"There were a lot of controversies and a lot of obstacles to pioneer contemporary music into this community," Gary Naseef recalls. Naseef was among the first promoters to attempt to bring '60s music to Las Vegas. By then, of course, it was already 1970, but the Entertainment Capital of the World still wasn't ready for it.
"It was after Woodstock happened. I decided I wanted to go into the concert business, and I booked Janis Joplin, B.B. King, Country Joe and the Fish, C.T.A (later Chicago) and Blood, Sweat and Tears. Nobody involved in the casinos was ready in those days for rock and hippies. I booked it at the old Cashman Field, which was just an old ballpark with cement bleachers. We sold $350,000 worth of tickets three weeks before the show. Then one morning, my wife throws me the newspaper and there is a huge headline, 'City Fathers Ponder Rock Festival.' It was us they were talking about. Eventually, there were meetings and they wound up passing an ordinance with enough regulations to make it prohibitive to do. My first big windfall became a big loser."
Not only that, Naseef hadn't just lost his own money, but also money invested in the concert by Jay Sarno, the builder of Circus Circus and Caesars Palace. "I remember when I asked him to invest, he just took me out to his secretary and had her write me a check for $30,000. He was very supportive. After they stopped the concert, I was giving Sarno a ride back to the Circus Circus. I was so depressed and so embarrassed and so hurt that I had lost his money. I was very naïve; I was only 21. I didn't know anything about politics. I didn't know they could just stop a concert. As I pull up to the Circus Circus, he puts his hand on my knee and goes, 'Kid, I hope that's your cheapest lesson in life.' That was all. That's how he responded."
So Naseef didn't give up. In 1971 he tried again by booking the Guess Who and Tower of Power into the Convention Center. He also learned from his earlier mistake and took local politics into account. "I had a father-in-law who ran the labor unions and was a powerful person at the time, and the people at Caesars were behind me, and I ended up being allowed to do a show there." The concert, according to Naseef, was a sellout. Then as now, Las Vegas loved a success. "After that, the community and the kids supported it tremendously. Our first 40 shows sold out."
But the city fathers weren't the only problem Naseef faced. Bands were reluctant to come to Las Vegas. "In those days, groups from San Francisco and around the country looked at us as a very plastic city. They saw the marquees with Frank Sinatra and Andy Williams; they didn't want to be a part of that. But we kept selling out shows. We began to get bigger and bigger bands. But even then we could never get a weekend show, because LA would get them. It was totally different then. We were the last choice for bands on the off night."
I can only imagine what Naseef thought this past weekend when two acts he first brought to Las Vegas decades ago returned. First, on Friday, Elton John opened his 90-minute show at Caesars Palace—the house Jay Sarno built—with a top ticket price of $250. Naseef recalls John's far less glamorous Vegas debut:
"Elton John played the Convention Center in 1971 on a Tuesday night, and he sold the place out. The tickets were, I think, $4.50. He did a two-and-a-half-hour show. I'll never forget him, because after the show he sought us out to thank us for doing the show."
Last Sunday, Deep Purple played its umpteenth Vegas show at The House of Blues at Mandalay Bay. Naseef was the first to bring Deep Purple here, too. That night in 1972 is another one he'll never forget, and for very different reasons. It was the last of his shows at the Convention Center.
"It was Deep Purple with Fleetwood Mac. This was during Machine Head, and they were huge. We sold the place out in advance. After Fleetwood Mac did an encore, Deep Purple's agent comes up to me and says Ian Gillan is sick and they aren't going on. This was 10 minutes before they were supposed to go on. I thought it was a joke. I called a couple of doctors, but they advised him to not go on. By this time, the kids were all drinking wine, smoking pot and were on reds, and they wanted to see Deep Purple. Subsequently there was a riot, and they turned over some police cars, and they broke things. And it was a pretty serious situation. It made all the national news. So they put a moratorium on shows at the Convention Center and on hard rock shows."
By then, though, the commercial potential was enough to begin to interest the casinos. Naseef was able to relocate to the Sahara in 1974. "We opened with Sly and the Family Stone, along with Eric Burdon and War." Still, after the Deep Purple fiasco, Naseef had to go to court in order to get the licensing approved for the show. "The judge had me go get a record by Sly to prove he wasn't hard rock. I was spinning the stuff like a DJ sitting on the stand. He ruled in our favor."
The show, of course, sold out. And the rest is history, as slowly, very slowly, the casinos up and down the Strip began—for better and for worse—to rock.
Contributing editor Richard Abowitz covers entertainment for the Weekly.