This was a really good book in that the author takes you behind the senses of rock concerts which for me is a huge difference from the times in the 70s, 80s, and beyond when I was sitting in the audience not knowing what was happening behind the scenes. Here with the interviews from artists, DJs, roadies, promoters, vendors, and even fan club presidents, you get at least a glimpse at what was happening behind the scenes. I found this to be a very good book and very much worth the read.

Five Stars! Fascinating oral history of the rock concert spanning the 1950s through the 1980s as told by the people who were there to witness it. The book is a collection of intertwined interviews from the roadies and performers to the fans and deejays, all coming together to tell the story of live music and everything that goes into bringing it to us. This is so well researched, providing so much information and nostalgia. I learned a lot, especially about all the behind the scenes work that goes into concerts, but I would have liked even more. I'm hoping for a follow-up volume to bring us up to the present day.

I’m very grateful to Grove Atlantic/Grove Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review Rock Concert.

I am a child of the 60s and so this book held a lot of appeal for me. I knew very little of the history of the "rock concert" --I guess I thought it was created for my generation (typical for that age). I found the stories about Elvis especially interesting as he has always been a larger than life character. The anecdote of Bob Dylan going electric at the Newport Folk Festival had an intimacy about it that only someone who was there and experienced could describe. But my favorite part was the description of the Beatles and the bittersweet story of the last concert on the roof. Many of the bands that were mentioned were those from my teens that I had not thought of in almost 50 years. For anyone who was a music fan during this period this is a stroll down memory lane.

Rock Concert
An Oral History as Told by the Artists, Backstage Insiders, and Fans Who Were There
by: Marc Myers
Grove Atlantic, Grove Press

Music lovers will enjoy this interesting account of live musical events from the 1940s to 1980s. This is a very well researched and historically significant book that entertains, educates, and is presented through diverse perspectives. Those of us who love concerts and have the t-shirts to show it can appreciate this look at musical moments over the ages in various venues.
Thank you to Net Galley and Grove Atlantic, Grove Press
for the advance reader's copy and the opportunity to provide my unbiased review.
#RockConcert #NetGalley

Marc Myers embarked upon a herculean task in covering the history and evolution of the rock concert, but he has done so here with aplomb. Inevitably, a history of rock 'n' roll itself comes along with the history of rock concerts, making this title approachable to anyone from novices to amateur music historians and beyond. Rather than focusing on a specific genre or era like other oral histories I've read (punk rock, hard rock/heavy metal, MTV, the New York scene in the early '00s), Myers broadens his scope from nascent rock 'n' roll in the 1950s and small club gigs to the larger-than-life Live Aid shows. However, I did think it a bit odd that there was little to no talk of punk. Still, there are seemingly seamless transitions between the various eras and iterations of rock concerts covered (with just a little bit of help from the author). Though perhaps a bit more editing was in order as it certainly took some getting used to when one person's oral bit would span several paragraphs or pages; a marked change from other oral histories.

Despite the hard stop at Live Aid in '85 and the epilogue to cover everything since, I'll await a part two, Beyond Live Aid, or something like that. Just give me all the oral histories.

Thanks to the Grove marketing team for the galley. (And sorry it took me so long!)

An incredibly well=researched book -- it is an oral history with an amazing variety of interviews that spans decades. The variety of interviews is amazing - from performers, to promoters, to roadies, to fan club presidents. It made me nostalgic for some of the first rock concerts I attended in the 1970's and 1980"s in particular and I have a newfound appreciation to the 'behind-the-scenes" logistics and sound and stage design as technology and audiences got more sophisticated. There were many famous concerts referenced (such as Woodstock) which I know more about because of the famous documentary film as well as other histories of the festival - but I learned new information in Marc Myers' book. I also learned about festivals such as Wattstax which I am embarrassed to say I did not know about and there is a film about this festival as well I now learned. This book is an immensely enjoyable read.

I highly recommend this book!

While I don't remember the shows from the 50's, I do remember them starting with the Beatles first visit to my city! I was too young to go, but started paying attention. Neil Youngwas the first on my radar- he played a small club in my city and no one would take me. My first comcert and club gloing began about a year later! Those were the day. This book fills in a lot of info I knew little about from those days- from the entertainers pov and behind the scene stories I never heard about. Trip down memory lane as I have seen some of the performers interviewed for this book. I miss live shows, but by the 80's music had become so corporate, even fm radio had sold out. I miss the 70's. Music these days is so generic.... This book would make a great gift for fans of old time rock and roll!

Subtitled: An Oral History As Told by the Artists, Backstage Insiders, and Fans Who Were There

I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Rock Concert traces the development of rock and roll by detailing the history of rock concerts from the time they were largely promoted by radio disc jockeys in the early 1950s through the mid-80s. A secondary focus is the role of rock and roll in integrating the youth of various races in those early days when housing, economic, and educational segregation kept blacks and white separated. The rebellious youth of the 1950s listened to the same music on the radio, and went to concerts to see they favorite musicians perform live.


