We’re trying to wrap our brain around this: Led Zepellin and the Grateful Dead played Green Lake. Seriously, that’s the poster from the Dead show, August 21, 1969 at Seattle’s Green Lake Aqua Theater. Why didn’t we go?!
Right. Not born yet. Of course. Poor timing, then.
The Aqua Theater at Green Lake apparently has a rich history, reaching far earlier than acid rock: others who played its haloed shores include Bert Parks, Bob Hope, Cole Porter, and Sonny and Cher. We know this because Becky Sokolow, whose father produced shows and designed sets for the theater in the 1950s and 1960s, formed Friends of the Aqua Theatre and applied for and received a “small and simple” award from the Neighborhood Matching Fund to chronicle the history made at the site from 1950 to 1964 on interpretive signage.
From Wikipedia:
The Green Lake Aqua Theater was built in 1950 for the first Seafair in order to house an attraction called the Aqua Follies and their “swimusicals”–a combination of aqua ballet, stage dancing, and comedy. The theater included a round stage and floating (though still recessed below the stage) orchestra pit, encircling a section of the lake with high diving platforms on each side. The grandstand was built to a capacity of more than 5,000 seats. The Aqua Follies continued to run during Seafair until 1965. […] After the World’s Fair, summer productions languished (usually blamed on Seattle’s unpredictable weather) until the Aqua Theater was mostly abandoned — a 1969 concert by the Grateful Dead revealed that the grandstand was crumbling and dangerous. Beginning in 1970 the theater was dismantled, stage right now serving as a pedestrian pier and stage left providing dock and storage for crew shells.
There will be an unveiling of said interpretive signage on at 2 pm on Saturday, May 2nd at south end of the lake next to the Green Lake Small Craft Center, 5900 W Green Lake Way N. “Meet some of the former actors, directors, Aqua Dears/Darlings, and divers from this amazing time gone by.”
No word yet from surviving members of the Grateful Dead on rumors of a surprise show (likely because we started said rumors).
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Thanks! for more history photos click on
http://content.lib.washington.edu/imls/kcsnapshots/
And type in “Aqua”
Same for:
http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~public/phot1.htm
I like this one:
http://content.lib.washington.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/imlsmohai&CISOPTR=122&CISOBOX=1&REC=1
I remember standing outside the fence and listening to Led Zeppelin back then. That would have been 9th grade. I think I also heard Three Dog Night, too, but it has been a while. The Aqua Follies water diving shows there in the ’60s were a lot of fun!
Cool story, thanks!
But your spell checker needs work: it’s “Zeppelin”; and perhaps Green Lake’s shores are “haloed”, but I don’t know what kind of halo that would be – a halo of algae? I think you meant “hallowed”.
Keep up the goode wurk! 🙂
– rob
Rob, please don’t criticize my righting!
Yep, I was at this show, originally scheduled for Aug. 20, 1969, it was delayed a day by rain. A memorable event. A lot of Pakistani hash and nitrous oxide back stage.
The New Riders have endured in their fashion, but I’ve always wondered what happened to San Paku–this band put on a pretty decent performance that night, but fell into obscurity very quickly, if they were ever anywhere but in obscurity
I saw the Led Zeppelin concert at the Aqua Theater earlier that year too– that show also featured Three Dog Night, as noted above.
I was Sanpaku’s road manager and was at this show also. You are right about the back stage supplies, among others. The band crashed and burned in late 69. Interesting info on this show is here:
http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/01/august-20-1969-roach-seattle-wa-updated.html
I have the original poster from this show.
Any idea of its value?
Was given to me about 25 years ago.