The Great Southeast Music Hall was a legendary Atlanta music venue at least a decade before my time. The list of acts to play that stage is legendary. The most famous has to be the Sex Pistols show on January 5, 1978… but the venue is really known for hosting acts that would one day become huge. In the 1970s, you could go to Great Southeast Music Hall and for 3 or 4 bucks see “nobodies” like Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffett or Lynyrd Skynyrd. Even if they were known – like Jim Croce, Muddy Waters or Linda Ronstadt – chances were good that there wouldn’t be much of a crowd (the official maximum capacity was only 500).
One night in the mid 1970s, Steve Martin and Martin Mull were supposed to do a double-bill as “The Steve Martin Mull Show”. Local legend Darryl Rhoades describes it:
“Steve had a college date on a Thursday night so they brought in Tom Waits for that show and Martin asked if I wanted to set in so I played drums with Jonny Hibbert on sax and Keith Christopher on bass with Martin on guitar and Tom on piano. That was one of my more pleasant memories at the Music Hall.”
The best part is, only around 14 people bought tickets, so the two Martins cut the show short and invited everyone – the crowd and venue employees – to the nearby Express Lanes bowling alley, where Martin and Mull bought several pitchers of beer and rented a couple lanes for the rest of the evening.
Can you imagine how cool that would have been? How much geek cred would you have with your “I saw Martin Mull open for a pickup band with Steve Martin and Tom Waits and only 13 other people showed up, so they took us bowling and bought pitchers of beer!” story?
NEAT FACT: Jonny Hibbert played sax, but is mostly known for starting Atlanta-based label Hib-Tone Records. The label only ever released four singles. Three of them were pretty forgettable… but the other one was R.E.M.’s first version of “Radio Free Europe”.
NEAT FACT 2: Keith Christopher was a founding member (and namesake) of a short-lived Atlanta band called “Keith and the Satellites”. After several personnel changes (including Keith’s departure) they renamed themselves “The Georgia Satellites”.