Mountain Theatre | |
 Jefferson Airplane performing at the Fantasy Fair | |
 | |
| Full name | Sidney B. Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre |
|---|---|
| Location | Mount Tamalpais State Park, Marin County, California |
| Seating type | Open-air |
| Capacity | 4,000 |
| Opened | 1913 |
| Website | |
| www | |
The Sidney B. Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre, also known as the Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre or simply the Mountain Theatre, is a 4,000-seat open-air venue in Mount Tamalpais State Park, in Marin County, California, United States.
Beginning in 1913 Mount Tamalpais had hosted theatrical performances known as Mountain Plays in a natural amphitheatre setting 2,000 feet above sea level. John C. Catlin became the first president of the Mountain Play Association and financed its first play in the Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre in 1913. [1]
In the first two decades the performances were accessed by hiking or riding the winding Mount Tamalpais and Muir Woods Railway. [2] The railway was led by businessman Sidney B. Cushing and, in 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps began construction of a 4,000-seat stone amphitheater that was named the Sidney B. Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre in his honor. [3] [4] The amphitheatre was constructed by the corps using massive serpentine rocks. [2] In 1967 the venue hosted the two-day Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival, widely considered the first outdoor rock festival ever held during the Summer of Love. [5] It hosts theatrical productions each year in the spring.
In response to the California State Parks budget crisis, on June 21, 2013, the Tamalpais Conservation Club [6] hosted a benefit concert, Mount Tam Jam, [7] produced by Michael Nash. This eight-hour festival resulted in a sell-out crowd under perfect weather conditions. The musical lineup included CAKE, Galactic, Taj Mahal, Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Review, and Danny Click and the Hell Yeahs. [8]
In 2014, Michael Nash formed Roots & Branches Conservancy and since 2015 has produced Sound Summit at the Amphitheatre, raising $200,000 for Mount Tamalpais State Park. [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] The Sound Summit 2015 lineup included Tedeschi Trucks Band, Dr. John & The Nite Trippers, The Mother Hips, Portland Cello Project, The Mother Truckers, and Caroline Sky. Sound Summit 2016 featured Wilco, Los Lobos, Bill Frisell & Guitar In The Space Age, The Stone Foxes, and Matt Jaffe. Sound Summit 2017 celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Magic Mountain Festival with performances by Bob Weir and Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, The Stone Foxes, Vetiver, and the Printz Dance Project. The Sound Summit 2018 featured jazz icon Herbie Hancock, Grace Potter, Bob Weir, Nikki Lane, Con Brio, and Amelia Einhorn. The event took a rest in 2019, and it was postponed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The following year, Sound Summit 2021 returned to a joyful and jubilant crowd with performances by Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, Father John Misty, Allah-Las, Cha Wa, Teal Collins, and Ray & Paul Holmberg.
Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, United States, located about 14 miles (23 km) north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge and 52 miles (84 km) from Napa Valley. The population was 14,231 at the 2020 census.
Mount Tamalpais, known locally as Mount Tam, is a peak in Marin County, California, United States, often considered symbolic of Marin County. Much of Mount Tamalpais is protected within public lands such as Mount Tamalpais State Park, the Marin Municipal Water District watershed, and National Park Service land, such as Muir Woods.
A gravity railroad or gravity railway is a railroad on a slope that allows cars carrying minerals or passengers to coast down the slope by the force of gravity alone. The speed of the cars is controlled by a braking mechanism on one or more cars on the train. The cars are then hauled back up the slope using animal power, a locomotive or a stationary engine and a cable, a chain or one or more wide, flat iron bands. A much later example in California used 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge steam engines to pull gravity cars back to the summit of Mt. Tamalpais.
Tamalpais High School is a public secondary school located in Mill Valley, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is named after nearby Mount Tamalpais, which rises almost 2,500 feet (760 m) above Mill Valley.
