October 02, 2007

• Mine: The Who, 1982, at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. It was one of the last general admission (festival seating) concerts ever. When I got there I was about 50 yards from the stage. When the opening act * came on, the crowd rushed forward and I was about 30 yards away. By the time the Who took the stage I was sandwiched in around the 20 yard line. * The opening act was supposed to be The Clash, (which was to be an awesome bonus) and their fans were out in force. They pulled out at the last minute, however, and Joe Jackson was kind enough to fill in. This did not go over well, and Joe and his band were forced off the stage after about 3 or 4 songs when people started throwing heavier items at them. (Joe's last words to us were "That was fucking stupid, you cunt", after someone hit his keyboard player with what I think was an orange). When I got home that night, I switched on the TV and who were the musical guests on Saturday Night Live? That's right...The Clash.
• Circa 1975, Joni Mitchell, at Chicago's Arie Crown Theater. She played with Tom Scott and the LA Express. Joints passed, lighters lit, good times. Except she failed to fall in love with me.
• 1986, Violent Femmes, Hallowed Ground. jessamyn got us tickets. She's awesome. When did tracicle ever get me concert tickets? Never, that's when!!
• First concert (or first concert without a parental unit) was Stompin’ Tom at Hamilton Place, 1995 (late bloomer). I went with my girlfriend, who was not a Stompin’ Tom fan. I thought she was nuts. And, of course, she was -- c'mon, it's Stompin' Tom! How is it possible to not like Stompin' Tom? I picked up a t-shirt (the “I stomped along with Stompin’ Tom” was the tour before, so mine was “More of the Stompin’ Tom Phenomenon”). I got the grand old man to sign it. He wisely told me “Of all the people I’ve ever met, you’re certainly one of them.” The girlfriend was totally converted to the ways of Stompin’ Tom, and spent the rest of our relationship trying to steal my t-shirt. She never did.
• The 1974 August Jam at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. It was apparently the largest concert ever held in the state of North Carolina, with an estimated attendance in excess of 200,000. Going with my older cousin to an all day event featuring the Allman Brothers Band, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Foghat, Black Oak Arkansas, the Marshall Tucker Band, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Grinderswitch, PFM and others. Muddy. High. Lots of long hair freaks and blue jean jackets. Drunken, puking, passed out people. I remember BOA and MTB, but not a damn thing about ABB. ELP was the highlight of my experience with Brain Salad Surgery and the sound moving around the rim of the speedway. Then we had to drag our tired, sorry, dirty asses home at 2am. Not an iota of regret :-)
• Did I say 1995? 1991.
• The Dead Milkmen, 1986 or '87. Well, if we're talking "major" acts, REM, around the same time. But the Dead Milkmen all signed my t-shirt, which I probably wore to school once a week until I graduated. Serious alterno-cred.
• Il papa Karol Wojtyła, Phoenix Park Dublin, 1979, along with 1.25 million others (one third of the population of the Irish Republic at the time).
• Thompson Twins, 1984. Age 14. Boston Commons, Concerts on the Commons. Appropriate haircut. Acceptable gay friend of parents selected to chaperone. Yes, they played every single song off "The Gap."
• I remember Concerts on the Commons - I saw Siouxsie there once, and the Psychedellic Furs -- got a close-up view of Richard Butler as he came up the aisle that's forever burned into my retinas. *shudder*
• Smashing Pumpkins, 1996. I fell asleep during a long and tedious solo.
• Prince -- Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York 1985 It was the Purple Rain tour. He didn't sell out. I think the Dome held 42,000 or so, and he sold 30,000 or so. It allowed us to move up considerably from where we were. I went with my older sister. He played everything from Purple Rain, which was really all I knew at the time. Sheila E opened. Unfortunately, I haven't seen him live since. I think the Purple Rain tour was probably his worst because he was so new to being a superstar and thought that he should just try to play the songs like they sounded on the record. Now he just doesn't give a fuck.
• Harry Connick, Jr.
• Doobie Brothers, I think. Or Long John Baldry. Late 70s. It's all merged into one.
• The Ramones at Bogart's in Cincinnati...ca. 1990.
• Pink Floyd at Soldier Field in 1977. I was 12... went with my two best friends. My cousin gave me some thai stick to take to the concert. I had no freaking idea what thai stick was.... He just gave me something wrapped up in foil and said "Here man, it's thai stick". I just nodded and put it in my pocket. The concert was open seating. We ran towards the stage. As we waited for the show to start, there were some older dudes staning next to us. One of them kept going on and on about not "Having any pot". I said to him "I have some thai stick". His eyes lit up "Dude!" was all he said. I handed him my foil package and he pulled out a small gold pipe and a big ass zippo lighter. He filled the bowl and handed it to me. I looked at him like "Huh?". He stared at me for a second or two and said "You've never smoked have you?". Hell, I wasn't going to lie. I said no. He took the pipe and fired it up and passed it over to me. he said "Inhale deep and hold it in". I took one hit. Each of my friends took one hit. Shazam. Incredible concert. My mom picked us up after the show. Uh oh. She could tell we were still totally buzzed out of our minds. She started to say something but I interruped her. "Mom, I thing some people were smoking marajuana at the concert and we might have inhaled some". She looked at me for a second or two. Then she said "Well next time that happens, just walk away to where you won't inhale it."
