Merriweather Post Pavillion is my all time very favorite concert venue. Been to see The Allman Brothers Band (multiple times!), Steve Miller Band, Power Station, Phil Collins solo, Paul Rodgers and his Muddy Waters Blue Band Tour with Journey's Neil Schon, The Doobie Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, 38 Special, 1994's All Day Horde Festival, Foreigner, Jeff Healey, and many more! Through DC 101 I won back stage meet and greet in 1989 with the Allman Brothers Band (my favorite music artist) and their then 25th Anniversary Tour and Dreams Box Set Reunion Tour and met the entire band including Gregg Allman! and was escorted to the meet and greet after a marvelous deli & fruit and cheese buffet by Young Dave Brown and Steve Sutton (and his wife Harriett) 2 of my favorite DJ's at DC101! and got autographs from the band and talked about their music and geeky instrument cool stuff with the band! (my most memorable and magical night ever!), I won backstage meet and greet and Catered DINNER backstage at the Steve Miller Band show in 1993 and got to see the band playing basketball backstage after dinner! and more recently I have been attending the Merriweather Chrysalis stage on the lawn and have seen The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Maryland Winds! Just so many magical memories!
The first date with my husband was to Merriweather to see Peter, Paul and Mary in 1970. I saw Johnny Cash and his whole entourage in 1972 with my in-laws. Both were awesome concerts.
I moved to Baltimore in 1992, and I have seen Jackson Browne, Kenny G, and Liza Minnelli at Merriweather and love the diverse shows it provides. I'm looking for to sharing the venue again with friends when I move back to Baltimore at the end of the year.
Fun Fact - if you take a look at the liner notes for Jackson Browne's Running On Empty album, you'll see that the title track that we've all heard a bazillion times on the radio was indeed recorded live at Merriweather Post Pavilion during the summer of '77 😊😊
In addition to the songs recorded at Merriweather, the first three minutes of The Road was recorded in a hotel room at the then Cross Keys Inn in Columbia.
I've attended literally dozens of concerts at Merriweather over the years. Mostly back in the 70's and 80's when concerts were like $7.50 a ticket. The thing we loved the most about the place back then was that you were able to bring your own coolers in with alcohol, chairs, blankets, whatever. We used to stop by 7-11 on the way there and grab a couple of those 2 1/2 gallon jugs of fruit punch and we'd put a 5th of 190 proof pure grain alcohol in each one. That stuff went down smooth and was real refreshing gettin buzzed out on the lawn while the music played. I have great memories of the place. I'm sure its completely different now.
I saw Meatloaf and Jimmy Buffett there. It was back when I had just joined the Army and was stationed in the area. We never got acts going through where I had lived before. I spent my money on my car, to get to MPP, and concert tickets. That was a great time of my life.
I started going to MWPP in the 80's as a teen. The complete (diverse) list of artist I have seen there is too long for a comment but a few highlights over the past 3+ decades (no particular order): Jimmy Buffett, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath Reunion, Heaven and Hell, Megadeth, Earl Thomas Conely, Oak Ridge Boys, Rick Springfield, Kenny G, Michael Bolton, Train, Goo-Goo Dolls, Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Poison, David Lee Roth, Chuck Berry, Til Tuesday...holy moly and many more. Amazingly I have not made it down for the annual glam rock fest; M3, so need to hit that bucket list. Still my fave venue to see shows!
Were you at the Gutterflower GGD concert with Third Eye Blind and Counting Crows? That was the one when the entrance curtain broke and couldn't be retracted after the Goo Goo Dolls came on stage to Big Machine.
I’m the Baltimore Heritage Board Member who offered up The Grateful Dead stubs in the video and was there when filmed. So much fun. Ian Kennedy is a super great guy and so passionate about all things MPP. I saw Chicago there in 82. Also saw Zappa the B52s.
I was at the Jimi Hendrix concert in August of 1968 and remember well the thunder storm! Also saw Joni Mitchell there in the early 70's when she was at the peak of her powers! Fond memories, both.