The Bridge School Benefit was an annual charity concert usually held in Mountain View, California, every October at the Shoreline Amphitheatre from 1986 until 2016 with the exception of 1987. The concerts lasted the entire weekend and were organized by musicians Neil Young and Pegi Young. An annual Bay Area highlight, the concerts were billed online as the primary means of funding for The Bridge School; over both days, the reserved seats alone brought in well over a million dollars every year.
Gathering of the Vibes was an annual four-day music, camping and arts festival that celebrated the Grateful Dead and showcased a diverse variety of music. Over the course of the event, styles would often include funk, bluegrass, rock, jam band, jazz, reggae, R&B and folk music. Beginning in 1996, GOTV brought many bands to the New England area during the summer season. There existed two main stages which would alternate bands so that festival-goers could experience music all day and into the night. A short stroll down the beach was the "Green Vibes Stage", which showcased some of the Northeast's finest talent.
High Sierra Music Festival is a multi-day music festival held in Quincy, California, United States, a mountainous area about 80 miles northwest of Reno, Nevada.
Mount Tamalpais and the surrounding areas in Marin County, California are recognized as the birthplace of the modern mountain biking industry. Other Northern California hill-adjacent suburban areas had small cohorts.
Founded in 1981, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy is a nonprofit cooperating association that supports park stewardship and conservation in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area—the most visited national park in the U.S.
The KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival was an event held June 10 and 11, 1967, at the 4,000-seat Sidney B. Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre high on the south face of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California. Although 20,000 tickets were reported to have been sold for the event, as many as 40,000 people may have actually attended the two-day concert, which was the first of a series of San Francisco–area cultural events known as the Summer of Love. The Fantasy Fair was influenced by the popular Renaissance Pleasure Faire and became a prototype for large scale multi-act outdoor rock music events now known as rock festivals.
Mountain Jam was an annual music festival held in upstate New York that began in 2005. It grew to become the largest rock music and camping festival in New York. The festival was held at Hunter Mountain ski resort for fourteen years, usually in early June. In February 2019, organizers for the Festival announced that the festival was moving to the location of the original Woodstock festival, the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts.
The Mount Tamalpais & Muir Woods Railway was a scenic tourist railway operating between Mill Valley and the east peak of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California, covering a distance of 8.19 miles (13.18 km), with a 2.88-mile (4.63 km) spur line to the Muir Woods. The railroad was incorporated in January 1896, and closed in the summer of 1930. Originally planned as a 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge electric trolley line, the railroad was powered by a succession of geared steam locomotives. Billed as the "Crookedest Railroad in the World", the line was renowned for its steep and serpentine route, winding through picturesque terrain to a mountaintop tavern providing first-class hospitality and panoramic views of the San Francisco Bay Area. Despite its popularity, the railway met its demise following a fire in 1929, and dwindling ridership when the automobile could finally drive to Tamalpais' summit.
The Mountain Play Association is a 501(c)3 organization responsible for the production of theatrical events at the Sidney B. Cushing Amphitheater on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California. The stone amphitheater, named for the owner of the railroad company which constructed the Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railway, is at an elevation of 2,000 feet and has 4,000 seats.
The Grateful Dead were an American rock band known for their lengthy, partially improvised performances, as well as for a loyal fan base who often followed the band for several shows or entire tours. They disbanded in 1995, following the death of de facto bandleader Jerry Garcia. Since then remaining members have reunited for a number of concert tours and one-off performances, often in very different configurations. The following is a list of instances where former Grateful Dead members have reunited.
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The Miami Pop Festival was a rock festival that took place from December 28-30, 1968, at Gulfstream Park, a horse racing track in Hallandale, Florida, just north of Miami. It is sometimes confused with a separate event that took place seven months earlier, at the same venue, though the two events were unrelated. The earlier event was officially publicized on promotional materials and in radio ads as the "1968 Pop and Underground Festival," and "The 1968 Pop Festival," but later came to be referred to colloquially as the "Miami" Pop Festival, a practice which has led to confusion between the two events.
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