UNIVERSITY PROGRAM COUNCIL
MOUNTAIN, BLOODROCK
Memorial Coliseum
December 10, 1970
Mountain performed at Woodstock, although they did not appear in the film. The band was led by guitarist Leslie West and bassist Felix Pappalardi. Many critics credit the pair with making important contributions to the heavy metal movement in music. West’s and Pappalardi’s faces were featured prominently on the blue, UPC promotional posters that were plastered on storefront windows up and down The Strip, telephone poles around Tuscaloosa, and on bulletin boards in buildings all over campus. Before the concert, WUAL played a good deal of the band’s material laying the groundwork for a large audience in Memorial Coliseum. When Mountain was booked at The University of Alabama the group was performing songs from an album, “Climbing,” that was released the same month, and the powerhouse “Mississippi Queen,” which would become Mountain’s signature composition moving as high as 21 on the Billboard rock chart. Bloodrock was a hard rock band from Fort Worth, TX, produced by Grand Funk Railroad’s founder, Terry Knight. The group would eventually gain fame for their gloomy single, “D.O.A.” One of the band’s original members was Dean Parks, a North Texas State University music student who would go on to play with esteemed fusion bands like Steely Dan.