First Shows

I don't know how this came together but I know it was a present for my 10th birthday, and my older brother was somehow roped into to taking me to see the show. I remember it was GA and we had to run down the aisles to get to the floor where my brother and his friends wanted to sit. I was very much into them at the age of 10 after getting introduced to them by my older brother and sister. Probably explains a lot about how I turned out. If only they were dead heads I might have caught a Europe 72 show. 

ELP Munich 1973

https://youtu.be/lA7LaZ4jcQQ?si=mI4a6GNX9qqw4A6R

My next show was probably 77 or 78 when I started going unchaperoned starting with Aerosmith in Providence RI. Followed by Rush, Foghat and Van Halen. Teenage boy music taste. 

5th Dimension 1965. Neighborhood girls who were old enough drive took me along me along as a foil to keeps boys at bay. "I'm with my little brother". It was at and for the opening of the first "mall" in America. Harrisburg, PA. Next was Deep Purple in Hershey. Full tilt after that.

Ritchie Blackmore was the opening act for that Fog Hat show I went to. Then years later I saw Deep Purple and ELP at the Warfield in SF on one of those who is still in the band tours. 

funny enough, my first concert was also yes, in 2004 in san jose. last tour they ever did with the full classic lineup with jon anderson singing. i was also 12 or 13. i think ive mentioned this a couple times before and iirc lance might have also been at that show?

jealous of getting to see prime era southern rock charlie daniels. CDB really brought some heat before they dove into the more straight up country stuff. 

Mine was Chicago at Carnegie Hall 1972, the year after the album was recorded. 

Although I did see a few songs from Gary Puckett and the Union Gap during a class trip to Atlantic City. I don't count that one though.

> jealous of getting to see prime-era Southern rock, Charlie Daniels. CDB really brought some heat before they dove into the more straight-up country stuff. 

I caught CDB (three Les Paul’s raging, every bit as good as ABB or Lynyrd Skynyrd) at the Schubert Theater in Philly, 5/74. Open for ZZ Top, they were insanely tight. Straight up Texas blues. Both acts were as good as anything I ever saw! Seriously badass sets. ZZ left the stage and came back 7 times before the Philly cops entered the theater, declaring the show was over. The chocolate mescaline @ 1$ wasn't mescaline or chocolate :/ Caught Golden Earring and Blue Öyster Cult there. Also Mott the Hoople, and Queen there for 6 bucks. All were great, an interesting era, red neck rock to glam :)

my dad took me to see the Village People at MSG in 1979.  I was 8.  Sister Sledge opened.  I clearly remember them singing YMCA in their outfits 

AC/DC November 1981 - The "For Those About To Rock" tour at Met Center in Bloomington, MN

I was 11 years old.  

And there was weed involved but not by me by the dudes who worked for my Dad and took me to the show.

My first real concert was Boston, Nils Lofgren and Starcastle at the Cow Palace in March of '77. I've probably told this story before, and I have a few good ones from that memorable night, but I'll just tell this one... again.

In another connection to Yes, at that time my friends and I were huge Yes fans (still are) and the virtually unknown opening band Starcastle was a total Yes wannabe, which was why we went to that show.

In those days bedsheet banners were all the rage at concerts & sporting events, so we made a Starcastle banner and hung it among the countless Boston banners.

About an hour before the show a scraggly guy walks up to us and asks if we made that Starcastle sign. He said the band had noticed it and were super excited because this was their first trip to the west coast and they didn't know if anyone knew them there.

Naturally we asked him how he knew that and he was evasive, just saying that he had been backstage and heard the band talking about it. After further pressing on why he was backstage he reluctantly said his name was Brad and he was the singer in Boston.

At that time Boston was riding the tidal wave of success from their smash first album and were as big an act as there was, but he was super cool and hung out with us for a few minutes more telling stories of the road. A little later another guy showed up and gave us some Starcastle swag.

I walked out of that show thinking, "Rock concerts are awesome. The performers come out and chat with the fans before the show, how cool."

Needless to say, in the literally thousands of concerts I've been to since, that's never happened again.

