Long before Starship would release “We Built This City,” Jefferson Airplane had plans to perform a free concert at Golden Gate Park in their native San Francisco when the city informed them of a ban on electrical instruments within the confines of the park. According to rock ‘n’ roll legend, city officials told the psychedelic rock band that San Francisco was “built on orchestral music.”
Just over a decade later, a new evolution of what was once Jefferson Airplane, known as Starship, released a song that refuted the idea that orchestral music built the Golden City.
The Banned San Francisco Performance Of 1973
Jefferson Airplane was a leading figure of the psychedelic rock movement on the West Coast in the late 1960s. Their native San Francisco was the cultural center point of the Summer of Love in 1967, and the psychedelic rock band helped provide the soundtrack with cuts like “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love.” Several years later, in May 1973, the band wanted to give back to the hometown that helped make them famous by offering a free concert in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.
While that might have been a dream for rock lovers at the time, it was a logistical nightmare for the park. The city had already passed an ordinance banning the use of electrical amplification in the park—something still in effect today, with exceptions for shows put on in collaboration with a local production company sanctioned by the park. But back in the early 1970s, the only option was not to have the concert at all. According to rock legend, an anonymous city official told the band that orchestral music had built San Francisco…