Michael Cohl (right), and Bill Ballard, shown in this undated photo with editing marks, promoted the Pink Floyd concert in Hamilton in 1975 along with local businessman Jean Garofoli. We said, ‘we’ll hire you as the local promoter and let’s work together.’” It is Pink Floyd.’”Ĭohl: “We had been looking to have a gig in Ivor Wynne and we needed someone from Hamilton to be our face we didn’t want to be the big bad monsters coming in from Toronto … We had done other shows with Jean, he was a good guy. I have an act that I would like to have in that facility. His eyes lit up, and Cohl took over: ‘Jean, I have a proposition for you. Ballard opened the conversation by asking if I had the rights to the Hamilton stadium. Garofoli: “I just sat there, curious as hell. (Sportswriter) Trent Frayne wrote that I looked like ‘an unmade bed’ my mother wanted to assassinate him for that.” And I did have extremely long hair, even for those days, and a bushy beard. Michael Cohl: “I still have jeans and a T-shirt on. Garofoli: “(Cohl) looked very shabby, he was wearing a torn T-shirt, had a scruffy looking face, and hair down to his bum. He went on to “ pioneer the modern-day mega tour,” including promoting The Rolling Stones’ massive 1989 Steel Wheels tour, and now heads S2BN Entertainment and lives in New York City. Cohl was 27 and had been in the business since 1969. Garofoli met in Toronto with Bill Ballard, son of Harold, the kingpin of Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens, as well as Michael Cohl, with Concert Productions International (CPI). This will let them see the international names they worship, in the flesh …We retain the right to veto after each performance should anything go wrong, but we don’t envision anything going wrong.”įans camped outside Ivor Wynne Stadium to make sure they got a good spot on the field to see Pink Floyd on June 28, 1975. Young people have two places to go here: to a bar or an X-rated movie. Ken Edge, city councillor, in The Hamilton Spectator April 2, 1975: “Concerts of this magnitude will expose Hamilton as a growing, ambitious city. Me, the poor Parisian boy that came on a boat from France, was on top of the world.” Garofoli: “The public loved the idea of having major events in the stadium, and council had voted 16-5 in favour of me doing gigs in the facility. His reminiscences in this story are quoted from his unpublished memoirs, shared by his daughter, Leslie Bradford-Scott, who is writing a book about her relationship with her controversial father. In addition to his promotions business, Garofoli owned a car dealership and furniture store. In March, council voted to give Garofoli the green light to sign an act. The stadium had recently been expanded to hold 34,500 fans for football, artificial turf was installed, and city leaders yearned to boost revenue with concerts. Ivor Wynne, wedged in the heart of Hamilton’s east end, was home to the Canadian Football League’s Tiger-Cats. Jean Garofoli, shown in this undated photo from the 1970s, was a flashy Hamilton promoter who helped bring Pink Floyd to Hamilton in 1975. It’s hard to believe it happened at all: that Pink Floyd, one of the most famous bands in the world, legendary for its live show featuring cutting-edge surround sound and special effects, played outdoors to an audience of 52,000 on June 28, 1975. Floyd,” as the four-man British rock band was referenced by one square Hamilton politician.)īut it was definitely a bummer when an explosion in the stadium shattered windows of nearby houses, and had a promoter fearing someone had murdered the band. Because get this: those dudes never even saw Pink Floyd. Maybe the best moment was hippies piling out of a van, having travelled 4,000 kilometres to Ivor Wynne Stadium in the heart of east Hamilton. Psychedelic space rock, streakers, LSD, booze in hollowed-out fruit, a woman in labour, a mock flaming jet crashing into the stage: all part of the biggest, most storied neighbourhood concert ever in Ontario, where hordes of sun-and-substance-baked fans slept on lawns and sidewalks days in advance.
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