Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young Explore Kent, Ohio in July of 1970

By Jason Prufer

Probably the most famous rock & roll tale to come out of the city of Kent is the story of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's "Ohio". I hate even retelling the story because it's been told and retold and retold again in every rock history book, every CSNY interview, and almost every telling of the story of May 4. There's nothing I could ever add to this story that you can't find in like 50 other sources. Watch David Crosby, Neil Young and Graham Nash retell the story right here. Watch Graham Nash retell the story right here on the Howard Stern show (and then play a solo acoustic version of the song that is about the best ever outside of the original recording). Also this is worth a visit too --- check this old film of CSNY back in June of 1970 at the Fillmore East in NYC where among other vintage treats a smoking electric version of "Ohio" is played at the very time when the song is at the peak of its powers. Oh and of course here is the original version that can still be heard on classic rock radio to this day.

There's another story though about CSNY and the city of Kent. One most people don't even know. The story is 50 years old and it has come to me in fragments but it's true -- this happened. There are no photos and there have never been any write-ups anywhere about this but I am going to do my best to put the story back together from the pieces that still survive in the memories of those who experienced this. Let me start by going back to when I first heard the first sliver of this tale:

Back in 2010 I was tasked with manning a table at the 40th commemoration of the Kent State Shootings. The table was in Taylor Hall in the then recently vacated Daily Kent Stater offices which were on the first floor in the far northeast corner of the building. The Daily Kent Stater had been stationed in this space for decades --- since probably the early 1960s. The Stater offices in 2010 however had just been moved into the newly renovated Franklin Hall and this area was just about to be turned into KSU's May 4 Visitors Center. At this point though it was just an empty space --- a blank slate in a suspended state of transition. The reason I was there was to greet people who wanted to come in and look at the future space of the Visitors Center. Also if someone wanted a tour of the site I was there to be a tour guide if one was needed (I ended up doing a couple of tours that day).

Many people approached me sitting at the table and while most people had questions about the new space, there were several people who just wanted to talk to me about May 4 and recount their experiences on that day 40 years earlier. I kind of felt like some of my job was just to listen to what these people had to say. Whenever someone wanted to further the discussion with me I would always ask them what they remembered about the old North Water Street bar strip. I knew that everyone who had experienced Kent in those days had at least one story from down there. It played a huge role in the events that lead up to the Kent State shootings plus there had been a couple of decades of raging live music down there. I always want to know more -- that stretch of downtown Kent has such a mystique for me.

So I asked this question of a very nice lady who I was having an engaging discussion with. "What do you remember about the old North Water Street bar strip?" She took a few seconds to respond -- I could tell she was thinking back to those days and that place -- then she said to me "I remember the summer following the shootings that my friends and I encountered David Crosby walking on the strip." I asked her to elaborate further and she couldn't give me any more details. She speculated that he was there to see the town after the shootings but I could tell she wasn't sure - but she was adamant that she encountered him that summer walking on North Water Street one night.

It's not that I didn't believe her but I had never heard this before. I am a huge fan of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young -- as solo artists and as a group and by that time I was pretty well versed in their history. Also even by 2010 I had done a ton of research on the rock & roll history of Kent and between those two passions this information had never come up anywhere. I had never seen any newspaper articles, there were no photographs -- nothing in any books. Nobody had ever told me about this --- Plus I've heard more than a few tales from down on that strip that turned out to be just a bunch of bullshit. I asked her more questions about what she remembered but she couldn't recall any more than that. I didn't not believe her but I just stored that information away in the "maybe this happened" file.

Several years later I noticed a thread forming on a Facebook post where someone else had heard a story about some incarnation of CSNY showing up in Kent that summer 1970 and in the comments of the original post a townie I knew named Brian Slease had a story -- a kind of detailed story of encountering Neil Young, David Crosby and Graham Nash at a long gone pizza place downtown one night. Ok --- here was some corroboration of what that woman told me back in 2010. Since that time I have seen a few other posts pop up about CSNY on the Kent bar strip that summer of 1970. When I went to really try to put these pieces together the first person I contacted to get a more detailed story was Brian. This is what he told me about the night of Thursday, July 2, 1970 and his encounter with rock royalty in downtown Kent:

Brian Slease:

"So this was 2 months after the kids were killed and I don't remember exactly when the town curfews were lifted. I know by the end of May the troops were gone. It was a bizarre time. The city of Kent was desolate, everybody was gone but the bar scene had just gotten going again. The students were mostly gone besides the ones that stayed in town over the summer but there was such a large contingent of townies here anyway that we'd all still be hanging out at our local favorite watering holes. My watering hole was North Water Street -- all the bars on North Water Street were my watering hole. Even though I wasn't old enough I knew all the people who worked there so -- they knew I could be trusted. I was only 17 and I was getting into Orville's/Walter's. You had to be 21 to get in there(laughs). Same thing with the Kove. I had no problem getting down there underage.

