Concert Memories

[64Guitars]

As per Ted's suggestion, this topic was split from Post your recent concert reviews here. Feel free to share your memories of concerts from long ago here. For more recent concerts, please use the original topic instead.

Saw John Hammond Jr. years ago from the front row of a an on-campus beer joint called the Orange and Brew on the University of Florida campus.  I think there were less than 20 people in the audience...a shame.

This reminds me of my first year of high school, circa 1971. There were posters in the school halls advertising an upcoming dance featuring a three-man band that nobody, including me, had ever heard of. I had no interest in dancing but I thought it would be great to watch a live band so I went. The turnout was pretty poor. I estimate maybe 20 to 40 people showed up. The band was Rush and they were incredible! I stood right in front of Alex Lifeson for the whole show and was just blown away by his guitar playing. Geddy Lee was great too. The drummer was John Rutsey. This was just after their first album was released. I remember that the school posters (I wish I had swiped one) featured the cover of the album. That was a factor in my decision to go to the dance. I figured if they had an album out, they couldn't be too bad, even though I'd never heard of them. I'm so glad I went.


Update: 2021 Nov 10. I think I have the year wrong above. I could have sworn it was in my first year of high school but I now think it must have been in 1974 (my graduation year) because Rush's first album was released March 1, 1974 and, as I mentioned above, the posters displayed around the school featured the photos from that first album's cover. So it must have been some time between March and June of 1974. Here's a YouTube video I discovered today of Rush playing at a different high school on April 1, 1974. It was recorded for a TV programme called "Canadian Bandstand" and is included on the Bonus disc of the R40 40th Anniversary Boxset DVD/Blu-ray. It looks very similar to their performance at my high school (as far as I can recall 47 years later). It's interesting that they played "Best I Can" because it wasn't released till a year later on their "Fly By Night" album with Neil Peart on drums. I didn't realise that it was written before Peart joined the band.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drouhbjp_9c

[Kody]

Wow, great story, 64Gs!!!

This reminds me of my first year of high school, circa 1971

And hey, congratulations~ You're not as old as my dad lol!!! One year younger!! Sorry, I don't know what's gotten in to me

[Pine]

Great story 64G...and with Rush on stage, i don't imagine the dance floor would have been too crowded anyway 

[64Guitars]

Now that you mention it, I don't recall seeing anybody dancing. They were all just standing around in several small groups, talking and clowning around. I don't think many were paying much attention to the band. I was the only one standing at the front of the stage.

[Ted]

I think we need a different topic for "Concert's we saw back in the day"--us older guys can flaunt our brushes with greatness.  For example, I saw The Police on their first US tour in 1980, for free, at the Arizona State Fair.  The opening act: XTC.

[64Guitars]

Good idea, Ted. As you can see, I've split this topic from the original Post your recent concert reviews here topic. So, everyone can share their concert memories from long ago here.

[launched]

Woodstock '94, no doubt. Listened to Cheryl Crow and Kings X on the way there, and when we arrived, the ticket booths were all ripped down so we got in for free. Mud everywhere, not a big Green Day fan, but I saw the bassist get whacked in the head with a big clump of sod - very nice!!

Best band for me: Rollins Band!!! Haskett, Gibbs and Cain were top notch. My friends didn't want to wait for the Chili Peppers to play (With Navarro), so they left me there - ever been alone with 100 thousand people watching the "Jimi Hendrix" band of the concert? (JH was the last to leave in '69).

Then I walked 20 miles to the nearest motel, can't believe the let me check in, washed my clothes in the tub (Bad Idea!), chilled for a day, then took a bus home!

[Blooby]

Launched, sounds epic (I mean that in the real sense of the word as opposed to the current vernacular...dude).

My Tale o' Tom Jones

I saw him in Jacksonville, FL about 15 years ago.  I seem to recall having sticker shock over a $7.00 beer pitcher at Hooters before the show.

Anyway, the area in front of the stage was set up with 50-100 tables with champagne magnums on each.  I was "roped off" behind them, singing along, drinking, and having fun...too much fun to remain roped off.  I got over the rope, walked through the tables to the front of the stage where 4-5 women were dancing.  This was my first Tom Jones show, so I was pleasantly surprised that the dancers were not the geriatrics I expected.  Long story short, the throng in front of the stage became a mob scene of 100 or so women and myself.  Tom gives me a right-of-passage moment by giving me a thumbs-up, and then a friend of mine arrived with one of the aforementioned magnum bottles of champagne, which was duly passed around.

The peak moment of surrealism came when some of the roadies cleared the panties on the stage, presumably to create the "constant cascade of undergarments" effect (I believe I have dreamed of this at times).  A particularly trampy thong landed in both my hand as well as the hand of an older woman who was next to me.  She gave me a frustrated look and said, "Hey, let me have it."  I did the only thing I could do, which was shove it down the front of my shirt.

By the next day, amid my Allman Brothers, Miles Davis, and Who paraphernalia, was a framed picture of Tom with the ticket from the concert, lovingly embellished with those draped panties over the edge of the frame.

This story concludes with my parents visiting me at college in my loft apartment.  After my mother used the upstairs restroom, she ushered me to a corner where she told me in concerned tones that my father may not see the religious significance in the Tom shrine that I had founded.

I am now 42, and the framed picture/ticket is on the wall behind me as I type, and I imagine the panties are hermetically sealed in some manilla folder deep in a storage box.

Blooby

[launched]

That's a crazy tale, Bloob!! Fully entertaining - I probably would trade any of my concert going experiences for that one

So what the hell was he singing aside from "It's not unusual"??!??

Mark

[Ted]

For example, I saw The Police on their first US world tour in 1980, for free, at the Arizona State Fair.  The opening act: XTC.

Well then, let me elaborate...

I was in high school.  In Art class we used to listen to Classic Rock, or as it was called back then: Rock.  For some reason, they kept playing Roxanne.  I was into Punk, and The Police didn't seem to have much Punk credibility to me, but I decided to go see them at the state fair anyway.

The date was 11 July, 1980. (Thank you, Google.).  I was 18. (Thank you, parents.)

I claim more bragging rights from having seen XTC in 1980, because they became famous for not playing live, and especially for not touring.  The bragging rights are tarnished a bit because I wasn't that into the band at the time.  The one memory I retain was that they ran a film projector right onto the band as they were performing, and the film was heavily--and intentionally--scratched up.  It was very Punk, although the music wasn't.

I don't remember anything specific from performance by the Police at all.  I was pretty nonplussed by the whole thing.  It didn't take too long before I became a fan both bands, and began to regret my blase attitude toward the concert.

Of course, I've never had the chance to see XTC again, but I did see The Police two more times: in 1982 (Ghost in the Machine tour) with The Go-Go's and The Cars if I remember correctly, and in 1983 (Synchronicity tour), with The Thompson Twins and Madness.  By then I was 21 years old, a different kind of snobbery had set in--it all seemed a little too mainstream for me.

When The Police reunion came through Phoenix last year with Elvis Costello (my hero), I ruled out going after not much consideration at all--boring grown up that I am.