Crystal Ballroom: The Grand Reopening

It's hard to describe a place like the Crystal Ballroom. It's so full of history, so full of bubbling energy between band and audience, that descriptive words end up hanging in the air of the building's third floor like a shared memory no one else thought was funny.

Not many places can boast witness to Jimi Hendrix being fired on stage by Little Richard in 1965, an historically significant two-night run by the Grateful Dead in 1967 or to audiences stomping so furiously for a Leftover Salmon encore that pieces of the second-floor ceiling fell onto office floors and desks. Secrets have to be experienced to be appreciated and the Crystal is Portland's best kept.

"This is a great place, that's for sure," said Jimi Biron, Crystal Ballroom director of special events and music. "There's a lot of history in here relevant to the west coast Jamband scene."

In 1966 a band named Weeds ran out of gas in Portland en route to British Columbia after a San Francisco concert opening for Led Zeppelin fell through. Weeds started asking around Portland as to where they could get a gig and earn enough gas money to keep going. The band was directed to the Folksinger, a coffeehouse that served as the hub for Portland's emerging counterculture and reported to have ties to the Bay Area Beat community due to its close geographic proximity, and owner Whitey Davis.

Davis, whose coffeehouse featured folk- and blues-based bands the P.H. Phactor Jug Band and the Tweedy Brothers Vocal and Instrumental Band, liked Weeds' sound and convinced the band to remain in Portland on an extended run at his club. But Portland's hippies were beginning to crave electric dance concerts of their own, inspired by acid test concerts the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and The Merry Pranksters were producing 500 miles to the south.

The Folksinger held just 100 people and Davis couldn't afford to attract some of the day's bigger acts, so he enlisted the help of friend and Los Angeles club manager Mike Magaurn and leased the then-vacant Crystal Ballroom on Jan. 1, 1967. At 8 p.m. on Jan. 20, the grand old hall that was built in 1914 and had hosted such diverse evenings as a Gypsy "Feast of the Dead," and old-time dance revivals by former owner Dad Watson, the Crystal Ballroom opened its doors once again with a bill featuring the Weeds, the Tweedy Brothers, the Family Tree and a "splendiferous light show by the Inimitable Purple Chinch Bug." Tickets ran $1.25 each or $2 for couples.

Magaurn's responsibilities came to include the Crystal's finances and band bookings as well as damage control and public relations to stave off the endless barrage of city officials who tried to close down the ballroom and the long-haired, day-glo crowd it attracted. Davis let many of the acts crash at his house after performing at the Crystal, saving money rather than spending it on room and board, and helping to create the communal atmosphere that still permeates theater productions today.

Portland's counterculture population began swarming to the ballroom on all nights of the week to see shows, but Davis and Magaurn still weren't generating enough money to pay the band's as much as they could make at other venues and many musicians left with a bitter memory of their night on the ballroom stage.

All of that changed on March 22, 1967 when Buffalo Springfield, featuring a lineup of Neil Young, Stephen Stills and future founders of the country-rock band Poco, drew a capacity crowd in the middle of the week

Later that spring, Beat poet Allen Ginsburg performed one of his eclectic readings in front of an awe-inspired crowd. Soon to follow at the Crystal were the Steve Miller Blues Band, Moby Grape, Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company and Country Joe in his first performance without the Fish.

On Feb. 2 and 3, 1968, the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service came to Portland for three shows: one at Portland State College, now Portland University, and two at the Crystal Ballroom on a tour nicknamed, "The Quick and the Dead." People flocked to both shows at the Crystal in record numbers -- the line for tickets is said to have wrapped around the block as Heads waited to pay the high-price of $2.50 for admission those nights. Rolling Stone has called this tour of the Pacific Northwest "the ultimate experience of the (psychedelic) genre." In his book, "The Many Lives of the Crystal Ballroom, author Tim Hills reports how one Portland State College newspaper reviewer described the Grateful Dead's music: "it kept hitting climaxes -- bursting, sense-tearing climaxes, until on some magic cue, the band relaxed, dropped back to reality, stringing us along on a slow, tantalizing, quivering rhythm until ... another crescendo, another chain reaction of exploding box cars of nitroglycerin."

Soon after that landmark show Davis and Magaurn gave up their controlling interest in attracting bands to the ballroom. Those responsibilities then bounced from volunteer staff to volunteer staff during the next year and a half until the Crystal was forced to close its doors in 1968. The immaculate ballroom remained closed for 29 years until Portland entrepreneur Mike McMenamin, a purveyor of hand-crafted micro brews and unique pub-style dining, was convinced by Biron to re-open the Crystal Ballroom to a new generation of Portland music fans.

"I told him that this could be his legacy, but that it was up to him," Biron said. "Basically, he could be remembered as someone in the Crystal's history who brought it back to life."

Mike and his brother, Brian, told The Oregonian in 1995 they had "heard tales about the Crystal Ballroom as kids growing up in Portland," and were always intrigued by the building's mystique.

"There was always this underground buzz about the place," Mike McMenamin said. "You can feel the history and the energy in this spot."

In 1997, the Crystal opened its the latest chapter of a life that seems to go on forever, one way or another,

Today, long lines can be seen wrapping around the corner from the front of the Crystal on SW 14th to Burnside Avenue, waiting to see national and local acts, as well as many of the groups comprising today's Jamband scene who stop in for a show or two on tour. It is a favorite for bands like moe., Leftover Salmon, Galactic, Government Mule and the Disco Biscuits, as well as local favorites Calobo. (And keep your fingers crossed; Biron said he is trying to work with Phil Lesh to host one of the bassist's Phil and Friends shows at the ballroom sometime in the first half of 2000.)

Biron said some of the bands still partake in the Crystal tradition of rubbing one of the ballroom's jester faces for good luck. There is only one that can be reached from the left corner of the balcony and Biron said people can remember seeing Jerry Garcia rub the jester's face before the Dead's run in 1967.

Another recent bit of Crystal history was when Leftover Salmon played the ballroom in 1997. At the end of the show, Leftover Salmon singer/guitarist Vince Herman walked off stage following the band's encore, took step with the Crystal Ballroom marching band and led the crowd down the stairs and out the front doors to continue dancing on the sidewalk. Herman then snuck back inside, walked back up to the then-empty dance hall and said, "I'll show you how to clear 'em out."

A virtual tour of the Crystal Ballroom can be taken by visiting www.mcmenamins.com/Crystal/crystal.shtml.