"The event we are going to be talking about happened July 2, 1970. And that was a Thursday and it was a very hot and muggy night as I recall -- a hot night in July.  I ran away from home about two/two and a half weeks later after this. Right at the end of July -- third or fourth week of July. I'd had it with my stepmother from hell. She treated me like shit. And that was that thing that summer. At that time I was living at my parents house which was at 619 West Main Street -- almost the corner of Chestnut right across from the Bissler Funeral Home parking lot. At that time though I tried to spend as much time away from that house as possible and that's why I was downtown a lot.  My Dad and stepmother weren't into that and tried to do something about it and I said -- heck with it. And I ran away from home and ended up in upstate New York -- Lake George, New York. I ended up there because one of the friends that was with me on the night we are about to talk about had just gotten back from his family vacation in Lake George, New York and he said it was a real cool place.

"So ya know that was my summer. It was like hit and miss on having good times, being daring, underage, curfews -- a lot of messin' around. Also the cops were still on a heightened situation because of everything that had happened with May 4. It was scary/not scary from what I can remember of it. Again it was an unusual summer for me. So the night we are about to talk about happened between the shootings and me running away from home at the end of that July.

"So as I said, this was right after the kids were killed -- eight weeks later. And during this summer we hung out at Angelo's Pizza Parlor -- and when I say 'we' I mean underage townie kids. And Angelo's Pizza Parlor was attached to the old hotel there. It was right on that south west corner of Depeyster and East Main Street. Actually years earlier when the hotel was bustling it was the dining area -- guests from the hotel would go there to eat. And then much later it turned into Angelo's Pizza and it was run by two hippies. If you gave them an extra little bit of money they would sprinkle a little bit of special oregano on the top of your pizza. So you could have that special pizza for the night if you catch my drift.

"So under eighteen years old --- a lot of the kids hung out there. I mean not a lot but people like myself and there was my good friends Russ and Ron -- both were a year younger than me. There were a couple other people too but those two were my main buddies that summer. We were inseparable -- we were like the three musketeers -- and we hung out at Angelo's Pizza. So in those days we would hang out there and listen to the jukebox -- we used to play early Led Zeppelin and all the hits from 1970. The Beatles were probably on there and so was probably Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

"The song 'Ohio' was out by then though I can't remember if it had hit that jukebox. In those days you got 3 songs for a quarter. And so we were just shoving quarters in and doing what we do and listening to the songs and just minding our own business per se. Russ and Ron and I --- we never really bought pizza there. Maybe we'd get a slice but as long as we just kept feeding that jukebox quarters they would just let us stay.

"So we're there that night and all of a sudden the three walk in! If I remember right it was Neil Young, Graham Nash and David Crosby walked in in that exact order. What freaked me out is that Neil Young is fairly tall compared to the other two. He was at least a couple inches taller if I recall right. Also I remember he was wearing black. Not like Johnny Cash black but maybe like a black coat like a dress coat like you'd go to work in.

"So they walk in and their entourage follows them. And there was probably about a dozen people in their entourage. And to this day I swear Ringo Starr was in the entourage. There was a guy in there who looked exactly like how Ringo did at that time with that handlebar/walrus mustache that he had in those days. And he had those chops and he looked like he just got off the boat. Ya know The Beatles were gone at that point and he was making that first album and I swear he was in that entourage. But it may have been just some other hippie/musician with them.

Original advertisement for CSNY's Friday, July 3, 1970

performance at Cleveland Public Hall.

"But at least 10-12 people walked in with them. Probably some musicians -- I don't know. Stephen Stills was not with them. The urban myth about that was that he was too coked up to make the trip to Kent. They were doing that concert the following night in Cleveland. They didn't come into Angelo's until 9 or 10:00pm that night. I remember this because it was dark and the date was July 2 so it doesn't get dark until like 9:00pm. So they walked in and they were in there getting settled for about 10 or 15 minutes and then they bought pizza and chicken for everyone in the house. In addition to the entourage there were about 20 people who walked in behind them because they had been walking around Kent and at that point they had been recognized.