• Led Zeppelin - Vancouver 1970 Either the Coliseum or the Agrodome, can't remember. Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, Oh My!
• WHAT? Nobody was a Woodstock virgin? Damn, I'm old.
• *curls up at GramMa's feet, waits for fond hippie anecdotes*
• Grand Funk Railroad. 1972. Civic Arena, Pittsburgh. I was 8 years old. As the lights went down, the air got this funny sweet smell to it. It smelled like Bill Hamilton. The tall skinny black man (with the afro out to HERE) who sat in front of me pulled a baggie out of his underwear. His friends all seemed really happy about that baggie. They didn't seem to mind where it had just been. I don't remember much else, other than I got really 'tired' sitting there in that dark, sickly-sweet smelling loud place. The black man bobbed his head. The afro waved all slow-motiony-like.
• I have much fonder (or at least clearer) memories of my second concert: Elton John. 1974. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Tour. I think my body was used to the smell of thai stick by then.
• '97 Faith No More's tour for Album of the Year, Electric Factory Philadelphia. Excellent show.. still remember the entire crowd booing the opening act off stage for starting waaayy late and being overall asshats.
• Ahh, yes, the funny smell of your first time... I must have been 13 or 14. Local electro-ethnic-rock group. Small venue, a domed auditory. 'It smells like someone is burning weeds, or dry grass...'
• I feel a bit left out, as I don't remember my first gig. I have a feeling it would have been watching my eldest brother's outfit, otherwise any one of a number of second-tier punk bands who played the pubs round our way (quite likely Discharge). Remember first dancehall nights down in St Paul's and the like a bit more clearly; the crowds at those were fantastic. Same when the free party movement started - wild weekenders in some remote West Country field. I got to go to Glastonbury a lot in the early/mid-eighties - there was quite a ritual to sneaking in, then ended up working there as a safety steward for a few years as the landlord of the pub I worked at managed the acoustic stage. Saw some pretty awesome performances there. Also was at the last (?) Stonehenge free before the Battle of the Beanfield and increasingly heavy policing pretty much did for all that.
• Oh, and once did stewarding thing for a Wedding Present gig, which mostly involved tossing the stage-divers back into the moshing mob. Buggered if I can recall exactly when.
• My school district brought Hiroshima to play for students, but that's probably not what we're talking about here. I got high as fuck and saw some bad British band whose only claim to fame was covering another bad British band's one hit ("Dirty water"), at the Santa Monica Civic when I was maybe twelve. No, thirteen. We had such great sources of pot then. I always got mine from my babysitting jobs, and my friends scored theirs from their parents' stashes. A year later the adults had wised up, and we had to buy off the street.
• ADAM AND THE ANTS. 1981 BEAT THAT! I had the 'flu, so thanks for that God, you cunt.
• Wembley Swimming Pool, London (yeah, swimming pool - they covered it with a floor, 'kay) 1977. Opener was a quiet skinny geezer called Donovan (something) playing acoustic guitar and wailing. Lights went down, big screen, '70's light show weirdness started and Yes came out. No drugs were needed. History was made. There was weed smoke around, but it had been through 5 or 6 lungs before it got to us.
• Billy Joel, at Oral Roberts University. I can only assume that whoever approved the booking thought they'd be getting the equivalent of a large piano recital. The crowd was wilder than my second concert, the next week, which was Kiss (before they took the makeup off). I remember being utterly fascinated watching the girl directly in front of me upend and chug an entire pint of cherry vodka, then promptly regurgitate it back up into a huge, perfectly clear, cough syrup smelling puddle. Oh yes, there was much funny smoke in the air, as well as flying rolls of toilet paper, frisbees, fireworks... I don't remember them ever booking any concert of any kind there afterwards.
• Spirit at Freedom Palace in KC, I think it was 1970 but it might have been 69. Spirit didn't show, Randy California had fallen off a horse and broke his collarbone. Friends mom dropped us off. First time I saw hippies sitting on astroturf smoking dope.They had a record store too, and first time I saw the Lennons "Two Virgins" album.
• Queen. Newcastle City Hall December 1979. aged 14. Had spent sometime trying, usuccessfully, to persuade Mother to pay the £4.50 necessary to secure a ticket. On the night friends managed to persuade anxious mother that roadies would often give away free tickets to teenagers hanging around. Amazingly she bought it. Turn up at gig. Obviously no free tickets. But small window open on first storey above a doorway. Guess who's the youngest/smallest and therefore deputed to climb through on the basis that I can then run down open the fire escape door and we can all get in??? I got in ... but there's a bouncer on the fire escape door so I wander into the auditorium and my stomach starts thudding with the bass and then I notice that it's full and everyone's sitting down so I have nowhere to hide. Realise that my wallet must have fallen out of my pocket as I climbed in through the window so go and ask bouncer at the entrance if anyone's handed it in ... he hands me my wallet, and (very nicely under the circumstances) tells me they know I climbed in through the window and I'm (gently) thrown out ... That was Monday. Friday The Jam are playing ... I still don't have a ticket but some of my friends do ... so I turn up at the venue ... they go in, I wait about 10 mins and then give a bouncer a sob story about my mum washing my jeans with the ticket in. He asks for the seat number, I give my friends which he promises he won't be sitting in. Amazingly he falls for it and lets me in ... as I walk into the auditorium I realise it's the same bouncer who threw me out 4 days earlier. Maybe he didn't fall for it. Maybe they had nice bouncers at Newcastle City Hall in the 70's (seems unlikely) No one is sitting down. I end up 3 rows from the front standing on a seat back ... Wonderful My 3rd gig was even more eventful ... but that's another story ...
