California Jam Festival

Lore & Background

The Eagles took the stage at the California Jam as part of a lineup that included Rare Earth, Earth, Wind & Fire, Seals and Crofts, Black Oak Arkansas, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. The event was MC'd by New York DJ Don Imus. For the Eagles' set, Jackson Browne was deputized for absent guitarist Don Felder, whose wife was giving birth to their first child. The festival was produced by ABC Entertainment, Sandy Feldman and Leonard Stogel, and coordinated by Pacific Presentations. The weather on the day of the concert was unusually warm for April, and at one point thousands of plastic gallon jugs were handed out to the audience, who filled them at drinking fountains set up on the grounds.

In Their Own Story

The Eagles performed at the California Jam on April 6, 1974, at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, California. Because guitarist Don Felder was absent—his wife was giving birth to their first child—Jackson Browne was deputized to play in his place. The festival ran on a tight schedule, with stage sets on rails allowing rapid changeovers, and the event actually ran ahead of time. Deep Purple, who had been given the choice of when to go on stage, chose sunset, pushing Emerson, Lake & Palmer to the last performance. Deep Purple delayed their appearance even when the festival ran ahead of schedule, making concertgoers wait nearly an hour until near dusk. During that delay, restless concertgoers began tossing their water jugs in the air, filling the air above the crowd with hundreds of flying jugs spraying water.

Reader's Guide

The California Jam is widely analyzed as one of the most well-executed and financially successful rock festivals of its era, presaging the era of media consolidation and the corporatization of the rock music industry. The festival set records for the largest paid attendance at such an event—Circus reported 'more than 175,000 paid admissions' at $10 in advance or $15 at the gate—and for the largest concert sound system ever assembled, totaling 54,000 watts RMS. The Eagles' performance was part of a lineup that also included Deep Purple, whose performance was one of the first with their third line-up featuring vocalist David Coverdale and vocalist/bassist Glenn Hughes. The festival was broadcast on TV and radio nationwide in the US, and Deep Purple's California Jam performance was the first full-length music concert recording to be released and sold on video tape in the early 1980s.

Did You Know?

• For the Eagles' set, Jackson Browne was deputized for absent guitarist Don Felder, whose wife was giving birth to their first child.
• The festival set a record for the largest paid attendance at such an event, with Circus reporting 'more than 175,000 paid admissions' at $10 in advance or $15 at the gate.
• The sound system was the largest ever assembled at the time, totaling 54,000 watts RMS, with two 50-foot-high speaker towers.
• Deep Purple's performance was one of the first with their third line-up, which included vocalist David Coverdale and vocalist/bassist Glenn Hughes.
• The Goodyear blimp hovering overhead was a first for a music festival.