Austin has a great music history from it's '60's origins with KAZZ FM and Sonogram Records spinning The Thirteenth Floor Elevators and The Sweetarts to The Vulcan Gas Co., Janis Joplin and Johnny Winter. The 70's saw that sweet mingling of cowboy and hippy called "Outlaw" at The Armadillo and Oat Willies to the early punk scene at Raul's, Duke's Royal Coach Inn, Club Foot, Studio 29. It's been a great ride and made Austin the live music capital of the world. Enjoy a memory or two from our ticket archives. A paper testament to Austin's music history.
| Date: | Tuesday, October 28, 1975 |
| Artist: | Rush  |
| Venue: | Randy's Rodeo , San Antonio TX. - This venue on Bandera Rd. was made most famous by the Sex Pistols show there 1/8/78. |
| Ticket Price: | $ 4.50 |
This ticket was sent to me by Mark Gierth. Mark's father owned a rock and roll club called Charlie's Quarter Place in Universal City (just east of San Antonio). He did a lot of advertising on a radio station called KISS-FM, a hard rock outlet at the center of San Antonio's thriving heavy metal community. One of the DJs, Lou Roney, was tight with Mark's father:
"Lou told my dad about a Canadian band that needed a place to play in San Antonio, so Lou and my dad co-promoted the band at Randy's Rodeo. The band was, of course, Rush! The night of the show, so many people came out that there was a near riot outside, and the show went on great. My brother, myself, my dad, and Lou all went with Rush to a pizza place, smoked dope, ate pizza, and played a few pinball and video games. Video games were rather scarce back then, but Neil Pert and I played a few together. Since then, my father and brother have kept in contact with them, and we are going again to see them this year."
I could not find this concert on any of the Rush tour date archive sites . It seems it was not a part of an official tour. Rush played some early gigs , then toured first in the US from 5/18/74 to 12/25/74 promoting their first album RUSH. They opened for Rare Earth, Rainbow Canyon, Eastwind, Sweetleaf, KISS, Law, Uriah Heep, Rory Gallagher, and Sha-Na-Na during that tour. Their second US tour was 2/14/75 to 6/29/75 promoting FLY BY NIGHT their very successful second album. This tour they opend for Sky King, Kiss, The Kidds, The Tubes, and Aerosmith. There was a Texas date - February 25, 1975 - Sylvan Beach Pavilion. La Porte, Texas (guest for Steve Long Group). But this was a full 8 months before the Randy's date. Their next official tour 11/7/75 to 1/10/76 was their Down the Tubes tour promoting their third album CARESS OF STEEL. This tour they opend for Kiss and Mott the Hoople, and then became the feature act and were opened by Ted Nugent, Artful Dodger, and Joe Mendelsson.
The Randy's show was between tour 2 and 3 but was after the release of Caress of Steel (September 1975), so the Randy's crowd likely got an early listen to some of the tunes from that album. Heyoka opend for Rush that night, a great original music local rock 'n roll band that had some pretty good staying power. I saw Heyoka many times as a teen ager in and around S.A.
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