Linda Tillery - vocals; Paul Fauerso - keyboards, vocals; Pete Shapiro - guitar; Steve Dowler - guitar; Bob Kridle - bass; George Newcom - drums; Todd Anderson - saxophone; Pat O'Hara - trombone
The Loading Zone was one of many big ensemble San Francisco bands to break out of the Summer of Love in 1967. Along with contemporaries such as It's A Beautiful Day, Tower of Power, Cold Blood and others, The Loading Zone wanted to play it all: R&B, jazz, funk, rock, psychedelic, and blues. And like the other aforementioned bands, they were spearheaded by a charismatic lead vocalist: Linda Tillery. The Loading Zone also had great musicianship and a director/leader in keyboardist/founder Paul Fauerso.
What The Loading Zone didn't have was songs. Because of the response the band received at its live shows in the Frisco area, they did land a deal with RCA Records, but they could never capture the energy of the band's live show on the record. The result was a greatly overproduced debut album. The record contained too many over-arranged Motown covers, and upon the release, it was grilled by most critics. Furthermore, the band failed to gain the support of radio programmers at the time. In the end the criticism and lack of radio support was too much for the band, which dissolved in 1969. Fauerso and Tillery revived the group with new members in 1970 before breaking it up once again less than a year later.
This show was recorded at the legendary Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, in February, 1968. It was during this period that The Loading Zone often opened for the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company and Cream, among others. The band's original's are arguably unmemorable, but they do have some cool covers, among them Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man," The Temptations' "Get Ready," and a very bluesy take on "Stormy Monday," long before the Allman Brothers had turned it into a rock-blues classic.