By Alan Schaefer
Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University
Juan Montoya
In the waning days of the summer of 1974, several of us who were attending summer classes at Texas Southmost College heard about the megaconcert being planned at Texas Stadium in Austin.
Coach Royal didn’t believe Leff’s claim that perhaps 10 or 20,000 would show up. But the stadium filled to capacity and then some. The BBQ ran out, and then it seemed like potable water might, too, which was a bit of an issue on a sunny Labor Day weekend in Texas.
Cocker was loaded when he sang his set, but no one could tell the difference. And of course, ZZ Top sizzled to close the show past 10 p.m.
In the waning days of the summer of 1974, several of us who were attending summer classes at Texas Southmost College heard about the megaconcert being planned at Texas Stadium in Austin.
ZZ Top would be there, as would be Santana, Bad Company and Joe Cocker. Three of us were at TSC were in our early 20s, and we took a friend, a longhair named John Bassett, the son of a missionary to Mexico who shared our love for the hippie lifestyle, and who was a fluent bilingual who spoke Spanish better than we did having grown up in the ranchos and ejidos of Tamaulipas around Victoria.
The event was billed as “ZZ Top’s First Annual Texas-Sized Rompin’ Stompin’ Barndance and Bar B.Q.” The price of admission was $10 at the stadium gate. Even though we had no car, we were undaunted and we each stuffed a backpack with an extra set of clothes and a toothbrush, a snack, and we stuck out our thumb on the expressway. Two rides and seven hours later, we were in Austin.
We didn't know it at the time, but approximately 80,000 other hard rock fans filled the stadium and its newl-placed Astroturf under a mighty Texas sun for the first and only "ZZTop Barndance.” Later we learned that other kids from Brownsville were also there, including Emilio Crixell, who would later form the Connectors with Joey Tamayo, Albert Besteiro, and Freddie Longoria who started their musical careers in humble venues like Brownsville's Amber Pub or Joe Schull's' New Rising Sun across Central Blvd.
According to writer Shaefer, the seeds of the concert were planted in 1973 when UT student government was facing budget cuts. He wrote that student government financial director Barry Leff devised a plan to throw a fundraising concert, and he set his sights on the mighty Memorial Stadium.
According to writer Shaefer, the seeds of the concert were planted in 1973 when UT student government was facing budget cuts. He wrote that student government financial director Barry Leff devised a plan to throw a fundraising concert, and he set his sights on the mighty Memorial Stadium.
But first, there was one man who had to approve of its use: University of Texas football coach and winner of multiple national championships Darrell K Royal. An already legendary figure on the Forty Acres, Coach Royal approved the plan thinking it would never actually come to fruition. Further, UT itself had to contend with Bill Ham, ZZ Top’s tough-as-nails manager.
The upstart Leff, who eventually pursued a lengthy concert promotion career, assembled the heavyweight lineup, anchored by ZZ Top riding high off the success of the album Tres Hombres. Bill Narum, the Houston-born artist and countercultural bon vivant, who would go on to serve as ZZ Top’s art director, designed the concert poster.
At any given time, a lit joint would appear after being passed from either side of of where we were seating. You puffed and passed it down the road. Things were different in those days.
The show went off into the late hours, with the fans treated to an onstage appearance of legendary Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page joining Bad Company to the pleasure of the crowd. Santana kept us waiting in the sweltering heat until just the right moment when the sun was setting in the west and Carlos Santana came on with his trademark lead of Black Magic Woman guitar intro echoing through the dying rays of the sun.
Just when we thought things couldn't get better, we walked over to a theater on Sixth Street to catch a movie and found ourselves in line to watch Andy Warhol's Frankenstein in 3D. We thought the 3D was a dud until it started to snow all around us in the dark theater. A collective gasp went up from the audience as the bizarre cult movie wowed everyone.
Blood spurts and gushes from the neck stump as huge scissors cut someone's head. A fish glides then stops suspended in midair (water?), turns around and faces you and puckers its lips as you look through an aquarium in the middle of Frankenstein's laboratory watching the doctor and his guests go down a stairway on the other side. Cool, dude!
Later we learned that some damage to the hallowed ground for Longhorn football had occurred to the Astroturf during the concert, mainly burns from marihuana roaches dropped by fans who were on the field. Still, the university would never open the stadium gates wide for rockers again, and this first annual Barndance and BBQ was also the last.
The ZZ Top album Fandango! commemorated the epic day with a photo insert of the full stadium, captioned: “Austin Summer ’74 with 80,000 friends.”
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