I have been coming to MWPP for so many years that I can't remember all of the shows! I started going there in the mid-80s when I moved to Columbia and have seen everything from hair metal bands to Bette Midler to most recently Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top. So many great memories of being at the shows and camping out in the woods listening to shows when I was a broke teenager :-) Oh, then there's the Lilith Fair where it rained buckets so I had to get trash bags to cover myself. Fun times for sure! Many memories made.
Maryland has another connection to a great cereal magnate of the era, and rival to C.W. Post: Henry Perky. Perky invented Shredded Wheat, with an assist from his friend Henry Ford on the design the machine that wove wheat into biscuits. The third cereal titan of the era, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg tried to buy-out Perky. Perky refused, but when Kellogg threatened to duplicate his product, Perky's board forced him to sell. A defeated Henry retired and built Filston Manor on a 6,000-acre estate he assembled on Glencoe Road in Sparks, just up the hill from Oldfield's School...the where Wallis Simpson the future Duchess of Windsor would enroll ten years after Perky moved into his Maryland manor home, and five years after his death. Perky died broke. No music venue connections here, but a good tale worthy of a future five minute history story perhaps.
Thanks for this, the memories started flooding back! I was at that concert with Tiny Tim, the Amboy Dukes and Friend & Lover. At the time the only things that impressed me were sitting on the lawn (next to one of the big trees that were there back then) and the fact that it was only five minutes from my house. Wish I had saved ticket stubs from the shows back in the 60's but I kept portions of a couple of leaflets (one signed by members of the Cowsills). A famous duo was there the night before Hendrix: Simon & Garfunkel. I wasn't yet a big fan but a friend suggested we go and in retrospect glad that we did. Wanted to see Hendrix the next night, my parents said no, but drove me up near the gate so I could listen to some of it from the car. Not much security back before the fence crashing at The Who/Zeppelin show in '69. I didn't attend but over 20,000 people showed up which was way beyond capacity. Some people were trampled on but no fatalities as in Cincinnati ten years later. By 1970 there were tarp-like coverings over the seats to the sides of the main pavilion. I remember people climbing on them during the Steppenwolf concert and dropping stuff throught the seams. There's a few historical summaries of Merriweather online but I'd love to see a comprehensive listing of all the artists that performed there.
Back in 2001 (10-18-2001 to be exact), my ex-wife and I went there to attend the Haunted Woods attraction. It was our official first date. Super scary and so much fun. Kind of like the 20 year marriage ride;) LOL
Can you believe I saw Frank Sinatra here! His son conducted the orchestra and his wife was in the audience. On a sad note we waited 3 Covid years to finally see Rod Stewart- only to have people in front of us standing on their seats- or with such big cowboy hats there was no seeing around them and yes we were in the expensive seats!
Clearly this was preplanned but so apropos this week to the memory to Jimmy Buffet. Also ironic since Bed, Bath and Beyond just shut its doors last month and was used on a t-shirt to help save Merriweather Post from being closed.
I saw the Hendrix concert in 1968. It was amazing. There was a lighting storm to the west which made the entire scene surreal. Hey, Johns, I went to Calvert Hall in the 60's and, I don't know how they pulled it off, but during my time there we had dances - not concerts - that included Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations and the Four Tops, Dionne Warwick, Little Anthony and the Imperials and best of all Otis Redding, one of the highlights of my life! Was there a connection to Carr's Beach by any chance? Did we get these amazing performers on Friday nights before the played on Saturday nights at Carr's?
Merriweather Post Pavillion is my all time very favorite concert venue. Been to see The Allman Brothers Band (multiple times!), Steve Miller Band, Power Station, Phil Collins solo, Paul Rodgers and his Muddy Waters Blue Band Tour with Journey's Neil Schon, The Doobie Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, 38 Special, 1994's All Day Horde Festival, Foreigner, Jeff Healey, and many more! Through DC 101 I won back stage meet and greet in 1989 with the Allman Brothers Band (my favorite music artist) and their then 25th Anniversary Tour and Dreams Box Set Reunion Tour and met the entire band including Gregg Allman! and was escorted to the meet and greet after a marvelous deli & fruit and cheese buffet by Young Dave Brown and Steve Sutton (and his wife Harriett) 2 of my favorite DJ's at DC101! and got autographs from the band and talked about their music and geeky instrument cool stuff with the band! (my most memorable and magical night ever!), I won backstage meet and greet and Catered DINNER backstage at the Steve Miller Band show in 1993 and got to see the band playing basketball backstage after dinner! and more recently I have been attending the Merriweather Chrysalis stage on the lawn and have seen The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Maryland Winds! Just so many magical memories!
