The 1973 tour featured a slimmed down Allman Brothers Band who, despite having just lost Duane Allman in October 1971 and bassist Berry Oakley in November 1972, ascended the pedestal as the hottest and most popular band in America.
The Allmans had just headlined Watkins Glen, playing with the Grateful Dead and The Band to 600,000 people on July 28, 1973 and their soon-to-be-#1 album, Brothers and Sisters, was released in August of that year. It’s no wonder then that the promoter for this show at the San Diego Sports Arena promoted it with HELL YEAH! There was a double meaning here, no doubt in the good time to be experienced by the audience and a nice payday for the promoter.
Brothers and Sisters was immediately successful. The record went gold within 48 hours and the album sold 760,000 copies in its first three weeks, making it one of the fastest-starting albums in Warner/Elektra/Atlantic Records' history. Billboard called it the "success story of the summer," noting that there was no "sustained merchandising promotion effort needed" on the LP.
Songs typically laid down by the Allman Brothers in the of Fall 1973 included In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, Jessica, Statesboro Blues, Midnight Rider, Done Somebody Wrong, Ramblin’ Man, Wasted Words, One Way Out, Whipping Post, Trouble No More, and Stormy Monday.
Box Scaggs headed for San Francisco in 1967 when he was 23 and joined the Steve Miller Band, playing a prominent role on guitar for their first two albums before launching a solo career in 1969. Scagg’s next door neighbor in the Potrero Hill neighborhood was Jann Wenner, Publisher and Founder of Rolling Stone Magazine and Wenner encouraged Scaggs to go out and record at Muscle Shoals as it was a fit with his style. Scaggs took the advice and met Duane Allman who played all over Scagg’s first album and so it must have been a little bittersweet to be with the Duane-less Allmans in San Diego.