dead came up to me in the ballroom parking lot and asked if this was the place. I showed them to the door right away knowing they shouldn't walk around Fresno after dark looking like they did. Great show. Low key crowd though.

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  10. I walked through the Marigold two or three years ago with the owner and he said he used to go to the shows and told several stores of it back in the day the inside is very close to the way it was back in the day the small stage would have been very tight and the stairs to get up are right to the side with a door very strange or different than any thing Ive seen before new owner pull up floor and sold chandler I just looked at it online on a auction site. not sure if its sold art deco stile looking right now at 25 of the posters from the Marigold framed with I could find more LOVE them, Rocky was a good friends brother in law better go

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