What was your first concert?

**Sat Dec 29, 2007 9:59 pm**

Must have been Dog Eat Dog at a festival. Something else I can't remember

Website · **Sat Dec 29, 2007 10:06 pm**

My sister brought me to the Newport Folk Festival when I was small I think Dylan might have been playing my memory of it is hazy at best.

**Sat Dec 29, 2007 10:34 pm**

Pogues, back in October. Amazing performance by the band. Only problem was the fucking lame audience, who politely moshed, politely cheered, and politely enjoyed it, without ever working up a whole lot of energy. I get the feeling a lot of people there weren't actually too familiar with the band.

Where I live makes it tough to see concerts. A lot of my teenage years were spent trying to convince my parents to make the 3-hour drive to see stuff like the Violent Femmes, X, Ramones, etc. My only serious regret as far as not being able to make it to gigs was Joe Strummer back in 2002. Seems like yesterday. Tough to believe it's going on 5 years since he died.

Living in LA is awesome (only in this regard) though because now I have an actual shot at seeing bands I like.

**Sun Dec 30, 2007 1:27 am**

When I was a kid in rural, pre-superhighway Pennsylvania, the thought of actually going to a concert was so far-fetched that it never crossed my mind. When I read about the Beatles & the Stones & Bob Dylan, it seemed like they all inhabited some alternate, possibly fictitious, universe.

When I got to be a teenager, my older friends all went to REAL shows, in Philadelphia or at various PA colleges, and saw the Rolling Stones (in 1972), the Grateful Dead, the Band...great stuff.

The first show I actually got to attend myself, in 1973, when I was about 15, was Ten Years After and Dr. John at Harrisburg's Farm Show Arena. Dr. John was pretty awesome, I thought, but BIZARRE, doing his N'awlins voodoo music, sprinkling the air with glittery goofer dust. I remember that "I Walk On Gilded Splinters" was the most impressive song of the set. It all seemed weird and foreign, not the way I expected a rock & roll show to be at all. It was atmospheric and dimly lit with green and purple lights, and he had a long-haired bearded guitarist playing an ES-335 in a trance, his eyes rolled back in his head. Girls moaned in the background. I love(d) it more in hindsight than I probably did at the time. I think back then I was more overwhelmed by being in a "city" without parental guidance, and jeesus the whole place smells like reefer!

I was pretty charged up to see Ten Years After. I'd seen the Woodstock movie and been amazed by "I'm Going Home". Back then, long songs were automatically cool. And playing fast was sometimes confused for playing good. Temporarily, at least, Alvin Lee was considered to be in the same class as Clapton, Beck and Page. The current album was "A Space In Time", and the single "I'd Love To Change the World" was a minor hit on the radio.

When they walked onstage, and I could tell they were the same guys from the Woodstock movie (mostly
because Leo the bass player had a Salvador Dali moustache) it was quite thrilling. The thrill wore off fast.
The sound was abysmal, and worse, after 2 or 3 unrecognizeable tunes, the PA system shut down
altogether. While waiting for it to be fixed, Leo the bass player told us "ya know yer standin' where
the cows shit!" which was true enough, being at the Farm Show Arena and all, but he didn't need to
rub our noses in it! The drummer started a meandering drum solo, hoping the PA would come back
on during his pedestrian paradiddling. It didn't, though, and the drum solo ended, and then Spinal
Tap, I mean Ten Years After, stomped offstage in a huff. It almost made me wanna ask for my
$3.50 back.

The shows I saw after that were all at the Farm Show Arena, or the hockey rink in Hershey. In
'73 - '74 I saw Jethro Tull, Humble Pie, J. Geils Band, Edgar Winter, Alice Cooper, Elton John.
It seems like Gentle Giant opened for everyone.

One of the earliest shows I went to was Mott the Hoople .
It was during the period when Ariel Bender was playing guitar with
them, and they had gigantic marionettes as props onstage. The
openers were Aerosmith, and a band nobody'd ever heard of called
Queen. We stayed in the parking lot getting high instead of going
in to see them. I really don't regret that much, because I've never
liked Queen at all, but some people would probably be kicking
themselves over that.

