My first memories of rock musicians in athletic wear date back to the mid-’70s, when hirsute, husky rockers like The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive sported football and hockey jerseys on stage. Not coincidentally, many of these first-generation jersey-wearing bands included Randy Bachman and his big-boned, North of the Border bandmates. Although I wasn’t particularly a fan of the bands that wore hockey jerseys while rocking the arenas of North America (or the sport of hockey, for that matter), I initially thought it was a cool gesture.
By the late-’70s it seemed that the wearing of a hockey or football jersey onstage was more a fuction of kissing the hometown’s collective ass than anything else. I figured some of jersey-wearing musicians switched jerseys to cow-tow to each town’s sports fans. Was there ever a “Hello, Cleveland!” mix-up involving a musician wearing the wrong home team’s jersey? If it hasn’t happened yet, contributing researcher andyr suggests we keep an eye on these two. (Nice chord, Wayne!) The jersey-wearing rocker would soon be a target for ridicule. You wouldn’t catch a punk rocker in an oversized hockey or football jersey!
Sports jerseys with three-quarter sleeves, however, did have practical uses. They could cover a guitar player’s needle tracks, or at least make teenage kids think they were covering something sinister, while not threatening to accidentally dampen his strings, as the cuffs of a long-sleeved shirt might do. As contributing researcher Oats suggests, the shocking, continued survival of rockin’ football and hockey jerseys, which for athletic use are cut to fit over the athletes’ protective padding, is probably driven by the jerseys’ ability to fit over the musician’s padding.
I will say that today’s occasional hockey rocker sightings still merit consideration if only because hockey continues to be a bit of an underground, or alternative, sport. Football jerseys and rock, however, will never work. As with baseball gear of any sort (ie, jerseys, caps), it’s too mainstream, too jock, too threatening to rock ‘n roll’s large percentage of kids who grew up averse to all things All-American. Finally, on the topic of American football, let’s not forget the nadir of rock’s attempts to coopt American football fashion.
Before we proceed, did the three-quarter length sleeve Look of a classic baseball undershirt-style concert t-shirt precede or follow the wearing of three-quarter sleeve sports jerseys on stage?
I recall a photo of the Eagles from the 70’s in which a few of them were wearing hockey or football jerseys so I’ve always considered them pioneers in the field. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to look for it this morning.
That Jagger pic is absolutely priceless.
I had hoped to feature The Eagles, cdm, but I couldn’t find that shot. When I search for Eagles images I get too many reunion-era shots of them in longcoats and other nauseating Looks. They do deserve credit for popularizing the jersey Look in the US, and I suspect they deserve demerits for being one of those bands that switched jerseys to please each hometown’s crowd.
The Jagger pic is so weird that I kept looking at it before using in this post, thinking it was a Jagger impersonator. How could even the real Jagger be so open about getting to his essence during that period?
Let us not forget the Who on the cover of Odds & Sods. http://www.thewho.com/images/media/albums_large/11_74_odds_and_sods.jpg
Still looking for those shots of The Eagles (the band) in football and hockey jerseys…meanwhile:
Here’s a good sports-themed, 3/4-sleeve concert t-shirt: http://store.jamesgangridesagain.com/images/baseball_jersey.jpg
John McVie’s famously failed attempt at rocking some form or baseball jersey:
http://rgcred.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/fleetwood-mac-back.jpg
McVie must have been quite the sports fan:
http://rgcred.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/fleetwood-mac-color.jpg
Meanwhile, rock’s unfulfilled fashion idea centering around cheerleading is for another day:
http://images2.layoutsparks.com/1/213013/fleetwood-mac-visible-tables-31000.jpg
Totally forgot about the tennis and basketball-inspired terrycloth headband Look:
http://cdn2.ioffer.com/img/item/139/669/145/uztnRqIhCOJA4kn.jpg
RTH pinup girl Linda Rondstadt should have gotten some credit for this homage to roller derby:
http://padresteve.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/linda_ronstadt_usa_11.jpg
But the big shocker in my as-yet-unfulfilled quest to located an image of The Eagles in sports jerseys is this shot, of Belinda Carlisle, making a baseball jersey look as good as possible for not being worn on the field, in a game:
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_uiwmf0PUT14/STlkRRSm0LI/AAAAAAAAbLs/J0F_Cho8RrI/s288/RXFkHP_3.jpeg
L.A. Kings jersey, I think. Not sure who is wearing it: all the Eagles look alike to me.
http://www.glennfreyonline.com/images/eaglesHCSB01.jpg
Thanks, bostonhistorian. I was getting really sick of looking at those guys.
I recall that Stephen Still was a pioneer in the football jersey Look:
http://lowposts.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/stills.jpg
And in the hippie era sports were NOT considered cool.
