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First Concert, Last Concert and Best Concert — Jon Gabriel
As many of my Twitter followers know (and regret), I’m a bit of a music geek. In the evenings, I often spin obscure tunes, inflicting my off-kilter tastes on an unwilling audience. Yes, it’s tragic when people don’t recognize genius in their midst, but I soldier on. In addition to collecting terabytes of MP3s (and before that CDs, cassettes and vinyl), I’ve always loved live music. Heading into a busy weekend, I’d love to hear the first concert you ever attended, the last concert you attended, and your favorite show of all time. Here’s mine:
First Concert: Cheap Trick
I talked a junior high friend into leaving the rides at the Arizona State Fair to catch the power pop legends. Cheap Trick was supporting one of their forgotten albums of the early ’80s but played all the classics. They put on a great show as always, though guitarist Rick Nielsen had bronchitis and was hawking loogies off-stage most the show. Total groupie magnet, that Rick. As a result, I didn’t attempt to catch one of the 100 picks he tossed into the crowd. (P.S. I’m discounting the time my dad strolled us kids by Jerry Reed at the Lake County Fair and when I was forced to see Tony DeFranco and the DeFranco Family with my older sister. You can’t hold those against me.)
Last Concert: Half String and The Tennis System
The first rule of hipsterdom: only listen to bands that don’t get airplay. In the early ’90s, I dove deep into the British shoegaze scene, listening to one-named, lower-cased bands like ride, lush, swervedriver, et al. The slow tempo, laconic vocals and insanely loud guitar inspired many musicians here in the Sonoran Desert. Tempe, Ariz. band Half String organized a series of Beautiful Noise festivals and reprised the scene recently with newer bands rediscovering the wall-of-guitars-and-effects-pedals sound. Killer show; hearing protection recommended.
Best Concert: The Loud Family
The late songwriting genius and rock auteur Scott Miller formed two NorCal bands: Game Theory and The Loud Family. Both were brilliant and feted with critical acclaim, but received little airplay. Kind of a hyper-literate Cheap Trick (or Big Star), Miller’s bands weaved perfect pop songs out of obscurantist references to culture high and low. I had been a slavish fan in the mid-’80s, but never saw them Miller live until the late ’90s. I helped promote the show, so I got to share dinner with my idols and even got a shout-out from the stage. That earned serious cred for my ego and duly impressed the missus.
Now it’s your turn: What was your First Concert, Last Concert and Best Concert?
Published in General
First: Devo, Armadillo World HQ, Austin
Last: Steely Dan, Verizon Center, Grand Prairie
Best: Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense tour, Austin, Texas
First: Collective Soul. They played a free show in a park downtown. It was 1995 and I was a 12-year old MTV brat. I saw a lot of middling alternative rock acts of the mid 90s at those free concerts.
Last: Aoife O’Donovan. She came through Greensboro last September touring in support of her solo debut, Fossils. Very small theater. Super intimate. She had as her sidemen a bass player and a guitar man. Bassist was really superb. Guitar man, bending the strings of his hollow-body Gibson, played nicely enough if maybe a tad too politely.
Best: Cowboy Junkies. In 2009, on a beautiful cool clear full-moon October night at the tiny Acorn Theater in Three Oaks, Michigan. No sense here in attempting to convey how deeply beautiful a performance it was in that place on that evening. You had to be there.
Elgin has a Symphony Orchestra? Elgin, Illlinois?!
Two friends of mine and I nearly went to that show. You know what we said to each other? “He’s young. He’ll tour again.” File under significant life regrets.
First: Billy Joel, Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena, around 1986. Last: The New Pornographers, Tegan & Sarah, and Death Cab for Cutie at the Hollywood Bowl 2009. Best: Cracker and They Might Be Giants at the Fairfax County Fair around 2000.
Honorable mention for best: A multi-band festival on Sept. 27, 1997 at Star Lake Amphitheatre outside Pittsburgh featuring Spin Doctors, Counting Crows, and INXS. It was the last concert Michael Hutchence ever performed. He died Australia a two months later. I was reviewing the concert for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review — and I gave INXS raves, while panning Counting Crows (which was hard for me, because I was a big fan.)