"Angelo's pizza on a good Thursday night in the summer maybe only ever had half a dozen people in there. Especially that summer with all of the students gone. So when those people walked in that place got PACKED PACKED PACKED. I remember we grabbed a couple chairs because we knew if we didn't act fast we were gonna lose ours. It was awesome -- it totally blew me away. I was 17 years old and it was the first time I had ever seen anybody of that nature. It was truly truly a night I cannot forget.

"They were in town that day because it was the first time they went up on campus and they had to have special visitor's passes to get up there and they were still wearing them around their necks when they were at Angelo's Pizza. They were showing them like they were ID's. They were like these cool looking ID's -- nothing fancy or anything like that but they still had them on and it seemed to me like they wanted to keep them for their own remembrance sake. And they got a tour there because they wrote the song.

"I actually approached and talked to Neil Young. If I recall he was sitting at one of those tables that sat four that was in the middle of the room and anyway I walked up to him and I was standing and he was sitting and I asked him about the song "Ohio" and what he thought about it. He told me he wrote the song because he was so sad about what had happened here and he told me that he wished he could have written the lyrics a little better but he left them that way because it was something that had hit him so hard. I probably maybe talked to him for only two minutes. I was mostly speechless though. I didn't want to ask him if he had gone up to see the site because I already knew that since I could see he had the badge on. I don't think I talked to David Crosby or Graham Nash. Maybe I said hello but it was Neil who I had the conversation with.

"Russ, Ron and I probably ended up sitting on these marble steps that were close to the jukebox. These marble steps were by the doorway that would go between the old hotel restaurant (aka Angelo's Pizza) into what was called Halcyon Days which was in the old lobby. We probably sat on those marble steps just to let other people who were there have some seats.

176 East Main Street. 50 years ago this was Angelo's Pizza. Currently 

this is one of the dining areas in BW3's. Photo by Jason Prufer

"Ya know Angelo's probably would have closed around 11:00pm -- it was not an all night pizza place. I seem to remember they were headed to JB's or something like that. The next day everyone around town was talking about how they had slipped into town and hit all the hot spots. I do not know for the life of me why they walked into Angelo's Pizza. Now that I am really remembering that evening I do seem to remember there was a buzz that they were walking around town before we saw them come in. If I recall correctly they stayed there for about an hour. Angelo's ended up putting drinks on the house because they had three of the most famous people in the world at that point in their shop plus they were making so much money that night.

"I am pretty positive they were here to take in the culture of this town. They wanted to see where the event occurred and soak up the culture so they would have a better understanding of this place and what happened here.

"I also remember them getting up and walking out and everyone who was there before they got there was still in there when they left. And all of those people were still reeling about what had just gone down. When they left they probably left about three pizzas which had not been touched and a whole bunch of chicken and I remember everyone sort of going crazy on that. There were so many empty tables in the middle because everyone sort of just got up and left.

"Like I said this was the period where it was just at the crux of the ending of the townie curfews and my friends and I were still under 18 so we still had to worry about age curfews. We had to be careful about that. As long as you didn't see a cop car and you didn't start running you were ok. So at the end of that night I would have just walked back to my parents house at 619 West Main Street --- back into the parents' lair. I probably read some Tolkien which I was into at that time and then just went to bed."

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Some time back when I was doing some research about JB's I had contacted a guy who I had some correspondence with on some other Kent history topics who I knew had been a bartender there back in 1969 and 1970. His name is Larry Shank and as we were discussing some other topics of famous folks who had graced JB's he mentioned that there was this one night in 1970 when David Crosby and Graham Nash had come down there. I immediately had remembered my encounter with that woman at the May 4 Visitors Center back in 2010 when he brought it up and I knew this had to have been from the same night. When I asked him to elaborate on what had happened he actually had a really cool story. When I contacted Larry recently for a more detailed account of that night he was more than happy to tell me what he remembered....
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Larry Shank:

"In July of 1970 I was still a student at Kent State and I was working at JB's at night and I was working at the Kent State Supply Center (which was over on Horning Road) during the day. I think I lived on Dodge Street at this time --- either Dodge Street or Cuyahoga Street because I was living on Dodge Street at the time of the shootings but at some point during that summer I moved over to Cuyahoga Street.  I worked at JB's from 1969 through 1971. This was in the era that Glass Harp and The James Gang would play down there regularly. So many times I remember walking out at night after we were done cleaning up and my ears would be ringing for hours because that place was so small and the bands were so loud.

Front door of JB's on N. Water Street in Kent circa 1970.

"The James Gang which featured Joe Walsh was our biggest draw back then -- in fact I think normally we charged 75 cents to get in for any other band and then for The James Gang I think it was $1.50 -- or  something like that and we usually filled the place up. The James Gang had good crowds.

