On an August day in 1972, greater than 100,000 individuals gathered on the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for a live performance. The report label Soul Stax Data organized this a part of the Watts Summer season Competition to profit the native communities of South Los Angeles recovering from the civil unrest in Watts seven years earlier and dealing with the continued wrestle for racial equality .
Dubbed “Wattstax,” it featured thrilling ensembles from Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, Rufus Thomas, Soul Youngsters and different soul, gospel, rhythm and blues and jazz acts. Baptist minister and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, who served as emcee, gave a speech celebrating African-American pleasure to the sold-out crowd. Broadly considered a day of therapeutic and unity for the black neighborhood, it was a historic occasion and was also referred to as “Black Woodstock”.
The occasion captured the essence of the Colosseum's cultural historical past: music and popular culture collide with politics and faith. Neighborhood pursuits that illuminate problems with nationwide significance.
Though the 100-year-old stadium is greatest identified for its athletic distinctions — amongst them internet hosting two Olympic Video games (quickly to be three in 2028) and being residence to USC Trojans soccer since 1923 — its legacy rests on many greater than sports activities.
A pope, six presidents of america, worldwide dignitaries, the largest names in rock and soul: A real who's who of the cultural luminaries of the final century got here to the Coliseum to amplify their voices to a few of the largest audiences ever assembled in Los Angeles. Underneath USC administration since 2013, the venue has served as a city sq. for LA, providing folksy thrills like rodeos, costume contests and carnivals alongside grander fare.
“The Colosseum has proven that it may be the container for a lot of sorts of actions and performances,” says William Deverell, professor of historical past within the USC Dornsife School of Letters, Arts and Sciences and director of the Huntington Institute-USC in California. and the West. “It’s a public area the place politics might be mentioned, leisure can occur, musical and cultural occasions and generally even kitsch occasions.
A world stage
Constructed to carry 75,000 individuals when it opened on Could 1, 1923, the stadium served as a central gathering level for a rising metropolis. At the moment, Los Angeles had just lately change into the biggest metropolis in California and the movie capital of the world.
“The Coliseum's authentic constitution mentioned they had been constructing a neighborhood area to host sporting occasions, spiritual occasions, dances — mainly, any public occasion you might consider,” says Coliseum Basic Supervisor Joe Furin '89. “I believe he lives as much as it.”
In its early days, the scale of the Colosseum put it on the map. “There weren't many locations within the metropolis or county that might maintain large-scale conferences,” Furin says.
Because it hosted high-profile friends resembling transatlantic pilot Charles Lindbergh in 1927 and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935, in addition to the 1932 Summer season Olympics, the stadium gained a sort of mystique . It has change into a stage for “not solely occasions of metropolis significance, however of nationwide significance — and of world significance,” says Taj Frazier, affiliate professor on the USC Annenberg College for Communication and Journalism and director of the Institute for Range and Empowerment at Annenberg. .
Devoted as a memorial to LA's World Struggle I veterans when it opened (and rededicated to all American World Struggle I veterans in 1968), the Coliseum was a pure match for patriotic celebrations and speeches by a few of the nation's most well-known troopers. and political figures.
It’s the place the place, in 1945, Basic George S. Patton Jr. and Lieutenant Basic James H. Doolittle gave a homecoming handle upon his return to america after the top of World Struggle II. It’s the place, in 1960, John F. Kennedy accepted the nomination for president on the Democratic Nationwide Conference; the place, in 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. advocated for passage of the Civil Rights Act 19 days earlier than it was signed into legislation; and the place, in 1990, anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela appeared at a freedom rally simply 4 months after being launched from jail in South Africa.
“These are sights that reduce throughout all method of divisions in our society,” says Deverell.
Collect the trustworthy
Essentially the most attended occasion within the Coliseum's historical past occurred throughout the Billy Graham Campaign in 1963. Almost 1,000,000 individuals got here to the stadium to listen to the Christian evangelist preach throughout the roughly three-week campaign. On the final day of the marketing campaign, greater than 130,000 individuals crammed the Colosseum – a report for a single day's attendance that has not but been surpassed.
