Of all the music venues in the Bay Area that have closed, it is Stanford's Frost Amphitheater that I miss the most. During the 70's and early 80's, it was possible to see all manner of great artists very cheaply and in an acoustically excellent venue. My good friend Dana Jang was also able to get us in the photographer's pit in front of the stage more often than not. At top is Eric Clapton with Carlos Santana sitting in on "Eyesight To The Blind" from Tommy. I still have an old cassette of the show around somewhere. Nice bellbottoms Carlos! This was in August of 1975. I'm too lazy to look up the dates of the other shows, but they were memorable nonetheless. Below Clapton is Boz Scaggs who I saw numerous times, mostly in small clubs all over the Bay Area. Another favorite of mine at the time was Dave Mason, off on a solo career after a stint in Traffic, before he got sappy. Next up is David Crosby and Graham Nash with the great David Lindley on slide guitar. The bottom two shots are of Levon Helm, the recently deceased drummer for The Band and an outstanding singer as well, and bassist Rick Danko and lead guitarist Robbie Robertson, with Richard Manuel playing keyboards in the background. The only photographic concept I understood all those years ago was shutter speed. Controlling depth-of-field was beyond my ability, if I even knew what it was. Frost Amphitheater is still there on campus, it just isn't used much for whatever reason.
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