I'll get to the night where I encountered David Crosby and Graham Nash but I have to tell you a couple things that stand out about those James Gang nights that I have really fond memories of. This goes right into that period of the summer of 1970. Whenever there would be a break, the band would leave but Joe Walsh would always stay on stage and he would do acoustic sets and he would do a lot of stuff with that talk box. He did a lot of that kind of stuff. He'd just stay up there and play songs and sing.

"Also one of my favorite things was Joe would always do something like -- he would get on the microphone and call out Joe Bujac (JB -- owner of JB's). He would say 'there's Joe Bujac!' and Joe Bujac would just light up. And while he had the attention he would wave at everybody. I just loved Joe Bujac. He was a great guy. He sometimes gets a lot of bad rap but all things considered -where he came from and what he went through during the war and all that stuff he was a pretty cool guy.

"So going back to this night of July 2, 1970 -- I was working at the bar and then I remember Eddie (Kaufman -- JB's manager) came to me and told me that David Crosby and Graham Nash had come to the door and asked him if they needed an ID to get in and he laughed and said no. Eddie would have more knowledge of that part of the story than me.

"All I remember is them coming down, kind of standing around and watching the band. Though I cannot remember what band was playing. But I remember them watching the band and then turning around and chatting up girls and then I just remember them leaving. They didn't really stay for very long.  I can't say for sure but I believe the band playing that night was Glass Harp -- either Glass Harp or Lacewing.

"It was just David and Graham -- if I remember right the story was that they arrived in a big black limo. I think they must have come down because Walsh might have told them about the place. So they came in to check out the place and then gather up girls to take back to Cleveland. One of those girls that they picked up was a friend of mine and they took her back to their hotel. Once she left with them I never saw her for the rest of the night -- but then she called me the next day asking if I could come pick her up because she needed a ride home from Cleveland.

"She must have called me around lunchtime -- somewhere around there. When she called me -- and this is so funny -- she still had no idea who Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were. So she called me and said 'I'm up here with these guys and we're having a birthday party for some guy named Neil' and for the longest time I thought it was Neil Young but his birthday isn't in July so I think it must have been one of the roadies or something like that. So they were having a big birthday party and she said she was going to stay there into the evening but she needed a ride home at some point.

Original advertisement for CSNY's Friday, July 3, 1970

performance at Cleveland Public Hall.

"So I said 'I'd be happy to come and get you but why don't you ask if you could get us in to see the concert.' So then I heard her put the phone down and she's talking to their manager or somebody involved with the show and I heard him say 'come to the back door' at whatever time it was 'and we'll be there and we'll let you in and you can watch the concert' so that's what we did. Some friends of mine and I -- some other girls -- we went to the backstage door at Public Hall like we were told to and at first they weren't going to let me in because they thought it was going to just be all girls but then they let me in. And so we actually went up on the stage. They actually had us standing on the back of the stage which was where we ended up watching the concert from which was really funny because the stage manager was there and he had this giant jar of pot. And it seemed like his job was to roll joints and have them ready for the band as they walked off stage.

"So then at one point I remember Neil Young was out there singing and doing his thing and then he came back and he looked and he saw us back there and then he went over to the stage manager or whoever --- one of his men -- and then the guy comes up and goes 'hey I'm sorry but Neil doesn't want you up on this stage' and I said 'well that's cool' and he says 'but we'll put you down here in these seats' and they gave us some really nice seats right down front.

"So after the concert was over we got up to leave and I said to my friend -- god I wish I could remember her name -- but I said to her 'why don't we at least go back to the hotel and thank them for allowing us to come' and she goes 'ok'. So we went back to the hotel and I don't remember which hotel it was. In those days there was no security -- we just walked up to their room and we knocked on the door, and the door opens and I could see into the room and there was wall-to-wall people sitting on the floor smoking dope and like the room was just this thick haze. And so Crosby comes out and he goes 'oh man I'm really sorry you can't come in, there's no room in here' and we go 'oh we didn't come here to get in or anything we just came to thank you for allowing us to come to see the concert' and he looked at us like 'what are you talking about?' and he was real nice and he actually stood out in the hall and talked to us for about 15 or 20 minutes and then we went home. I can't remember even what we talked about. It was so long ago.

