The Yardbirds with Jimmy Page at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium Sept 7 1966

My first concert! So excited to finally get to see Jeff Beck and the band play live.
2 weeks earlier, my older brother had seen them play at the Avalon Ballroom on Catalina Island CA where Jimmy Page was still playing bass for the Yardbirds and Jeff Beck holding down the lead duties.
Apparently a terrific show.

The yardbirds were the headlining act supported by Los Bravos who were having chart success
with their hit song "Black Is Black". A local band called the Inroads were the opening act.

Unfortunately, for the Santa Monica Civic show, Jeff was absent due to illness or his girlfriend Mary Hughes. The band played as a 4 piece with Jimmy Page placed on guitar using Jeff's 50's Les Paul with Chris Dreja relegated to playing bass instead of backup/rhythm guitar.

We were disappointed with Jeff Beck's no show.
Jimmy Page's soloing work was pretty choppy and not up at the level that Beck was playing at that time. Jimmy's backup guitar work was strong and solid.

Another show negative was the use of the Civic auditorium's house pa for the bands vocals. The house pa consisted of only two seperate single 12 inch speaker cabinets mounted high above the stage and placed one on the left and the other on  the right.

You simply could not hear the vocals and that included Keith Relf's harmonica playing.

This was a few years prior to pro sound reinforcement being the norm.
Bad enough that this happened for this show but the same mistake was made
when the Yardbirds played the Civic again the following year.
That concert made use of the pathetically underpowered house pa system once again.

So here are a few photos taken of the Yardbirds first show at the Santa Monica Civic.

Those with a keen eye can see that Jimmy was using a Maestro Fuzztone for that gig.

Also note the solid state Jordan Amplifier stacks in the back lineup.
The Jordan amps were rather stiff and sterile sounding.

I finally did see Jeff Beck in concert with Rod Stewart a few years later at the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium when they first came through town in support of the Truth album.
A fantastic band and great concert.
Pink Floyd and Blue Cheer shared the bill.