The first REAL concert I saw was the Stones in Philly in 1975. After that I started being a
little pickier about who I went to see, and where. I try to avoid places that smell like manure.

**Sun Dec 30, 2007 1:43 am**

The Monkees... :roll:

**Sun Dec 30, 2007 1:55 am**

strummercalling wrote:The Monkees...

SERIOUSLY? You've gotta share some details.

Did Hendrix open?

Oh...wait...was this a geriatric reunion tour? Well, I'd still like to hear about it. A couple of the Monkees tunes are seriously great songs, no matter who played on them.

**Sun Dec 30, 2007 1:59 am**

local acts, one very folk inspired.
the first "international" was probably GBH. Then Nashville Pussy + Mars Volta + Radio Birdman + The Cramps + Rancid, followed a few months later by the Iggy & The Stooges reunion tour, with The Dirty Americans on support. I saw Nekromantix also, and Leighton Koizumi with Tito and thee Brainsuckers.
But most of the gigs I saw were Italian people.
And then, last year, The Pogues (+Junkman's Choir), Gogol Bordello and El Gafla.
I'm quite sorry to have missed loads of times, for a reason or the other, Madness, Skatalites, Bad Manners and Selecter.

**Sun Dec 30, 2007 2:03 am**

Styx -- 1981

**Sun Dec 30, 2007 3:38 pm**

REM at Slane Castle, 1995

**Sun Dec 30, 2007 4:17 pm**

1974, it was a festival type thing with WAR, Al Green (before he was a Reverend), Rose Royce and many others I cannot recall. Good times.

**Sun Dec 30, 2007 4:48 pm**

1985 or '86 - Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Dunstable.

1986 Queen - Knebworth Park.

1986 to feb '88 loads of local bands.

Then......in March 1988....... The Pogues!!! Town & Country Club, London.

**Sun Dec 30, 2007 7:12 pm**

Queen December 6th 1980 at Birmingham NEC
This was the first gig in the newly opened NEC Arena, i still have the ticket stub which i bought off my geography teacher Mr Yates, who was a bit of a wanker. it started me off on run of gigs mainly at Birmingham's Odeon theatre which was a great little venue, i saw some great bands there around this time when i was 14 or 15 including
Thin Lizzy
AC/DC
Ozzy Osbourne
But my gig going days really got going in 1985 when i first saw the Pogues at Glastonbury- Still the best gig i have ever been to

**Sun Dec 30, 2007 8:00 pm**

SPIN DOCTORS with special geust Gin Blossoms.

I went to this show when I was 15 in hopes of getting somewhere with a girl I really liked. As it turns out she was at the show to see some other guy. While I don't like either of these bands i have to admit they both put on good shows.

REM 1995

LOLLAPOLOZA 1995

ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND 1995

The summer of 1995 was when I was allowed to start seeing concerts and it is pretty much one of the few things I really enjoy now that I also enjoyed when I was younger!

**Sun Dec 30, 2007 8:12 pm**

The Four Tops at the Odeon in Manchester in about 1972. I can clearly recall Levi Stubbs' unbelievable voice and the fact that the balcony where we were sitting was bouncing so much it was a bit scary.

**Sun Dec 30, 2007 10:32 pm**

soulfinger wrote:The Four Tops at the Odeon in Manchester in about 1972. I can clearly recall Levi Stubbs' unbelievable voice and the fact that the balcony where we were sitting was bouncing so much it was a bit scary.

Only the balcony of the Glasgow Apollo was scarier than the Manchester Odeon. Both of them, from the vantage point of the stage, looked positively terrifying. The Apollo balcony actually appeared to dip in the middle when the crowd got bopping. I was so fascinated I learned all I could about cantilevered engineering. It's genius, all the more so as it was never designed to facilitate rock music.

What was your first concert?

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