But one of the other bands playing that day was Lush. And I went backstage and had a beer with the lead singer Miki Berenyi. Jon Gabriel is jealous of this fact to this day …
Yes, they do. Not world-class obviously, but not bad either. I think the orchestra members are mostly music teachers from the area, so they don’t do it as a full-time job.
Well, I have a great story, but it disappeared in mid-telling. Ask again when site working better. Basics of the story? CSNY, 1970. Almost 12 years old. I was visiting older cousin and this was already planned. I did already know and like the band but the whole thing was terrifying for an 11 year old girl. There were hippies and funny smelling smoke. these days we love live music. Our favorite venue is a 150 seat black box theater that is very laid back and brings in some incredible acoustic music. I think the last act we saw there was the John Cowan Band.
First: Steely Dan, Waterbury Palace, spring 1974
Last: Steve Winwood and Allman Bros at the Meadows in Hartford last summer
Best: Bob Dylan and Paul Simon at the Meadows, July 1999 or Steely Dan or U2, Zoo TV tour, Saratoga, 1992… They were all off the charts great.
Cowboy Junkies was worst concert I went to. Not the show but they had screwed up my seating, moved me a couple times, and I finally just left.
First: Journey and Sweet for class trip in 79
Last: I think was Siouxsie & the Banshees…early 90s. Did I ever look out of place. Looked like a goth convention.
Best: Joan Jet and the Blackhearts. Not that I love their music but they were just great. It was either a small concert or large bar and got right up about 2 foot away from her. It was right after the movie “Light of Day” came out.
First: Crosby, Stills, and Nash–1975, Bowling Green, Ohio. I was supposed to get a backstage interview for the campus newspaper, but they hauled Crosby off to the ER near the end of the concert. Typical!
Last: ZZ Top, the CarrierDome, Syracuse, 1991, with the Black Crowes.
Best: Boston, 1987, Joe Louis Arena, Detroit.
My college roommate’s brothers were concert promoters who brought a lot of the groups to campus. My roommate cooked dinner for Aerosmith when they were in town.
I don’t recall the first, but the best was KISS with Ted Nugent opening. The last was Willie Nelson who needs no opening act.
Was that VR show before Roger Martinez went nuts? I know we discussed this in Vegas.
Just to stand up for us classical music lovers, who I suspect go to many more concerts than rock/pop devotees:
First: I don’t remember.
Best: Eric Leinsdorf was the principal guest conductor at the Chicago Symphony at the end of his life, and his concerts were always a treat. But I also will always remember taking my eventual wife to a Chicago Symphony concert conducted by Claudio Abbado, with Rudolph Serkin performing Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto and ending with Pictures at an Exhibition.
Another candidate is Manfred Honeck’s amazing concert with the Pittsburgh Symphony centered around Mozart’s Requiem.
Last Concert: Andre Schiff, Beethoven Diabelli Variations and Bach Three Part Inventions, or does that only count as a recital?
First: Meat Loaf (1981) on his ‘Dead Ringer’ tour, Poughkeepsie, NY. (My 2nd concert is much cooler; Peter Gabriel (1981) on his ‘Security’ tour, but I’m not going to lie about Meat.)
Last: Marshall Crenshaw and the Bottle Rockets (Jan-2014), Londonderry, NH.
Best: The Pretenders with Simple Minds opening (1985ish), New Haven, CT. (Note: I’ve excluded from the running my favorite band, Rush, because I love all of their shows I’ve seen and can’t decide on which one is best.)
First and best was Love with Arthur Lee, a musical genius.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftO9ClIhFAo
First: Paul Revere and the Raiders featuring Mark Lindsay at the Stampede Corral, Calgary, 1967
Last: Eagles at the Air Canada Centre, Toronto, November 2013. (First time I saw the Eagles was at the Stampede Corral in July 1971, opening for Jethro Tull. Incongruous or what?)
