Michael Stanley and Blossom: A Legacy

In August 1982, the Michael Stanley Band — a homegrown Northeast Ohio group turned nationally charting treasure — sold out four nights at Blossom Music Center, setting an unbroken attendance record of 74,404.

“Those four sold-out nights ... were special because that was probably the height of the band’s popularity, and the crowds couldn’t have been better. You couldn’t ask for more,” says MSB drummer Tommy Dobeck. “It was nuts, though. Backstage, everyone had friends, and the guest lists were intense.”

Coming home was special.

And Michael?

“He was in heaven. It was perfect,” says Dobeck. “They were coming to hear his songs. These are the things Michael wrote. … We were doing mostly his tunes, and people were buying them. He sold it onstage. He was a great performer.”

So great, in fact, that Dobeck remembers many fans — perhaps overcome by the sheer ecstasy of the music and moment — trying to jump onstage.

“There was a lot of women running onstage, and Michael got clipped a couple times,” he says. “That happened a bunch. There’s a nice thing to living in the back row. ... It’s like a movie you’re watching.”

Michael Gismondi, who played bass in MSB from 1979 to 1987, recalls the sold-out shows as “a big deal.”

“Blossom was definitely … one of my favorite venues,” Gismondi says. “It was the perfect place to play in the middle of the summer, from my perspective, point of view, onstage at Blossom, when you look out into the crowd, you see this vast left-to-right panorama. … It was pretty awe-inspiring. And the crowds were very enthusiastic.”

Akron musician Marc Lee Shannon, who was in the later band Michael Stanley & The Resonators, played with the late local legend for 25 years starting in 1995 — but never got to play Blossom with him. Backstage at a Stanley tribute show, talking to Michael Belkin Jr., Shannon confessed that he’d never had the opportunity to fulfill his dream.

“I got to play some incredible stages with Michael. I mean, we played 60,000, 50,000. … But I never got to play Blossom. I think he made note of that,” Shannon says of Belkin Jr. “One summer day, I got a call, and he said, Hey, do you wanna open for Sammy Hagar and George Thorogood? I said, You’re kidding me.”

In June 2022, Shannon finally had the opportunity to play at Blossom.

“It was a dream come true for me,” Shannon says. “There’s a resonance on that stage. And when you’re singing on that stage, you hear a resonance on the inside of it. … It is super unique, and I will never, ever forget what it felt like to sing on that stage.”

Growing up in Northeast Ohio made the opportunity much more symbolic for Shannon.

“Everybody who was anybody played at Blossom Music Center,” he reminisces. “It was a thrill, and when I walked off, to be honest with you, it was a lifelong dream, and I had to … find a corner because I was moved. It was something I waited for my whole life.”