The artist Linda Ronstadt was scared to open for: “I wasn’t sure we’d get boo’d”
Any band that says yes to being an opening act on tour normally is playing with fire. The whole idea of playing to a lot more people than the usual bar gigs is a great opportunity, but when everyone’s there to see the opening band, there’s a good chance that a lot of the booze being bought in between songs are eventually going to become aerodynamic when the audience hears something they don’t like. Every good band has to weather that storm eventually, though, but Linda Ronstadt was shaking in her boots the first time she played alongside rock and roll legends.
Ronstadt was always a lot softer of a vocalist than the rock and roll artists of her time, and since country rock wasn’t completely set in stone yet, it was hard to think of her holding her own against the other acts of the time. Crosby, Stills, and Nash had been a more mellow band to listen to, but how the hell was she supposed to gain a foothold when the last thing many people heard were bands like The Doors?
It was going to be a major cultural shock, but Ronstadt was a lot more versatile than most people give her credit for. Yes, she did commit some decidedly un-rock and roll moves in her later years by recording American standards and moving to Broadway, but no stage performer can get that way without being able to belt, and ‘You’re No Good’ was proof she could hang with any other rock and roll frontman.
But making the jump up to the stadiums of the world is never an easy feat to pull off. Ronstadt could light any club on fire whenever she was playing in Los Angeles, but once Neil Young saw what she could do, he knew that she deserved to be on bigger stages. Young had all the star power she needed to reach the big time, but it’s not like she wanted to have a big change of scenery all at once.
When talking about playing places like Madison Square Garden, Ronstadt was still a bit uptight about not being able to hear herself, saying, “I was a club act, and I had a club band. I didn’t have a band that was made for 20,000-seat stadiums. I wasn’t sure whether we’d get booed off the stage. But [manager] John [Boylan] encouraged me, and I stepped up and did it. It turned out to be very successful for us. For the first show, we were at Madison Square Garden, playing for an audience of eighteen thousand. Playing at Madison Square Garden is something you just endured.”
The stadium has become the main venue for rock and roll for years, but it’s not like Ronstadt doesn’t have a point. Those sports venues aren’t normally equipped to be on shows of that size, and even though there have been advancements in technology so most people can hear everything someone like Paul McCartney is saying live, having every musician sing and play into the void in the 1970s was never the easiest thing to manage.
And while Eagles were certainly capable of making that magic happen, Ronstadt was not really able to do it alone. When she did rise to the occasion, she left everyone stunned to find out that the voice on her records was real. She was willing to belt as much as she could to give people their money’s worth, and even if some pieces weren’t perfect, it’s saying something knowing that she could sway the opinion of Young’s fans.
But, really, having a fanbase that Young had cultivated over the years was the perfect breeding ground for her. Everyone in that crowd had been used to watching their hero switch things up on every record he made and not giving a single shit about what other people said, so why not bring out a countrified singer to help lighten the mood a bit?
