Boston’s Rock n Roll Riots (episode 149)

Boston has never needed much of an excuse to riot.  Over almost four centuries, we’ve had political riots, racist and xenophobic riots, and plenty riots that seem to be about nothing at all.  Of all the things Bostonians could choose to riot over, a rock and roll show might just be the most frivolous of all.  And yet Boston, like many other cities, has a rich history of riots and near-riots at rock concerts.  If you take enough excited young people and pack them into a tight enough space, with with enough hormones (and quite possibly booze or drugs) coursing through their veins, it doesn’t take much of a spark to set off the powderkeg.  From Chuck Berry to Led Zeppelin, and from the Rolling Stones to Green Day, we’re looking into the causes and consequences of some of the most iconic melees in Boston’s rock and roll history.


Boston’s Rock n Roll Riots

Special thanks this week to Al Quint, editor of the punk zine Suburban Voice, who went into his personal archives and sent me a copy of his review of The Trouble’s last show in 1999.  Thanks also to Joe Harris for emailing me his memories of the Green Day riot from the perspective of “a fourteen year old sophomore with broken glasses.”

Alan Freed and the Big Beat

Beatlemania hits Boston

James Brown at Boston Garden

(“Swingin Cat” at 4:35, followed by Kevin White’s appeal. Fans vs cops at 1:14:55. Demands proper behavior at 1:16:30 – 1:18:00.)

The Rolling Stones

Led Zeppelin

Minor 1980s Kerfluffles

Green Day at the Hatch Shell

The Trouble

  • Danno Pugatch’s account of the evening is fairly close to my memory.
  • Thanks to Al Quint for the scans from his coverage of The Trouble’s last show in Suburban Voice.

Boston Book Club

Like we’ve said on the show many times in the past, Boston has never needed much of an excuse to riot, from bread riots during the Revolutionary War to the 20th century rock riots we discussed on the show this week.  Published in 2001, Boston Riots: Three Centuries of Social Violence, by Jack Tager describes some of the same incidents we’ve covered on the podcast, including 18th century Pope’s Night riots, the 1747 impressment riot, the 1834 Ursuline convent riot, the 1837 Broad Street riot, the 1919 Boston Police strike, the 1967 Grove Hall riot, and more.  

The difference is that where our podcast tends to treat each of these incidents as an event unto itself, a standalone story to tell, Tager traces a few common themes that tie many of Boston’s riots together.  Among the themes he identifies is the attempt to enforce or rebel against racial and societal norms in antebellum Boston, anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant sentiments in the mid and late 19th century, what Tager refers to as “ghetto” riots, and waves of antibusing sentiments.  He tries to find the links between, for example, the rise of James Michael Curley’s Irish-American Democratic party machine and the Boston Police strike riots, which he in turn connects to the widespread bias against Irish immigrants at the time of Boston’s draft riots a generation or two earlier.  

When he talks about the causes of violence in Roxbury in 1967 and 1968 and the white blowback against busing in the 1970s and 1980s, the language Tager uses to talk about race and gender seems dated in 2019.  His attempt to uncover and connect the roots of Boston’s longstanding tendency to riot is nevertheless worth reading. I usually include a promotional blurb from the publisher describing the book, but instead here’s an angry one-star review of Boston Riots from Amazon:

Boston Riots is historically inaccurate.  Professor Tager seems to think that a scuffle, fist fight, shoving match, or chanting constitutes a riot. In his book, BOSTON RIOTS, Prof. Tager is guilty of semantic manipulation as he redefines the word ‘riot’ to fit his politically correct neo-Marxist interpretation of Boston history. For example, I was personally involved in a few of the anti-forced busing demonstrations mentioned in ‘Boston Riots’ yet no riot of any kind broke out. Professor Tager writes myopically being unaffected and far away from his subject matter. He strangely omits the fact that some of the scuffles which broke out in front of my high school, South Boston High, were instigated by the Tactical Police Force (T.P.F.). It is a singular point in history that Boston has never had a riot.

Seems to have touched a nerve, eh?  Somebody who personally participated in the violent protests against court ordered busing (we don’t know which ones, but many involved assaults on black schoolchildren) thinks that Tager is a neo-Marxist?  And he concludes that Boston, which can be objectively shown to be one of the most riotous cities in American history, has never had a riot? If this guy hates it, you know the book must be worth reading! 

Upcoming Event

The Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford is a terrific historic site that we once featured back when we had a featured site every week. Though Massachusetts is proud of our abolitionist history, we often forget that before that sentiment arose, Massachusetts practiced slavery for about 150 years.  The Royall House is the only local site I’ve been to, and perhaps the only site connected to slavery that I’ve been to anywhere, that puts the primary focus of your visit on the enslaved, rather than the enslavers.  

Giving Voice is their annual benefit, where they raise a significant portion of their annual budget, as well as building community and showing off the work they do as an organization.  This year’s Giving Voice will be held on September 15 at 2pm. It’s being billed as “An Afternoon with Historian Tiya Miles.” You’ll enjoy refreshments on the museum lawn, get a tour of the house, and enjoy remarks by their featured speaker.  Here’s how they describe her:

Tiya Miles is a Professor of History and Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at Harvard University.  Recipient of a 2011 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, Professor Miles is the author of five books of history and one novel. Her most recent work, The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits, was co-winner of the prestigious 2018 Frederick Douglass Book Prize, among many other honors.

She writes, “Historians of the United States are continually unearthing an ugly truth: American slavery had no bounds. It penetrated every corner of this country, materially, economically, and ideologically, and the unjust campaign to preserve it is embedded in our built environments, North and South, East and West.”

As a fundraiser, tickets for the event range from $25 to $50.  Register and purchase your tickets on the event page.