• Lights went down, big screen, '70's light show weirdness started and Yes came out. Those lights were called 'lasers'. I saw that tour, too. Complete with Donovan and his wailing guitar. And those ghostly green laser light beams dancing all over the ceiling. Yep. 1977. Also saw KISS that year (or maybe that was in '76).
• Doc Watson at Middlebury College (I was in H.S), 1987 or so. It was a magic magic show. I was way into picking the guitar in the way that an only an obsessive 17yo can be, he was a major guitar hero. During the set break I ended up standing next to him in the john -- that was kind of weird, but less so because he was blind and was quiet.
• Can I nitpick here for a second? A gig is when a musician goes to play a show. Everybody else goes to a concert, a show, or whatever. At least that's how I thought it worked. I could be wrong.
• OMG Bernockle! Believe it or not, that Carrier Dome Prince thing was also MY first concert. I clearly remember the neon drumsticks Sheila E used that night. However, the things that stick in my mind involve horrifically distorted sound, everyone standing on their folding chairs (expecting to do so for the duration--this blew my mind), and ultimately escaping to the nosebleed rows where we could make out Prince as a brightly-lit little figure far, far away, where we could no longer hope to identify the songs being played. Permanently soured me on Dome concerts. Didn't feel better about concerts in general until years later when I saw David Byrne at the Landmark downtown.
• Yeah, that's pretty high on the nitpick-o-meter, stomper.
• I don't remember exactly, but the place where I saw most of my early shows was the Dr. Pepper Concerts on the Pier series in NYC, right between where the Circle Line boats go out and where the Intrepid aircraft carrier used to be. Saw an amazing array of great shows there, from Joe Jackson, Squeeze, and the Pretenders to Santana, the Kinks, and King Crimson (drove home from that one at about 30 mph on the LIE -- kids don't try this at home) to Steve Forbert, Willie Nile, and Graham Parker to the Clash (which may have been the best show I've ever seen).
• another bad British band's one hit ("Dirty water") That song was performed by the Standells, an American band. (One of my favorite songs ever. Makes me want to hail from Boston.)
• DUH-ty wat-UH, PLEASE! [smelled his first burning weeds not at a concert but at Fenway Pahk in the bleach-uhs, possibly while Bill Lee was pitching]
• Opening act: Weird Al Yankovic Headliners: The Monkees Wolf Trap, 1986(?)
• Hey, this is pretty cool. All the old people are comin' outta the woodwork. Aahhhhh, nostalgia!
• I dated a girl who lived just a couple of blocks away from Fenway. It was awesome hanging out with the sounds of the game out her window in the background.
• I used to live a few blocks from Fenway, when I went to BU. Quit following me around, HWingo!
• If Bush wins again, this time I'm definitely moving to Canada.
• Hawthorne Wingo, I stand corrected. Certainly the song was good enough that some bad British band got to play the Santa Monica Civic on its merits.
• Def Leppard. I win.
• One-armed drummer, or both arms?
• Mostly 'armless.
• What has nine arms and sucks?
• The tracickraken.
• *spit take*
• Hell. Some of my lunch was just inhaled into my lung after that nice quidnucken laugh. As far as first concerts go - - I'm with Abiezer_Coppe on this one. I don't have memories of a "first concert" per se, but I do have fond memories of blurry string of local punk shows at Ortons Pool Hall in Wilmington, NC. Anyone remember Autograph? I saw them play a "headlining" concert in South Dakota in 1985, and met them afterwards in the local Hardees. That was probably my first taste of "stadium concert", though it was FAR from it. I also have memories of Def Leppard (one-armed drumming). I was in the very last row at the top of some stadium in the Twin Cities area - - but I shook my bootie with a hottie next to me, and didn't sit down for a second... Pour some sugar on meeee!!! Yeowwzzza!!
• *hurls limbs at quiddy* Actually, my first concert was the Eagles (shut up). When I was at high school there was no way I could afford to go to any of the big names, so even the Eagles when I was 19 was exciting for me. I'd seen a couple of nationally-famous bands (Push Push, the Exponents). So a bunch of us went along to the Eagles, playing at QE2 stadium which is where Christchurch once hosted the Commonwealth Games (so exciting for our wee city), and...it started to rain. And temperatures dropped. And I almost got hypothermia, and we huddled under a tarpaulin that someone had brought for us to sit on. I don't remember much apart from the violent shivering. The Pumpkins were much better, relatively speaking.
• It was the first tour with the one-armed version.