"I wish I could remember my friend's name and we could get a hold of her so she could give her account. Now she would have the real good story. She's the one who spent the night at the hotel with them."
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After this I just get little fragments of information. I exchanged some messages with Ed Kaufman who was the manager of JB's that night and he told me this:

"I was working the downstairs bar at JB’s and had just walked up the stairs to give Larry Shank a break. Larry may have still been there when I noticed Graham Nash but since it was so out of the blue, I could not place him. Then I saw Stephen Stills and there was no mistaking him although he was shorter than I had imagined. Graham Nash said they had come to see the band. We let them in w/o a cover charge of course. The doorway was crowded with a few girls that had no idea who had just walked passed them. I did not see Neil Young at all so I don’t know if he was there or not and after that I didn’t see any of them for the rest of the night."

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Terry Hynde of The Numbers Band made this comment on the original Facebook thread about encountering those guys that night:

"Graham Nash and Neil Young were sitting next to me at Orville's/Walter's but I didn't initially recognize them because they just looked like every other hippy. At one point someone tapped me on the shoulder and said look who you're sitting next to. When people started recognizing them they left. I don't know where they went on foot."

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Also all the members of Glass Harp and their roadies from that time have long told a story of one night back in the summer of 1970 when some members of CSNY were watching them from the back of the room at JB's. I can only assume they are remembering that night of July 2, 1970. The clearest recollection comes from their roadie Al Pethal who recalls it was David Crosby and Stephen Stills. None of them have any further story about this except they just remember the buzz that they were there in the back of the room.

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Some notes here at the end:

--- As you probably noticed there are some inconsistencies as to which members of CSNY were seen where in the different recollections. Given the unique nature of that band plus add 50 years to these rarely told (and somewhat fragmented) stories you can only expect that certain details are going to be remembered different. I personally have a hard time remembering some things that happened to me last week let alone these folks trying to recall something that happened half a century ago. Larry and Brian have no recollections of Stephen Stills in Kent wheras Ed's clearest memory of the whole ordeal is how short Stephen was in real life vs. how he had imagined him. Also it's very possible that all these accounts are exactly how these guys remember. It's possible Larry missed seeing Stephen Stills in the room and it's possible Stephen didn't want to get pizza at Angelo's and maybe he just wanted to chill in the limo for a while. Or maybe he wanted to go explore some other part of town during this time frame. Who knows. And remember -- this wasn't some round table of old Kent folks sitting in the same room who were recounting their memories of these nights and then I was just there to take notes. I tracked everyone down and had them tell these long untold stories to me as best they could remember. The rashomon effect surely had to rear its head in this blip of Kent history. No matter what -- there is no doubt that these folks all had these interactions with some version of all 4 members of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young over the course of these two days and that's cool as fuck and I am so glad that I was able to get this information for the record before it was too late.

--- What was once Angelo's Pizza is currently one of the dining areas in BW3's. I went back down there and took some photos inside and out so you can see the current state of that room. You can see those photos right here. The space was completely gutted and renovated as part of the Phoenix Project back about in 2012 - 2013 so while the space still has the same dimensions and the windows and front door are still in the same place the rest of this room looks totally different than how it would have on the night David Crosby, Graham Nash and Neil Young walked in. Years ago I hung out in that room when it was a different pizza place in the late 80s and then later in the mid-90s I hung out in there when it was called The Cornerstone Cafe. I distinctly remember when the Cornerstone Cafe opened they made a big deal about how they had restored the original floors in that room which were a terracotta tile that looked just like this. 

--- In this one photo (of the current room) you can see the entrance at the left where Neil Young, David Crosby and Graham Nash entered the room 50 years earlier just as Brian Slease tells the story above.

--- Also here is an actual photo (taken by Bill Whitbeck) showing the entrance to Angelo's Pizza from about the fall 1970 or into the winter of 1971. You can't see any of the signage for the Pizza Parlor but that's the old original entrance for sure on the left. Light gray doors.

--- Also check right here to see a fun photo of Larry Shank working the bar at JB's back in 1969.

--- Also when we refer to JB's in 1970 we are always referring to what would be known as JB's Down. This was the bar that was downstairs in that basement on North Water Street as opposed to what would be known as JB's Up several years later.

--- If you click this link here you can read the original Jane Scott written Plain Dealer review of the CSNY show at Cleveland Public Hall which took place on Friday, July 3, 1970.

--- Also let me refer you back to this footage of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young at the Fillmore East in New York City shot back in June of 1970. This was the version of CSNY that came to Kent that day and then performed at the Cleveland Public Hall the following night.