Let’s not forget Olivia Newton John’s aerobics instructor Look:
http://www.saidaonline.com/en/newsgfx/olivia%20newton%20john.jpg
EXCELLENT call on Stills, BigSteve!!! I wonder if he was the first musician to don a football jersey? How did I forget this classic shot?
http://www.usnewsone.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Stephen-Stills.jpg
And from 1975:
http://www.backstagegallery.com/photos/RK/3380/Stephen-Stills-pictures-1975-RK-3380-001-l.jpg
Never saw this one before:
http://www.suitelorraine.com/suitelorraine/Media/179-StephenStills.jpg
Nor this shot:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1c/Stephen_Stills_-_Love_The_One.jpg
Factor in his work-in-vain in support of The Pancho and Stills may be one of rock’s all-time pioneers in unfulfilled fashion ideas.
Love the McVie Hawaii 77 football shirt,which was the rage in 1977.
I also never get tired of looking at pictures of Linda Ronstadt from the 70s.
Has anyone seen Mike Love of the Beach Boys without a baseball hat in the last 30 years? In this PR pix he’s sporting a USA cap with what appears to be a suit.
http://www.pe.com/imagesdaily/2009/05-01/mikelove_400.jpg
Word is, funoka, Love needs to keep the hat on. It’s something like this:
http://images.dailyfill.com/d9e8e9c08c7e4a1b_8b51a87bdc164f03_o.jpg
Amen Mr. Mod — he should be in jail for continuing to tour as “The Beach Boys.”
Because no one can offer up any photographic evidence of Eagles wearing sports gear of any sort, I motion that IT NEVER HAPPENED a la ZZ Top/Cattle.
TB
On the topic of the pseudo-sport/passtime of bowling: the bowling shirt has been a long-used go-to look for particular sub-genres of rock, especially surf, rock-a-billy, “roots” music and their punk/new wave descendants. Bowling shirts also are a great gateway look into middle age. They project just the right mix of retro cool and playful irony. One of their pitfalls, alas, is their ubiquity, which can dilute any look. An off-shoot look is the space pajama. Though more uncommon, it can be worn effectively; the primo example being the B-52’s. I wish I could find a photo of ancient Philly-area mod band the Fad in their Jetsons/Star Trek shirts. Almost as much as I wish I had a copy of their extremely hard-to-find ep.
Funny, TB, but thankfully, at 11:45 am, bostonhistorian found a shot of Glenn Frey with The Eagles in an LA Kings sweater. I was starting to worry myself:)
Tvox, is this “our” Fad playing on some LA TV show, according to YouTube?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKPuXTnf2NU
I might add that it’s just a hop skip and a jump from the sports look to the military look (with diversions into auto mechanic and race driver jackets). I suppose it comes down to the semiotics of uniforms in rock, their relationship to masculinity and sexuality, topics that RTH labs should really sink its paws into at some point.
I think that’s them!!
At first thought, it seems military gear has been extremely successful in rock style. It would be interesting to consider why the military Look has succeeded when the sports Look has not.
This will fall into the psuedo-sport category for many people, but Talking Heads were semi-renowned for wearing golf shirts early in their career, right? (Although in my cursory Google search, it looks like Chris Franz was the only member consistently photographed wearing one).
The Living Color guy used to wear scuba gear on stage — a very bad Look!
Athletic garb I’d like to see worn by rock stars:
– Jodphurs/polo/jockey gear
– Jai-alai
– Swimming, to include speedos, goggles and nose-plugs
– Greco-Roman wrestling helmets
– Ice skates and/or those incredibly girly men’s figure skating outfits
– Skis!
– Parachutes
– Snorkel, fins, etc.
you’ve got to give Rod the Mod some credit. He’s got to be the ONLY one who actually plays the sport onstage. And.. probably the only one who played the sport somewhat in real life…
There are a lot of jerseys in the Felder book Moddie, thats probly where you remember them from.
here’s my man at the Vet in 81 wearin an Eagles Jersey. You can’t see it in this pic, but he has yellow football pants on.
http://www.virtualbob.com/images/pix009.jpg
When I saw Roxy Music on the Siren tour (’75?) Bryan Ferry was affecting this military Look with (only occasionally visible here) jodhpurs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9QpI3wVvek
Very nazi chic. He’s rocking some khaki’s here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIR1jLbWiz0
I would have sworn the Jagger as wide receiver look was the worst ever but the Rod pic at the top of this really takes the cake. Almost as bad is this look http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R05ad270RIo which I think is from the last Faces tour, sans Ronnie Lane, which appears to be a glorified Rod solo tour.
In the ongoing poll I voted for the shirtless Roger Daltrey to build my soccer team around, but how the hell did that junkie Pete Doherty get a vote and, so far, Feargal’s got none? Come on, did you see his header action in the “My Perfect Cousin” video? I don’t know how tall Doherty is, but Sharkey’s got to have a good 6 inches on the other rockin’ footballers in the poll. Who better to put a header in the back of the net from a well-placed corner kick than Feargal Sharkey?
Rod’s got a nipple slip from the opening frame of that video, misterioso. Watch it Townspeople: NSFW!