Like many economic endeavors, the early rock concerts were seat-of-the-pants productions with a lot of different approaches regarding promotion, choice of venues, etc. As time went on, people who specialized in concert promotion pushed aside the DJs and managed most of the concert business in terms of negotiating with venues, selling tickets, etc. On the artists’ side, talent agencies emerged to coordinate booking acts, travel, etc. on the behalf of the musicians.

The book focused on a few specific acts to explore their effects on the concert business: Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, and several others. There was also a large section addressing festivals such as Woodstock, the Newport Jazz/Pop festivals, and the Monterey Pop festival among them. The book stopped after 1985’s Live Aid concerts because of how corporate money came to control the concert industry.

I gave Rock Concert five stars on Goodreads. I learned a lot about how the music business operated in the early days of rock and roll and the era of music festivals that peaked in the 1960s while also featuring shedding additional light on dozens of musical performers along the way.

I think that oral stories of rock are amongst the most interesting books about rock as they talk about reality, relationships amongst musicians and how they lived.
This is an interesting story about how concerts evolved told by who played.
It's an excellent book, recommended to anyone who loves rock music.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Grove Atlantic for an advanced copy of this new oral history on music.

Marc Myers in his new book Rock Concert: An Oral History as Told by the Artists, Backstage Insiders, and Fans Who Were There is a comprehensive history on the rise of the concert industry, covering blues, country, jazz and folk, but with strong coverage on the rock music scene. Spanning the century up until the end of the 1990's the book orates on the large concerts, the small festival shows, and the growth of a new industry and how it presented music to the masses.

Oral history as always been interesting to read since each person has a different view of how, what and why. There is not so much controversy in this book as in other musical oral histories I've read as there are less egos to be damaged and less claim to fame. Describing how a concert once went from little pickups shows outside of stores to needing 20 semis full of stage apparatus and hundreds or personal to build and run is very captivating.

Mr. Myers has a great mix of interview subjects, with not so much emphasis on the spectacle, but more how the spectacle came to be. I found the technical aspect very entertaining, how did Pink Floyd make the Wall and have it come crashing down so right each night. Or the development of light shows in concerts. Or wireless equipment. I knew these things existed, but not how they were developed and adopted for the concert industry.
The writing is very clear and concise and the flow of the narrative is perfect, with great facts ad tidbits on every page. A neat book with a different view of the music scene, one that is important and is great that it is getting its due. A perfect book for music lovers, and those interested in theater arts. Highly recommended.

I first want to thank Grove Atlantic Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC of this book- Rock Concert. I also want to thank Marc Myers for writing it. I loved this book. This is absolutely my favorite type of non fiction- an oral history of an event , or series of events, which takes testimony , if you will, from people directly involved. This is an extremely well written book.It is well researched and thoroughly investigated. The world of rock concerts is a twisty, involved path, from the early Rock and Roll shows put on by Alan Freed, through Woodstock, the Newport Jazz Festival, to Live Aid.It doesn't only talk about the big shows, but looks at how the entire genre evolved. The author talked to producers, artists, managers and technical staff. It is such a well written and well thought out book. I highly recommend his to everyone, people who have an historical interest in the beginnings of the concert era, fans of music and those with a casual interest in the inner workings of the business. It is a must read.

An interesting oral history of the (American) Rock Concert. While it goes beyond the strict definition of 'rock' - particularly within the early chapters there's a lot of detail around blues/ jazz, it does centre around American Rock. The 'inside' stories add a personal element and the range of music covered is impressive. It's a book to dip into rather than read cover-to-cover but sure to be of interest to music fans of several eras.

In the same moulds as the iconic Please Kill Me, Rock Concert is a very dynamic overview of live music history. It’s a series of (ninety!) interviews intertwined to create cohesive storytelling that covers from the ’50s to Live Aid.
The result is a vivid and up-close look at the main events that shaped live music as it is today. There’s the freedom and the sort of “everything will work out in the end” feeling that Woodstock invoked, but also the impact and brutality of the Altamont Free Concert.
Although it’s mainly focused on live concerts, it also offers glimpses of how the music business evolved, how artists’ started branding themselves (i.e. how and why The Rolling Stones ended up with their Hot Lips logo), and the impact MTV had on music. An instant classic, especially now that live shows are not 100% normal (more as 0% in Brazil ): ).

ROCK HISTORY is a much needed oral history of live music concerts in America. From the outset in the early 50’s when the music performed was mostly jazz or blues, music promoters faced an uphill battle against racism and rock & jazz phobia. This book is lively, funny and vivid. How I wish I could go back in time and witness rock & roll history being made.

Excellent account of the experience of seeing live music, up the the Live Aid era. A good account of the social, financial and cultural changes behind the different eras of live gigs. Worth noting that it is very much the American rock concert discussed rather than any other country but still fascinating.

This is great book and oral history about the development of live gigs and touring from 1950-1985. Some new voices here and not the usual suspects. How music went from small club shows to bigger auditoriums and sound systems and festivals. From the early days of rock and roll to the MTV period.