Rock Dream Opens at Night - The Pinnacle of Rock from My Youth was at California Jam!

In 1970, which was more than half a century ago, the whole country was hot for Keiko Fuji’s, mother of Hikaru Utada, big hit “Keiko’s Dream Opens at Night”. The melody is still instantly recognizable. Keiko Fuji was such a great singer who continued on the road to success that her death is so tragic. I wonder if she ever had her own “dream opened at night.” At that time, my own dream was also beginning to open at night, and I suddenly realized that it was a rock dream.

Throughout my long and short life, I was first exposed to rock music when I was still in junior high school, also around 1970. It was the Showa Era (1926-1989) when even vinyl records were not widely available. For some reason, my father, who came home about one day a month, brought home records with an old song called “Kojo no Tsuki (The Moon over the Ruined Castle Ruins)”, a nursery rhyme “Tsuki no Sabaku (The Desert under the Moon)” and an Elvis Presley album. I listened to them on my newly purchased old-fashioned record player. This led one day to a recommendation by a classmate to buy an album by a band called Led Zeppelin, a band I had never heard of. The first song on that record was “Immigrant Song”. I remember listening to that song at night and being horrified.

I still remember that the rock dream did not open at night, but rather I was struck by fear. I was indeed scared. That beatific riff played by the guitar, and the sickening cry of “ah-ahhh, ah” from the vocalist. When I listened to this album at night, that voice would stick in my mind and I would get scared and not be able to sleep. This was my first encounter with rock music.

Later, in the summer of 1972, when I went to the U.S. for a short-term study abroad program, although I was still in junior high school, I was placed in a boarding house and was surrounded by a number of Japanese university students. While living among these seniors, I was attracted to the music they were listening to. The name of the band was Creedence Clearwater Revival. That was quite a long name for a band. I was fascinated not only by their hit song, “Bad Moon Rising”, which was very easy to listen to, but also by a song called ”Cotton Fields”, which had really difficult lyrics, but they always stuck in my ears. Even though I couldn’t understand the lyrics at the time, I found myself humming the words all the time, and before I knew it, I had memorized them and was singing along. It was a time when rock music grew in my heart.

Then, when I became a high school student and studied tennis abroad, for some reason, I started to get into music. When I think of music, I think of rock. As a child, I played the piano and became accustomed to listening to classical music, especially waltzes by Johann Strauss, which I enjoyed very much. However, when I became a high school student, my tastes immediately turned to rock. Then, by chance, I came into contact with Deep Purple’s Made in Japan. That moment shocked and moved me so much to the point where it completely changed the course of my high school years, and I was quickly inspired by hard rock.

In California, you could get a car license from the age of 15 and a half, and many high school students drive their own cars to school. I myself got a license right away and was driving to school as soon as I turned 16. While driving, I was always humming to rock music, and I was always listening to Deep Purple’s Live in Japan. In 1974, California Jam, one of the greatest rock concerts of all time, took place, and I wasn’t about to miss what would become one of the biggest rock festivals in history. I traveled with five of my classmates to attend the concert.

California Jam was a parade of the most popular bands that dominated the scene at the time, including Deep Purple, Earth, Wind & Fire, Black Sabbath, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and somehow 250,000 people attended. I was so happy to be there. It seems like a dream now that I was actually there. This unimaginably huge concert was an extension of my rock dream that began with my first encounter with Deep Purple’s music.

I remember the day of the concert being a very cold day for California. And, to my own lack of preparedness, it was so cold that I drank too many beers while I was wrapped in the blankets I had brought. The highway was jammed for dozens of kilometers. People had no choice but to get out of their cars at different spots to urinate. I wondered if it was a dream or if I was actually one of them.

When we arrived at the concert venue, the place was filled with enthusiasm. After several hours of watching bands perform on stage, Deep Purple finally appeared on stage. It was truly a rock dream come true. However, my own memories began to fade around the time that the great guitarist Ritchie Blackmore took the stage. I remember that Deep Purple did not start playing until well into the night. And as the night wore on, the California Jam experience faded from my mind like a haze. What a waste. The greatest historical event in the history of rock after Woodstock had just become a splash in the pan in the back of my mind.

I was definitely at California Jam. I am proud to say that I was one of the few Japanese who were there to see everything. After all, this was exactly 50 years ago, and I wonder how many Japanese who went and saw California Jam are still alive and well. Perhaps, I’m one of the last to have been there, but I’m still holding onto this rock dream.