Best: Erick Clapton at the Royal Albert Hall, London, England, May 2009. Arc Angels opened.
Flemming and John is still my favorate band from the 90s. Howerver that is mid to late 90s.
First: KC and the Sunshine Band at Hershey Park when I was a wee lad.
Best: Eric Clapton/Elton John at Dodger staduim in the mid 90’s. We had seats in the upper deck, but that morning the concert promoters had added eight rows on the field and didn’t sell them by concert time and instead distributed them to those of us with the worst seats in the house. I ended up front row/center. At one point I looked over my shoulder and saw Jim Belushi three rows behind me.
Last: Third Day
Worst: Credeence Clearwater “Revisited.” That subtle nuance aparently makes a big difference.
Tie for my best (classical category): Andre Previn conducting the Pittsburgh Orchestra (Vaughan-Williams’ 5th Symphony: Wow!); Sir Georg Solti conducting the Chicago Symphony (Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra: Wow again!!).
Worst classical: performance of Britten’s opera The Turn of the Screw (waited and waited for a bit of harmony: left disappointed).
Best and first pop concert: The Fifth Dimension in 1969. Marilyn McCoo can really sing a song.
Worst pop: The Carpenters and Mary Chapin Carpenter (moral: be very careful before going to a concert where the artist’s last name is Carpenter).
First: KC and the Sunshine Band. Not my choice, parents took me to a Michigan State Fair show.
Last: Roger Waters The Wall June 8, 2012 at Wrigley
Best: Roger Waters The Wall September 23, 2010 United Center.
Baseball fields are not good concert venues. Roger is an absolute horse’s ass, but the show was unbelievable.
Big fan of Love and Arthur. Forever Changes remains a classic though Seven and Seven Is remains my favorite. Too bad the drugs and guns destroyed them.
First: Colorado Sun Day No. 2, June 16, 1977, Mile High Stadium: The Marshall Tucker Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Heart, Atlanta Rhythm Section, The Outlaws, Foreigner, Dickey Betts & Great Southern, Rusty Weir. What a day and night and appropriate name for the venue.
Best: Jeff Beck, McNichols Arena, Denver CO, September 10, 1980: Originally set for Red Rocks Amphitheater but Mr. Beck in his prime was a genius on a Strata-Caster.
Last: 1964 Beatles tribute band, Red Rocks Amphitheater September 2014. A lot of fun for my daughters first electronically amplified concert. My sister saw “the” Beatles August 26, 1964 in the same venue.
Wow, so we both found Mary Chapin Carpenter to be one of the worst. Was she sober when you saw her?
First Concert: I saw Ted Nugent at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium in the late 70s – I believe it might have been the show where he cracked the plaster in the ceiling and was asked to never return. But I also saw a bunch of small venue shows in Sacramento, Oakland and San Francisco in the late 70s as well – Does Blue Öyster Cult, playing as Soft White Underbelly in a local club, count? (very under-aged BTW)
Last Concert: Jason Mraz and Raining Jane – a birthday gift in March. They were mega talented, if a bit preachy. Ah, artists.
Best Concert: Well, the best show would be the KISS reunion tour in 96 at Arco Arena. Locally, Night Ranger always puts on a fantastic show (so too Damn Yankees in the early 90s). Best concert was one of the many Day On The Green shows: July 83 with Journey, Triumph, Eddie Money, Bryan Adams & Night Ranger was pretty epic. September 83 with The Police, The Fixx, Madness, Oingo Boingo, & The Thompson Twins was very nice.
I’ve seen all (around 40 concerts) the groups that I wanted, except the “Talking Heads” that is a big regret.
John Davey, under your “Best” those are a couple of blockbuster 80’s shows you mention there, and of 2 distinct genres: the ’83 rock show with Journey, Triumph etc. and the ’83 new wave show with Police, Fixx, Madness etc.
My 18 year old self in 1983 would have been ecstatic to see either one of those.
My 16 year old self enjoyed all the Day On the Green shows – 81, 82, & 83. Also went to three Mountain Air shows – Northern California in the 80s had some fantastic festivals.