Wow you have seen (and met) some amazing musicians!
The first date with my husband was to Merriweather to see Peter, Paul and Mary in 1970. I saw Johnny Cash and his whole entourage in 1972 with my in-laws. Both were awesome concerts.
That's an incredible first date. And we wish we could've seen Johnny Cash there too.
I moved to Baltimore in 1992, and I have seen Jackson Browne, Kenny G, and Liza Minnelli at Merriweather and love the diverse shows it provides. I'm looking for to sharing the venue again with friends when I move back to Baltimore at the end of the year.
Glad you are returning to Baltimore!
Thanks for explaining why that Animal Collective album is called like that
Great place to see a concert. Got many memories from there. Even managed to go backstage to meet the late, great, Jimmy Buffett.
Wow--that must have been amazing.
Fun Fact - if you take a look at the liner notes for Jackson Browne's Running On Empty album, you'll see that the title track that we've all heard a bazillion times on the radio was indeed recorded live at Merriweather Post Pavilion during the summer of '77 😊😊
Great factoid!
Load Out/Stay is also famously known to be from Merriweather Post.
In addition to the songs recorded at Merriweather, the first three minutes of The Road was recorded in a hotel room at the then Cross Keys Inn in Columbia.
Parts of that album was. I was at that concert
I've attended literally dozens of concerts at Merriweather over the years. Mostly back in the 70's and 80's when concerts were like $7.50 a ticket. The thing we loved the most about the place back then was that you were able to bring your own coolers in with alcohol, chairs, blankets, whatever. We used to stop by 7-11 on the way there and grab a couple of those 2 1/2 gallon jugs of fruit punch and we'd put a 5th of 190 proof pure grain alcohol in each one. That stuff went down smooth and was real refreshing gettin buzzed out on the lawn while the music played. I have great memories of the place. I'm sure its completely different now.
Elton John was another great show. Thanks for sharing the history 😊
I saw Meatloaf and Jimmy Buffett there. It was back when I had just joined the Army and was stationed in the area. We never got acts going through where I had lived before. I spent my money on my car, to get to MPP, and concert tickets. That was a great time of my life.
I started going to MWPP in the 80's as a teen. The complete (diverse) list of artist I have seen there is too long for a comment but a few highlights over the past 3+ decades (no particular order): Jimmy Buffett, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath Reunion, Heaven and Hell, Megadeth, Earl Thomas Conely, Oak Ridge Boys, Rick Springfield, Kenny G, Michael Bolton, Train, Goo-Goo Dolls, Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Poison, David Lee Roth, Chuck Berry, Til Tuesday...holy moly and many more. Amazingly I have not made it down for the annual glam rock fest; M3, so need to hit that bucket list. Still my fave venue to see shows!
So awesome that you have been to so many shows there!
Were you at the Gutterflower GGD concert with Third Eye Blind and Counting Crows? That was the one when the entrance curtain broke and couldn't be retracted after the Goo Goo Dolls came on stage to Big Machine.
I took my niece to her first concert here, Def Leppard around 1990.
I’m the Baltimore Heritage Board Member who offered up The Grateful Dead stubs in the video and was there when filmed. So much fun. Ian Kennedy is a super great guy and so passionate about all things MPP. I saw Chicago there in 82. Also saw Zappa the B52s.
Thanks again for your help, Will!
I was at the Jimi Hendrix concert in August of 1968 and remember well the thunder storm! Also saw Joni Mitchell there in the early 70's when she was at the peak of her powers! Fond memories, both.
