Sundowners Are Bright Spot In Bad Trip at SPAC Concert

by Marilyn Nason, The Post-Star, August 30, 1969

As for last night’s “concert” at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, the best that can be said is that a local group, the Sundowners, had an opportunity to appear on the famed stage.

Next thing that might be said is that Richie Havens is a handsome, tall, quiet man with a beautiful voice, great dexterity with the guitar and more ideally suited to a coffee house than the vastness of the SPAC stage. He looks like he should be a leading dramatic actor in appearance.

Despite efforts with the volume controls, much of his excellent performance never reached the largely lawn crowd of 5,000 and this was too bad.

On the other hand, the Vanilla Fudge reached not only the lawn crowd but probably a few counties beyond and it’s questionable what advantage this may have been.

To say they are loud, noisy, frenzied and pretty much meant for a limited-interest teen-age audience, and even the latter is somewhat in doubt, is about all that’s needed to sum them up.

Everything seemed to go wrong last night. The Sundowners were pleasant, a tribute at least to South Glens Falls, for the first time a local group has graced the SPAC stage. But whoever suggested they play such a lengthy, monotonous medley to close their portion of the show was an enemy, not a friend.

Richie Havens had the aforementioned sound troubles and then the Vanilla Fudge spent over half an hour onstage repairing a broken drum, resulting in their portion of the show starting at nearly 11 p.m. Many left and others continued to drift out as they continued playing as midnight approached.

For those who remained, the Vanilla Fudge seemed to be doing everything right, with shouts and applause proving this in spades, so quite obviously there is an audience for this type of group. To watch the organist and drummer in action was a show in itself.

Tonight at 8:30 a bit more logical entertainment is assured with the fine talents of Chet Atkins, Boots Randolph, Floyd Cramer with Jerry Reed, the Music City Sound of Strings and the Nashville Brass. This should be an excellent show with some really great country/western and pop music. Tomorrow at 3:30 p.m., the return of Bill Cosby and Odetta close the season, with the exception of the special Sept. 18-21 weekend of specials being planned.