--- Also just for a little bit of context with the actual song "Ohio." On this day they were in Kent -- July 2, 1970 Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young had two singles on Billboards Hot 100. "Ohio" was at #49 at only its second week on the singles chart and "Teach Your Children" was at #30 in its fifth week on the charts. The following week "Ohio" had jumped to #30 and "Teach Your Children" was at #24. Eventually "Ohio" would hit #14 on the week of August 15th so on the day CSN and Y were exploring around Kent they were just about the coolest thing going on in the world.

--- And besides those two singles, CSNY had only just released their masterpiece Déjà Vu 4 months earlier in March. That was the album they were touring behind with that show at the Cleveland Public Hall.

--- Back around 2000 I read an interview online with Neil Young where he said that at one point he quietly came to Kent to visit the May 4 site and he said something to the effect that he made sure to do it without anyone really knowing and without any fanfare so that it didn't become a media event -- or something like that. I can't remember where online I read that and I have no idea when specifically he was talking about having visited Kent. He may have been referencing that July 2, 1970 visit or this may be from an entirely different visit. Some years later I went looking for this interview and it had seemingly disappeared from the internet. If anyone knows this interview I am referencing feel free to let me know.

--- Also did you encounter David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash or Neil Young on this night in 1970? Send me a message or comment down below with what you remember.

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EPILOGUE
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Crosby, Stills and or Nash (and maybe Young) would make at least 9 more appearances in Kent over the years. Mostly as solo artists and one time as the full CSN unit though the next time we'd see any of them after their 1970 explorations wouldn't be till 9 years later. What follows here documents all of the other known times they hit this town...

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Saturday, March 10, 1979

Stephen Stills in what is now The MAC Center at Kent State

on Saturday, March 10, 1979. Daily Kent Stater Photo.

Stephen Stills played in what is now the MAC Center at KSU to a near sellout crowd on this date for a tour supporting his long forgotten and poorly reviewed album Thoroughfare Gap. The performance was panned as many said he was drunk and uninspired. Footage from this tour shot 2 weeks later in New Jersey shows Stephen playing with a big band that included vocalist Bonnie Bramlett and drummer Joe Vitale playing a lot of unfamiliar (sometimes disco-tinged) music with a couple of hits sprinkled in. Read the original Daily Kent Stater review for that show right here. Listen to Thoroughfare Gap in its entirety right here.

Thursday, November 13, 1986

On this date Graham Nash did a special lecture in what is now Cartwright Hall about a whole array of social issues as part of the (then) University-wide Campaign Against Bigotry. According to the Daily Kent Stater review it was the first time Graham had ever given a lecture. Guy Pernetti opened this event with a set of acoustic music.

Sunday, May 4, 1997

This was a big deal at the time and many people still talk about this. Crosby, Stills and Nash performed a five song set at the 27th Commemoration of the Kent State Shootings outdoors on the old KSU Commons for a huge crowd. I was right down front for this and I recall turning around and seeing people for as far I could see in every direction. This was part of a big week for CSN in Northeast Ohio as they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for what was the very first Rock Hall ceremony to take place in Cleveland and Graham Nash had some kind of photography exhibit that also opened in Cleveland at this time. I suspect CSN first planned to be in Cleveland for the May 6 inductions and then were contacted by the May 4 Task Force who asked if they would come by Kent State since they would likely already be in the area and they agreed.

From what I remember they did the commemoration for no cost at all (or maybe it was for like $1.00 to make the contract valid(or something like that)) and then later that night they did a full performance at the Cleveland Agora. You can read the original Daily Kent Stater review of their Kent State performance right here. Also very rough footage of the entire performance can be seen on YouTube right here. Footage from down front of CSN performing "Ohio" shot by Michael Pacifico can be seen on his Facebook page here. Michael Pacifico also took some great photos in the restricted backstage area of the band hanging out and posing with Alan Canfora and Tom Grace who are two of the wounded from May 4, 1970. You can see those photos right here. Footage from their performance at the Cleveland Agora from later that night can be seen right here. And check here and here to see footage of Crosby, Stills and Nash being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland two days later.

On a personal note it was at the performance at the commemoration that I first heard the song "Helplessly Hoping" which to this day remains one of my favorite songs of all time.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Stephen Stills at The Kent Stage on Friday, March 5, 2010.

Photo by Laura Torchia.