Deverell notes that Los Angeles had lengthy been residence to out of doors spiritual spectacles, however the stadium raised the size of what was potential.
“The Coliseum proved actually vital to assemble tens of hundreds of devotees to see these crucial occasions which can be a sworn statement to their religion,” says Deverell. “It permits so many individuals to come back collectively within the very heart of LA to profess their spiritual allegiance.”
In 1987, Pope John Paul II hosted a papal mass for greater than 100,000 worshipers that included the discharge of 500 doves and a choir of 1,200 singers from parishes in Southern California. The Los Angeles Occasions proclaimed that the pontiff obtained a “rock star” welcome.
It was an apt comparability in a spot that had change into a temple to rock and roll.
Beat the band
Music has been part of Coliseum occasions since its earliest days. Bands and orchestras appeared in all the things from Cinco de Mayo celebrations to Shriners conventions and even an ice skating carnival.
However within the late Sixties, as a consequence of advances in sound amplification expertise, “enviornment rock” was born – and the Coliseum was effectively positioned to capitalize on the pattern. Jethro Tull, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, REO Speedwagon and Van Halen are only a few of the musical giants that rocked the Coliseum throughout the Nineteen Seventies.
The '70s additionally noticed soul and funk music flourish on the Coliseum, with occasions together with Wattstax and the 1977 Music Sound Funk Competition that includes Parliament-Funkadelic, Rick James, the Isley Brothers and Chaka Khan.
“For some black and Latino Angelenos, the Coliseum has been an area with which they've had a long-standing cultural relationship, principally due to the video games and reveals they've had there,” Frazier says. “They’ve reminiscences of or heard tales about Wattstax, the Raiders [football team] taking part in there and in the end successful a championship in 1984 and USC's championship soccer groups of the Nineteen Seventies and 2000s.
In latest a long time, hip-hop artists together with Drake, Lauryn Hill, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar have appeared within the venue. Latin bands, together with Los Bukis, additionally performed high-profile reveals. In 2006, the Mexican pop group RBD, which drew greater than 63,000 followers to the Coliseum, set a report for the biggest paid attendance for a Latin music live performance in america.
Through the heyday of rock and hair-metal within the Nineteen Eighties, the Coliseum performed host to Black Sabbath, Low-cost Trick, Weapons N' Roses, Metallica and extra. Bruce Springsteen's 1985 reveals that ended his Born within the USA Tour — with 4 reveals for almost 323,000 attendees — had been a few of the largest live shows in Coliseum historical past.
“Seeing a live performance on the Colosseum is a reminiscence that folks cherish and don't simply overlook,” says Furin. “It's a shared expertise with hundreds of others, however it additionally feels very intimate.”
For Furin, U2's 1987 Coliseum reveals throughout the Joshua Tree Tour had been notably impactful. He remembers that because the band performed the haunting opening chords to the music “The place the Streets Have No Title”, the Coliseum's Olympic torch, which sits atop its well-known peristyle, was lit, shining its gentle on the darkish stage.
“It was magical,” says Furin.
The latest 18-month renovation undertaking of the Colosseum, accomplished in August 2019, and the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 have paused live shows on the venue for an prolonged interval.
“We're now actually getting again into it and having some nice success doing live shows once more, each large and small,” says Furin. “The longer term appears shiny. We're enthusiastic about it.”
A permanent icon
Whilst different massive stadiums, such because the Crypto.com Area (previously Staples Heart) and the SoFi Stadium, have come to Los Angeles, the Coliseum has survived as a cultural and live performance favourite.
Deverell says the Coliseum's traditional structure, central location in Los Angeles and significance to generations of Angelenos and Trojan alumni have helped the venue stand the take a look at of time.
“It's woven into the neighborhood and cultural DNA of the area,” says Deverell. “There's one thing for everybody.”