Montrose at the Record Plant, April 21, 1973

On April 21, 1973, Tom Donahue put a nameless band on KSAN. On the air, he billed them as Ronnie Montrose and Friends. The band had no record deal and no album yet. It was the band's first live performance, broadcast across the Bay Area. Montrose, the debut LP, wouldn't arrive until October on Warner Brothers.

Ted Templeman produced that debut, but in April none of it existed. Sammy Hagar was twenty-five and came out of local cover bands. Denny Carmassi came the same route, straight off the Bay Area circuit. Bill Church had worked with Montrose on Van Morrison sessions under Templeman. That connection brought Templeman the demos and brought the band Warner Brothers.

What Donahue aired was a four-piece playing its very first set. Nobody had signed a contract, and no album title existed yet. The set ran eleven songs, most of them bound for the debut LP. It opened with Good Rockin' Tonight and closed with I Don't Want It. Rock Candy and Bad Motor Scooter sat in the middle, already fully formed.

The recording became one of hard rock's most bootlegged radio sets. Before 2017, every copy traced back to a secondary source. Rhino and Warner finally issued a clean transfer on the 2017 Deluxe Edition. Friday Music pressed it on vinyl, and Cherry Red boxed it in 2022. You can stream the whole first set on Spotify today.

Ronnie Montrose died on March 3, 2012, at age sixty-four. Hagar still points to this broadcast as the document of their origins. On April 21, 1973, none of that future had happened yet.