Two shows were performed on this date by Stephen Stills fronting a full rock & roll band (with Joe Vitale on drums and Kenny Passarelli on bass) at The Kent Stage. The second show was added after the first show quickly sold out. The Burr ran a review on this show which has since been taken down but good old Internet Archive still has the text available to read right here. Rough audio of Stills performing "Ohio" from this night can be heard right here accompanied by a terrific slide show of photos from one of or both of the shows. Even more photos from this night taken by Rod Flauhaus can be seen right here. Also here is some footage from a different date on this same tour to give you some added visuals as to what the two Kent Stage performances were like. I didn't attend either of these shows but I knew a lot of people who went who raved about the performances. When Stephen Stills is on he can blow the room out of the water.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Graham Nash showed up unannounced at The Kent Stage on this date to see The Zombies perform their classic album Odessey and Oracle in its entirety. Nash was in Cleveland readying an exhibit of his photo work at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame when presumably he was looking for something to do in the area on this Thursday night. Here are photos I took of Graham Nash that night near one of the exits in the lobby of the Kent Stage. From what I could tell (having attended this show) Graham was there with someone from the Rock Hall and he had really great seats down front. Also here is footage of Graham at the Rock Hall giving a preview of his then new exhibit in a video posted on October 17, 2015. And here is some footage from that Zombies show. Oh and while we are on the topic click here to listen to the classic album Odessey and Oracle in its entirety.

Friday, September 23, 2016

Graham Nash (in sunglasses) and Shane Fontayne about to cross 

Depeyster Street in Kent on Friday, September 23, 2016. Firestone, 

Europe Gyro and the Parta Garage can be seen in background.

Photo by Jason Prufer.

Graham Nash performed a solo show along with his latter day collaborator Shane Fontayne on this date at The Kent Stage. This was a packed show loaded with CSNY classics along with a decent helping from his then new album This Path Tonight. It was actually his first new solo album in 14 years and it got some pretty decent reviews. Click here and here to see rough video of two songs from that night -- click here to see the full setlist from that night. Also click here to hear This Path Tonight in its entirety. Also click here to see a photo I took during the performance that night.

Earlier in this evening on this date I was driving home from work and I noticed who I thought was Graham Nash walking with some other dude on East Main Street towards The Kent Stage. I saw them right about when they were in front of Chipotle. When I stopped at the light on Willow St. I could see it WAS Graham Nash for sure. For completely different reasons I happened to have had my DSLR camera with me and a pretty decent zoom lens so I quickly made a right onto Willow and then another left again on Columbus street and then parked at the bottom of the hill at Depeyster Street where I positioned myself behind a tree and was able to take some really great candid shots of Graham and Shane talking and walking across Depeyster Street. See a film I created with those photos right here. Also see the photo album with all of  the "Graham Nash on Depeyster Street" photos right here. Based on the photos showing Nash and Fontayne with coffee cups and coming from the direction of Kent State I would think that they were coming from the site of the shootings and then they made a stop at Starbucks on their way back. But who knows I could be wrong on that.

Sunday, November 5, 2017

The first of three shows (so far) that David Crosby would do at The Kent Stage found David putting in a busy day (or two) in town. David was in the midst of a career renaissance when he first touched down in Kent as a solo artist. Part of this was due to the popularity of his Twitter account where Crosby found a large audience who enjoyed watching him tweet out his usual super opinionated views on politics and music. The other reason for this career renaissance was because he rapid-fire started recording and releasing new solo albums about once a year starting in 2014 with each album getting pretty decent reviews. The album Crosby was supporting for this particular show was Sky Trails which had only been released just a couple months earlier. You can listen to Sky Trails in its entirety by clicking right here.

David Crosby and film crew on Sunday, November 5, 2017 at the 

site of Jeffrey Miller's marker at the Kent State Shootings site. 

This is the specific place that the famous photo of the screaming 
girl from May 4, 1970 was taken. Photo by Jason Prufer.

Crosby showed up in town with a film crew who were shooting a Cameron Crowe-produced documentary about his life. Footage showing David Crosby getting off of his bus behind the Kent Stage can be seen at the 1:44 mark in the trailer for the film which you can see right here. More footage was shot at the performance that night and during his visit to the May 4 Visitors Center and the actual site of the shootings -- that footage is in the final cut of the movie called David Crosby: Remember My Name which you can pay to stream in its entirety right here. Check the setlist for this show right here and also click right here to see proshot footage with soundboard audio of David Crosby performing "Ohio" at this show.