Man I had completely forgotten about the banners. Went to Blue Oyster Cult concert in the Boston Garden during the height of Disco Sucks and the place was covered in Disco Sucks banners. 

We should bring back music genere hatred like that it's way better than what we have going on today.

I'm pretty sure mine was Rush 1984...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFS3i9NoYtU

8/12/69 Tanglewood, Lenox MA

My first "real concert" was The Tubes at the Concord Pavilion on Halloween 1976. This was around the height of their success. The band rocked, the tunes were snappy and the stage show singularly over the top. All the stoner kids from the neighborhood went together. I had just turned 16 and it was nine months before my first Grateful Dead concert. So I saw Vince play before any of the rest of the Dead.

In later years it always seemed an intriguing synchronicity that two Grateful Dead keyboardists hailed from that pit on the Contra Costa, Concord, California ~ Keith and Brent.

Saw other interesting shows out there in eastern Concord over the years, including when Grandma took my little brother and me to see John Williams and band perform his movie soundtrack hits! That was weird.

Other notable Concord Pavilion shows include Jerry Garcia Band on Labor Day 1981, and Phil Lesh and Friends in June 2000 (the Robben Ford/Little Feat era) with Bob Dylan opening the show. 

My most recent trip out there was quite a turning of the wheel in June 2022 when my first born granddaughter graduated from Concord High School. I was both proud and amazed attending that ceremony, and thought about those important concerts of earlier years, and caught COVID too! Luckily, I got better.

As our friend Lance often says...

On it goes

Bob Seger at the Cleveland Public Hall 1976, Night Moves tour. Early Sophomore  year I met a new kid at school, Drew, and his older brother was a Junior and hung around a bunch of future hardcore drunks. They were all going to Bob Seger and Drew talked them into letting me come along. These guys were already on the road to all being alcoholics, me and Drew smoked but they all were straight drinkers. The concert was still to this day one of the best shows that I have seen, and I must of passed the test with the older dudes because from then on I could go to the Junior parties without being hassled. Me and Drew hit countless shows together, and would always get down front by jumping rails and assorted tricks.
 

years later (1984) Drew is living in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and I came down one winter when I was laid off, same thing the next winter except I never went back. We have had connected businesses together since and are still friends. His brother and the drunk friends still all meet once a year to golf & drink for a week, we have crashed a couple of the Florida golf visits. 

I was a pretty geeky, unsocial, only child of 14.
My best friends were fraternal twins, the youngest of 10 kids in a Catholic family.
They stopped by on their way to a show w their big brother, with an extra ticket.
My folks said I could, and I was on my way to my concert-going lifetime!

Dire Straits, at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, ME. "Live in '85"
It was very eye-opening for me. Decent floor seats, the height of the Money For Nothing hit on the still new MTV.
Excellent show, good times, wish I could attend that one again as a seasoned adult.
There's only a couple decent recordings from that tour. Found one from that show online one time, but it was pretty weak.

9/25/81

Jan and Dean, front row dinner table.

Jan Berry, the one in the car wreck, was wasted on quaalude, as per Jan. He was slurring more and more and then fell. I never saw a person fall in slo motion till gravity took over.

I saw 3 concerts in 1968 and my memory is a little fuzzy on which was the first. I saw the Doors on July 13 in Vancouver, Canada, while I was on a 40 day/night teen tour, the summer I turned 16, by bus and train across the US from NY and back. I also saw Iron Butterfly and Vanilla Fudge together at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Rutherford, NJ. What I can't remember is if the latter shows were in the spring before I left, or in the fall when I returned. Either way, a pretty tasty, great start to my live concert going experiences. 

Buddy Rich August 1981 Williamsport PA

He was free in the park and just part of a larger celebration called 

"Soak your fanny in the Susquahanny"

basically you float in a inner tube on the Susquahanna River by day and party in the park that evening.

First paid concert in an arena:

April 82

Iron Maiden touring behind their 3rd album with a new singer.

The Forest National in Brussels Belgium 

Sunshine pyramids!! Never seen anything like it in the states

>>> Jefferson Airplane and The Who a few days before Woodstock... Tanglewood's a beautiful spot too.

