EARLY HISTORY OF ‘THE UPSTAGE’

The husband and wife team of Tom & Margaret Potter opened the now-legendary club “The Upstage” on or about February 19, 1968. The couple had been operating the folk-orientated “Green Mermaid” teahouse for the previous 6 months or so. They decided to expand that concept to incorporate rock, blues and soul music. The Potter’s renovated the 3rd floor, above the Green Mermaid’s 2nd floor location, to create the new venue.

A ‘house-band’ called “Margaret & The Distractions” (led by Margaret Potter) provided all the advertised entertainment during the initial couple of months of the club’s existence. The Upstage was quite unique for the time in that it was open until 5am, several hours after the bulk of other clubs in the area had closed. This provided a perfect environment for local musicians, having completed their own paid gigs elsewhere, to congregate at the Upstage – which in turn soon led to informal jam sessions, which the Potter’s encouraged and nurtured.

Some of the then-members of popular shore region group THE JAYWALKERS were among the first to frequent and jam informally at The Upstage during the spring and summer of 1968. These included Jaywalkers lead guitarist Billy Ryan and organist David Heth (who tragically was killed in a car accident on his way to The Upstage in May 1968).

During the summer and autumn of 1968 Vini Lopez, Danny Federici and Bill Chinnock (all three then-members of the DOWNTOWN TANGIERS BAND) began frequenting The Upstage. A group called SPEED LIMIT 25, which included (among others) Billy Ryan, Rick DeSarno, Donnie Lowell and Garry Tallent, formed in the early autumn of 1968 as a direct result of jamming taking place at the club. The Potter’s actually placed ADs in local newspapers during Oct 1968 promoting the group under the moniker ‘SPEED LIMIT 25 (featuring Billy Ryan)’. In late 1968 and into 1969 Steve Van Zandt, then a member of THE SOURCE, jammed occasionally at The Upstage with an informal group that he dubbed ‘THE INTERNATIONAL SILVER STRING SUBMARINE BAND’ (a name pinched from the kids’ band in ‘The Little Rascals’ films series).

Springsteen and other members of his 1968 outfits (THE CASTILES and EARTH) were not among the musicians that frequented The Upstage during 1968. This has been verified to Brucebase in discussions with members of both The Castiles and Earth. Springsteen’s primary “hangout” in 1968 was some distance inland – at the ‘Off Broad Street Coffee House’ in Red Bank. The Upstage and the Off Broad Street were two quite separate “scenes” at the time.

Springsteen’s first visits to The Upstage were in early 1969, after Upstage regular Vini Lopez invited him to come down and jam after Lopez went to see Springsteen in action at a Feb 14, 1969 EARTH gig. Lopez was looking to start a new band. It was after turning up to The Upstage that Springsteen was first introduced to Danny Federici. After only a couple of Upstage jam sessions the three of them, along with Vinnie Roslin (ex-MOTIFS bassist, who Springsteen and Lopez had known since 1965), formed CHILD in early March 1969.

The Upstage would end up operating for about 44 months in total (mid Feb 1968 to late Oct 1971). During 1969 and early 1970 the club gradually became more and more popular. The “golden era” for the venue (and the period when there were the most frequent Springsteen-related live performances) was during a 12-month period from mid 1970 to mid 1971.