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

David Crosby returns to The Kent Stage a year later. This time supporting another brand new album titled Here If You Listen released just a month earlier. David also got into town a day or two early and there were sightings of him all over Kent leading up to the show. Here he is the night before eating dinner at Bricco on South Depeyster Street with May 4 survivor Alan Canfora. And then this picture was snapped at the Franklin Hotel Bar on East Main Street just a few hours before showtime showing David Crosby with artist Rachel Jernigan. Also at some point during this visit David Crosby was interviewed by filmmakers Barbara Kopple and Dale Djerassi at the May 4 Visitors Center for a forthcoming documentary. It was at this May 4 Visitors Center visit that David Crosby was first approached by Rod Flauhaus (head of the commemoration committee) with the idea of performing on campus during the 50th Commemoration of May 4. According to Rod -- David agreed to play and mused that maybe the commemoration concert would be a good excuse to "get the full band" back together. That night at The Kent Stage then Kent State University President Beverly Warren met with Crosby backstage. You can see the setlist to that evenings' concert right here and you can listen to David's then and still most recent album Here If You Listen right here.

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

David Crosby's last performance in town was of course at The Kent Stage and as of right now this marks the final performance/appearance by a C an S an N or a Y in the city of Kent, Ohio. No new album to push for this performance and I think David was in and out of town pretty quick. Here is the setlist for that night. Also here's a photo from that night that popped up on Facebook. I do know that negotiations were made on this night during a 30 minute meeting on David's tour bus between David and KSU to secure his performance for the then being planned 50th commemoration of the Kent State Shootings for the following May.

Saturday, May 2, 2020 -- CANCELLED

The concert that never was and it was going to be glorious. Michael Stanley, The Numbers Band, David Crosby and Joe Walsh in the Kent State University MAC Center. The show sold out in 3 hours -- that's over 6,000 tickets. This was to be a benefit concert to raise money for 4 scholarships for incoming Kent State students who would be entering the School of Peace and Conflict Studies. Each scholarship was to be in honor of one of the four killed at Kent State on May 4, 1970.

Kent State University had anticipated over 20,000 people coming back to campus for the 50th Commemoration of the Kent State Shootings which was to take place over the weekend of May 1-4, 2020. An incredible array of events had been planned for this anniversary including a controversial and sold out lecture provided by Jane Fonda in the MAC Center on May 3 and this crown jewel event/concert the previous night in the same room.

Poster originally intended for the 50th

Commemoration Benefit Concert.

Designed by and courtesy of Rod Flauhaus.

As a solo artist David Crosby usually plays theaters that seat around 500 - 1000 but to be able to walk out in front of that packed arena audience on that night would have been glorious. Who knows how he would have made it extra special and if he would have brought his own special guests. While it's widely known that Crosby is currently feuding with Stephen Stills, Neil Young and Graham Nash could this have been a night of reconciliation with one of them? All of them? This wasn't just some random date on Crosby's spring tour this was a very special one-off performance commemorating an event that had a huge impact on the careers of David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young.

Joe Walsh was set to headline with his classic band Barnstorm who had only played together one other time since 1973 and there were credible reports that Joe was exploring the idea of a James Gang reunion taking place on stage that night as well.

Covid-19 wiped out the entire commemoration including this event and every other event in the world and there's no way this could ever be rescheduled. It was outright cancelled. What could have been --- *sigh

A virtual commemoration did take place on the 50th with contributions from both Graham Nash and David Crosby and many more. You can see the archived version right here.

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Some more notes here at the very end:

Check here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here for some of my absolute favorite CSN and Neil Young footage on YouTube. All mind-blowing stuff.

Also as you can see every modern day performance by these guys has been hosted by The Kent Stage. That theater is a real true independently run Kent business that is an absolute treasure for this community. PLEASE support it when it opens back up. They are worth way more than every penny you've ever spent there. Tom and Richele have worked super hard for almost 20 years bringing quality A+ entertainment to the city.

I wrote a book about rock & roll and the city of Kent called Small Town, Big Music: The Outsized Influence of Kent, Ohio on the History of Rock & Roll and Joe Walsh wrote the foreword to it. You can purchase that book right now, right here through Amazon.

I made a movie about The Numbers Band that was supposed to be premiered at the Cleveland Cinematheque on March 21, 2020 but that got thwarted by Covid-19. We will still premiere the film at the Cinematheque but we are not rescheduling the showing until this pandemic is completely in our rearview mirror. Stay tuned for rescheduled date. You can see the original trailer for the film here.

I made another movie recently that streams online called Archie and the Bunkers -- Three Nights in Cleveland and it's about the band Archie and the Bunkers. You should check it out because that band is FUCKING AWESOME. Check my film about them right here.

Big thanks to Brian Slease, Larry Shank, Ed Kaufman, Bill Whitbeck, Terry Hynde, Matt Napier, Robert Brandt, Dylan Tyler and Rod Flauhaus for their help on this piece.