what it was like at Watkins Glen in 1973 when the band played for 600,000 peo- ple? WP Oh gosh, that was another one of those special things where we said, we know this is going to be big but we just wanted to go in and do it. It was amazing. By the time we had arrived there the crowd had gotten just com- pletely out of control. I think between 50,000 and 75,000 paid admission. It just got com- pletely out of hand. It looked like one of these apocalypse type things. I mean people were just streaming in on the roads and they were walking. You couldn't move. We had to do everything by helicopter. Of course Bill Gra- ham was doing the production. And when we finally flew in there we saw his great back- stage area. He had a little garden with trees and shrubbery's. You know all the artists. The Band, the Dead, and the Brothers, did kind of a free run through the night before the actual concert. It was a sound check that turned into a mini-concert.
JW How many people were there at that point. WP Gosh, even by that time it was well over 200,000. There were more people there than at Woodstock, literally. I mean it just went for acres. And they had to have delay towers so the sound covered the crowd.
JW Did the Brothers play a good show. WP They were great shows. They were just typical magical Brothers sets. And it worked out well. We ended up doing some additional
shows with the Grateful Dead as a result of Watkins Glen. It was amazing. We came up from the hotels in limos the first night. We had a limo get surrounded and had to get a helicopter to get the band and the crew out of there. And then after the show we had to go back to get the cars out of there. It was just a mess. It was kind of like an end of the world type thing. But it worked out great.
The Allmans play Watkins Glen
JW Tell us about how Sea Level was formed and how did you become their manager? What was the time frame from inception to the band breaking up? WP Well, toward the last year or so in mid 1975, Chuck,Lamar, and Jaimoe would set up their rigs back in the dressing room and would play in the afternoon. Originally they called themselves "We Three." So when I re- signed in June of 1976 and the band broke up very soon thereafter, they decided they were going to put this band together and they wanted me to be their manager. We started in the fall of 1976. Actually we shopped the band around to several different labels. But it was in the back of our heads all things being equal if Capricorn gave us what the band wanted that we would do the record there. They gave the band everything they wanted in the con- tract. We did our first record at Capricorn studios. And of course at that time there was no Allman Brothers Band.
JW Describe the transitions of the members and the various groups that came about after the Allman Brothers broke up. WP Well, everyone kind of went their sepa- rate ways. I was with Sea Level, Gregg was in LA, Dickey and Butch were out and about putting together different bands. And then Butch went out on the road with his own unit.
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