History

The Hollywood Bowl has been the outdoor concert home of Los Angeles since 1922 — a natural amphitheatre in Bolton Canyon whose banded concentric shell, in the form designed by Lloyd Wright in the late 1920s, is one of the most recognisable stages in America. For most of its life it belonged to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and to the summer symphony season. What makes it matter to this chronicle is that in the middle 1960s it also became a rock venue, and a significant one: an eighteen-thousand-seat hillside bowl was a different proposition from a ballroom, and the acts booked into it were the ones who had outgrown clubs. The Beatles played it in 1964 and 1965. The Beach Boys and the Doors each had nights there that are still discussed. Its size, its formality and its civic respectability made a Bowl booking a marker of arrival in a way no San Francisco hall could be.

Its Place in the Scene

The prestige outdoor stage of Los Angeles — where a 1960s rock act played once it had outgrown clubs and ballrooms entirely.

The Facts

Shows at this Venue