The Boston Tea Party was a concert venue located on 53 Berkeley Street (later relocated to 15 Lansdowne Street in the former site of competitor, The Ark) in Boston, Massachusetts. It operated from 1967 and closed in early 1971, due partly to the increasing popularity of large outdoor festivals and arena rock concerts.[1]
The venue became associated with the psychedelic movement, being similar in this way to other contemporary rock halls such as New York's Fillmore East and Electric Circus, San Francisco's Fillmore West, and Philadelphia's Electric Factory.[1]
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Originally the site of a synagogue, and then a street mission, the location was later converted into a venue that showed underground films, before being bought by Ray Riepen and David Hahn and converted again into a concert venue. It opened as a rock music hall on January 20, 1967.[1]
Originally playing host to exclusively local acts, the venue quickly began to attract performances by many famous artists, including Grateful Dead, Neil Young, The J. Geils Band, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Cream, Fleetwood Mac, The Allman Brothers Band, Joe Cocker & the Grease Band, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, The Buddy Miles Express, Charlie Musselwhite, Jeff Beck, The Who, Santana, Taj Mahal, Ten Years After & Sly and the Family Stone.
The Tea Party was the site of The Velvet Underground show whose ill-placed bootleg became the "Guitar Amp Tape." The cost of admission at the time ranged between $3.00 and $3.50 a show, although The Who exacted a premium for their performance of Tommy, charging $4.50. Light shows designed by Roger Thomas, John Boyd, Deb Colburn, and Ken Brown and performed by Lights By The Road provided the lighting and other effects for many of the performances.
An infamous concert featuring The Velvet Underground (headliners) and the recently-signed MC5, took place at the Tea Party in December 1968. The MC5 opened with their high energy performance, playing to a room full of Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers (known primarily as "Motherfuckers"). After the MC5's energized performance, one of the Motherfuckers got on stage and started haranguing the audience; directing them to "...burn this place down and take to the streets..." After that display of anarchy, Lou Reed addressed the audience, telling their fans that "...we (Velvet Underground) have nothing to do with what just happened...we think it's dumb..." Sterling Morrison (Velvet Underground's bass & guitar player) is on record as saying that he "...always enjoyed the MC5 musically, but didn't like that they were surrounded by and exploited by leeches."
The early history of this venue is documented in the book Mansion on the Hill by Fred Goodman[2]