For a full rendition
of the Portland outdoor venue blues, see these past
Willamette Week articles.
It's a cornerstone of the American musical experience: the
outdoor blowout, a chance to test the resilience of the ozone
layer and commune with your fellow shirtless fans. And, frankly,
what would we do without it?
Big outdoor shows make commercially convenient resting
places for older stars, keeping their fans out of trouble.
If you've made it to many alfresco dino fests, you've no
doubt noticed the faintly cannabic scent of middle-aged
misbehavior, thankfully channelled and contained. Sky and
dirt make a good backdrop for fresher hedonism, as well,
as the advent of Gen X/Y roadshows like Lollapalooza and
the Warped Tour demonstrate.
Portland, however, has a problem: no bloody amphitheater.
Despite its vaunted civic amenities (the MAX, a hopping
cultural scene, that bitchin' Northwest 23rd), the city
lacks a venue for big-ticket outdoor shows.
Practically, that means many of the blockbuster summer
tours, with their high prices, muddy sound and occasional
teenage riots, skip right over the City of Roses. For example,
despite the fact that there are undoubtedly legions of fans
from Clark County to Oregon City who'd love to see Ozzy
Osbourne's Ozzfest '99 tour, the madman from Birmingham
will give Portland a miss this summer.
Last year, the city tangled with his Blazerness, Paul
Allen, over a proposal to build a concert venue at Portland
International Raceway. A clause in the contract that birthed
the Rose Garden prevents the city from developing facilities
that might compete with Allen's arena unless his NBA team
is a partner--and vice versa. But that didn't stop Allen
from courting Vancouver, Wash., officials with amphitheater
plans--until Clark County told him to stick it.
Then, last month, the Metropolitan Exposition-Recreation
Commission announced that San Francisco's Pace Entertainment
wants to build a 5,000-seat "boutique" amphitheater at the
Expo Center. Citizen opposition was quick to surface.
In the midst of all this politicking, David Leiken
of Portland's venerable Double Tee Promotions soldiers
on in his nondescript Old Town offices. On the Fourth of
July, New Wave throwbacks the Go-Go's hit town to
launch Double Tee's summer concert series at the new Showplace
at Portland Meadows. Cobbled together from equipment the
company used at its old River Queen location downtown, bleachers
imported from Las Vegas and infrastructure left over from
Double Tee-promoted Grateful Dead shows at the Meadows,
the 6,000-capacity Showplace fits in somewhere between Pace's
projected niche-market venue and the elusive amphitheater.
Even though Leiken's series begins on Independence Day,
it's not too revolutionary. Besides the Go-Go's, commercially
infallible, artistically unadventurous types like Bonnie
Raitt and Peter, Paul and Mary dominate the cycle.
Delve into the politics of the amphitheater issue, though,
and Leiken's inner malcontent pops out.
"Rather than play it the way it's supposed to be played,
instead of letting people bid in a competitive process,
it seems like the first guys who come along and say they
want to do a project get to do it," he says, with an evident
mix of rueful amusement and frustration. "In 25 years, I've
never seen one thing about an amphitheater at the Expo Center
on MERC's agenda. Now, all of a sudden, here it is. And
who will it affect? Local people who are here, right now,
working in this business."
In Leiken's view, longtime local promoters have been frozen
out of the wrangling as Allen, various governments and out-of-town
heavyweights like Pace argue over the division of the pie.
Noting that Pace owns the powerful Bill Graham Presents
booking agency and that Allen hooked up with Universal
Concerts, one of the country's biggest concert-venue
operators, in his Clark County schemes, Leiken says such
closed processes bode ill for Portland's own entrepreneurs.
"What happens when you make these backroom deals is, you
don't take into account who built the market," he says,
mentioning his own company and other strong local promoters
like Monqui. "In the summertime, I employ hundreds
of people in this town.
"There are a lot of people in America who want to develop
amphitheaters--not just Pace, not just Paul Allen. The bottom
line is, if you want an amphitheater, put it out to bid.
See what's out there."
Elsewhere: Serious props are due to the folks at
Ohm, who made the on-again, off-again solo DJ set
by the legendary Prince Paul happen last Thursday.
Hustling hard, they brought the iconic producer of De
La Soul and Gravediggaz all the way from N.Y.C.
for an epic night of mindblowing hip-hop wizardry. Paul
scratched furiously into the early morning hours, exhausting
the revelers who packed the house to glimpse a living fragment
of music history.
Links
to past Willamette Week articles concerning the ampitheater:
500 Words, August 12,
1998
500 Words, July 29, 1998
500 Words, September 23,
1998
500 Words, October 1,
1997
Scoreboard, December
22, 1998
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Willamette Week | originally
published June 23, 1999
|