For the most part, I'm more of an Airplane aficionado.  That night, airplane was ok, The Who were fabulous. 
I was very young at the time, so I looked up The Who's set list:

Heaven and Hell

I Can't Explain

Fortune Teller

Young Man Blues

Happy Jack

Substitute

I'm a Boy

A Quick One, While He's Away

Tommy

It's a Boy

1921

Amazing Journey 

Sparks

Eyesight to the Blind

Christmas

The Acid Queen

Pinball Wizard

Do You Think It's Alright?

Fiddle About

There's a Doctor

Miracle Cure

Go to the Mirror!

Smash the Mirror

Miracle Cure

I'm Free

Tommy's Holiday Camp

We're Not Gonna Take It

Encore:

Summertime Blues

Shakin' All Over

My Generation

Naked Eye

Magic

Fuck, I can't remember 

Fuck, I can't remember 

Pat Travers opened for Foghat '80, Springfield, IL, Prairie Capital Convention Center. Thanks to inexperience and a giant teakwood bowl packed with hash i passed out shortly after Foghat took stage. Woke up staring out the window at some guys we were drag racing down route 66 back home. Good times!

^Zactly.....lol. 

Canned Heat open for Humble Pie. 1973.

^ Humble Pie in 73 was da shizzle!

>>>>I saw ELP at the New Haven Coliseum in March of 1978

Mike, I was at that show!  I'd seen them in 77 at MSG with the orchestra, still today a favorite all time shows, The new Haven show was fantastic with just the three of them.

January 83, Loverboy!! don't be jealous. I won the tickets on the radio. 

i was 14 and had already seen The Good Rats and Twisted Sister on LI circa '79 - '80 and then this: - no one i knew could or would go and it started me on a path of seeing shows solo over the years

i had to get home because i had told my parents i was going to the beach , and Bromberg ended around 8 PM so i ended up listening to the closing of SSJ on the radio riding my bike home...

WLIR Pre-FM 
Party In The Park II
Belmont Park, Elmont, NY
August 23, 1980


The Good Rats
Flo & Eddie
Blotto
Pure Prairie League
Rick Derringer
Todd Rundgren
Al DiMeola
David Bromberg
Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes

Next May i had my socks blown off at Nassua, thats a different first....

>>>Pat Travers opened for Foghat '80, Springfield, IL, Prairie Capital Convention Center. Thanks to inexperience and a giant teakwood bowl packed with hash i passed out shortly after Foghat took stage. Woke up staring out the window at some guys we were drag racing down route 66 back home. Good times!

OK so I saw Foghat in Springfield MA. Had an ounce of ditch weed and a small metal hash pipe the thing got so hot we had to put it down for a while also passed out during Fog Hat and a few weeks later Pat Travers opened for Van Halen. 

The Band 1969 .The Brown album just released

2nd show Derek and the Dominos - why more live shows have never been released seems unusual

1st Dead 1974 Winterland

A 1969 Band show sounds very impressive. 
Derek & the Dominos is also impressive, but (for my tastes) not as much as the Band. 
As for my first GD shoe (Dillon Stadium, Hartford, CT (7/16/72), not as cool as Winterland or California, but at least it was outdoors. 

>>>>> also passed out during Fog Hat....

Lol .....maybe it was a common theme during that tour.

Springsteen at Giants Stadium, 1984.

lol Tommy

Pat Benatar at the coliseum in 82

 Jealous of getting to see prime-era Southern rock, Charlie Daniels. CDB really brought some heat before they dove into the more straight-up country stuff.

I caught CDB (three Les Paul’s raging, every bit as good as ABB or Lynyrd Skynyrd) at the Schubert Theater in Philly, 5/74 >>>

If not the first, very early show:  Loved NRPS, why I was there. Opened & were great fun, none of us knew of CDB who was next & he killed, great set.  No energy left for Leon Russell, left after 2 songs.

Leon Russell / New Riders of the Purple Sage / The Charlie Daniels Band   May 7, 1976   The Spectrum