Wow--you got to see two fabulous performers there. Thanks for sharing
I have been coming to MWPP for so many years that I can't remember all of the shows! I started going there in the mid-80s when I moved to Columbia and have seen everything from hair metal bands to Bette Midler to most recently Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top. So many great memories of being at the shows and camping out in the woods listening to shows when I was a broke teenager :-) Oh, then there's the Lilith Fair where it rained buckets so I had to get trash bags to cover myself. Fun times for sure! Many memories made.
Maryland has another connection to a great cereal magnate of the era, and rival to C.W. Post: Henry Perky. Perky invented Shredded Wheat, with an assist from his friend Henry Ford on the design the machine that wove wheat into biscuits. The third cereal titan of the era, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg tried to buy-out Perky. Perky refused, but when Kellogg threatened to duplicate his product, Perky's board forced him to sell. A defeated Henry retired and built Filston Manor on a 6,000-acre estate he assembled on Glencoe Road in Sparks, just up the hill from Oldfield's School...the where Wallis Simpson the future Duchess of Windsor would enroll ten years after Perky moved into his Maryland manor home, and five years after his death. Perky died broke. No music venue connections here, but a good tale worthy of a future five minute history story perhaps.
Thanks for this great story! Who knew Maryland had such cereal history?
I saw Chuck Mangione and then Lizza Minelli. Thanks for sharing these memories and giving us the info about its new life!
Thanks Willy!
I saw the English band Yes and the Eagles were the opening act at MMP This was in August of 1972.
Thanks for this, the memories started flooding back! I was at that concert with Tiny Tim, the Amboy Dukes and Friend & Lover. At the time the only things that impressed me were sitting on the lawn (next to one of the big trees that were there back then) and the fact that it was only five minutes from my house. Wish I had saved ticket stubs from the shows back in the 60's but I kept portions of a couple of leaflets (one signed by members of the Cowsills).
A famous duo was there the night before Hendrix: Simon & Garfunkel. I wasn't yet a big fan but a friend suggested we go and in retrospect glad that we did. Wanted to see Hendrix the next night, my parents said no, but drove me up near the gate so I could listen to some of it from the car. Not much security back before the fence crashing at The Who/Zeppelin show in '69. I didn't attend but over 20,000 people showed up which was way beyond capacity. Some people were trampled on but no fatalities as in Cincinnati ten years later.
By 1970 there were tarp-like coverings over the seats to the sides of the main pavilion. I remember people climbing on them during the Steppenwolf concert and dropping stuff throught the seams.
There's a few historical summaries of Merriweather online but I'd love to see a comprehensive listing of all the artists that performed there.
Columbia my love.
Back in 2001 (10-18-2001 to be exact), my ex-wife and I went there to attend the Haunted Woods attraction. It was our official first date. Super scary and so much fun. Kind of like the 20 year marriage ride;) LOL
Front row Box Scaggs 1976
Wow! Very cool memory.
Can you believe I saw Frank Sinatra here! His son conducted the orchestra and his wife was in the audience. On a sad note we waited 3 Covid years to finally see Rod Stewart- only to have people in front of us standing on their seats- or with such big cowboy hats there was no seeing around them and yes we were in the expensive
seats!
Clearly this was preplanned but so apropos this week to the memory to Jimmy Buffet. Also ironic since Bed, Bath and Beyond just shut its doors last month and was used on a t-shirt to help save Merriweather Post from being closed.
You are right on both fronts. Thanks for pointing that out.
I saw the Hendrix concert in 1968. It was amazing. There was a lighting storm to the west which made the entire scene surreal. Hey, Johns, I went to Calvert Hall in the 60's and, I don't know how they pulled it off, but during my time there we had dances - not concerts - that included Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations and the Four Tops, Dionne Warwick, Little Anthony and the Imperials and best of all Otis Redding, one of the highlights of my life! Was there a connection to Carr's Beach by any chance? Did we get these amazing performers on Friday nights before the played on Saturday nights at Carr's?
Great questions! We are not sure, but can look around. One thing we do know--those performances sound amazing.
@@baltimoreheritage1006 It made it easy for us Hall boys to find dates I tell ya!
Should have discussed how the original roof of the pavilion collapsed.
No mention of the over 15 years of the M3 80's hard rock festivals held there?