Bands you've seen, concerts you've been to

Cafe Society
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Continuing the discussion from Songs about planes and flying:

I know we’ve done this several times before, but not too recently I think, and the thread I’ve spun this one off from has had several mentions of seeing this or that band. Especially @saucywench, who mentioned seeing Rush, Tom Petty twice and the Rolling Stones, 6 times! I definitely would like to hear more about those experiences, if sw feels like sharing…

I have a few decent (I think) concert anecdotes to share, but in order not to make the OP too long, I’ll share my favorite one, and maybe I’ll weave a couple more in later if the thread gets traction:

I saw Stevie Ray Vaughan at St. Andrew’s Hall in Detroit soon after he had gone solo from David Bowie’s band. I didn’t even know who he was at the time, but a friend I went with said he was a fantastic guitar player and we have to see him. It wasn’t until he played ‘Pride and Joy’, which had been getting a lot of radio play, that I said “ohhh, he’s the guy who plays that song I love”.

St. Andrew’s is a small venue, and we were right up front at the stage. It was a fantastic show, not just for the music, but for the feeling that, by catching a performer in a small venue who would surely go on to much greater success, I was seeing music history being made.

SRV had a dozen or more different guitars lined up on stands that he took turns playing. At one point some asshole put his thumb over a beer bottle, shook it up, and sprayed beer onto the stage, getting some on an old Telecaster Stevie was playing. A roadie or bouncer comes out from stage left, points at the guy as if to say “you’re in deep sh!t now” and jumped off the stage running after the guy. No idea whatever happened to the asshole who got beer on SRV’s guitar, but I wouldn’t feel too bad if I had heard he got roughed up just a little bit…

Coincidentally, David Bowie was also doing a concert in Detroit that same night, an earlier show at Cobo Arena, and there was a rumor going around he’d make a surprise appearance at SRV’s show. But alas, didn’t happen.

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I saw the Jeff Beck Group open for Big Brother and the Holding Company.

This was before anyone had heard of Rod Stewart. In fact, since he was fronting the group, we thought he was Jeff Beck.

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Ha, good one. I bet that happens pretty often in the early days with bands named after someone other than the lead singer. Like, the first time people saw or heard Van Halen, they maybe thought that that loud, flashy, wisecracking lead singer was named Van Halen.

4

Oh my goodness, I can’t possibly list them all. I go to a lot of concerts. Over 30 in 2024 alone.

I’m retired, so going to concerts is the main way I get out of the house nowadays.

Lots of different genres. Just in the last couple weeks, I’ve seen the New Wave artists ABC and Howard Jones, the K-pop group Aespa, the J-pop group Phantom Siita, and the 70s band Styx.

5

Wow, I think that’s more concerts than I’ve been to in my entire life!

I guess what I’m looking for, which I didn’t really define well in my OP, is not so much a list of every concert one has ever been to (though that’s fine and dandy if you want to make a list of them), but stories and anecdotes of one or more memorable concert experiences-- great performances, seeing (band) at a tiny bar or someplace before they hit it big, some crazy happenings with either the band or the crowd, stuff like that.

6

I went to an Aerosmith/KISS concert to see Aerosmith, circa 2002.

I never had listened to KISS before. Aerosmith was at the time, one of my favorite bands.

Aerosmith was okay.

KISS rocked my face off. (So did, I regret to inform you, Ted Nugent, who opened.) I remember them being so sweet and effusive with love and praise for the audience, not like the hardcore persona I was expecting.

I haven’t been to that many concerts. I saw a ton of Christian rock bands in my youth, but as an adult it kind of petered off. From what I can recall, I’ve seen Live, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Hozier, and probably Weezer. Probably my favorite was Hozier, that man can fill a concert hall with just his voice.

Oh, and Weird Al! I had an absolute blast with Weird Al. It’s amazing how many costume changes that guy goes through.

I would have killed to see Green Day’s American Idiot tour.

And Rush? Oh, man. Sometimes I think I was born too late.

7

Been to plenty of concerts in my day. Talked about some of them here already. Among the most memorable:

The LA ARMS Benefit - where they skipped “Tulsa Time” and went straight from “Stairway” to “Layla.”

The Costa Mesa “Tribute to Steve Goodman”

More Jimmy Buffett and Grateful Dead concerts than I can count.

Almost that many Springsteen concerts.

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I’ve been to hundreds & hundreds of concerts, many of them really good, but I guess a few that stuck in my head:

  • we saw Richard Thompson solo at a pub in 1992 before he started really taking off, and his second show was so under-booked that they just let us stay. That show was great end-to-end.
  • I saw a band called The Tubes knowing nothing about them other than one hit song and had no idea that there would be giant inflatable penises, bondage gear, and a persona change for lead singer Fee Waybill to someone called Quay Lude. Absolutely topsy turvy fucking bonkers show for the unaware/uninitiated.
  • Saw the Talking Heads “Remain in Light” tour and was blown away by the stage presence of the supporting musicians. That alone made me a better reader of liner notes, because I had just assumed four people would show up.
  • LCD Soundsystem and Godspeed You! Black Emperor were so loud that I think my bones vibrated, and I quite enjoyed that.

I’m sure more will occur to me.

Just to clarify, he was never in Bowie’s band, but he did appear on the album “Let’s Dance.” He was supposed to tour with Bowie, but that fell through.

9

In the 80s and 90s I saw a few big name concerts: Rush, Styx, Foghat, The Smithereens, maybe one or two others I’m forgetting.

More recently when I worked in downtown DC I used to go to the Kennedy Center after work and they would have free shows in the evening. I saw a lot of world and American genre music. One I particularly enjoyed was The Williamsburg Salsa Orchestra, who do cover versions of indie rock tunes in salsa style:

Williamsburg Salsa Orchestra at The Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage

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Well, there was that time Pete Townshend hit Abbie Hoffman in the head with his guitar onstage.

And the time I stood up to applaud Les Paul, and he asked me “where are you going?”

11

My concert attendance has gone up A LOT since they came back after the Covid closures. I have a friend who seems to get all the presale codes and I’ve made a few impulse buys based on her Facebook updates. In 2024 I saw…VNV Nation, The Damned, Echo and the Bunnymen, English Beat, Squeeze, Peter Hook and the Light, James, Johnny Marr…I might be forgetting one.

Of those, James was by far the best. I knew a handful of their songs beforehand, by the end of the night I was a convert. They put on one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen. The worst last year was Echo and the Bunnymen: Ian McCulloch was drunk off his ass and I don’t think he landed on the right note once the entire night.

The bands I’ve seen the most are X, with six (four as themselves, two as The Knitters), Pere Ubu five times, Bob Mould five times (three with a band, one solo acoustic, one with Sugar), and Jonathan Richman four times. I’ll be seeing Nick Cave for the fourth time this spring. I’ve also got tix lined up for Allison Moyet, Dweezil Zappa, Weird Al and OMD.

Started seeing concerts while traveling as well. Over in the U.K. I’ve seen shows by The Waterboys, The Mekons, Alex Lahey, and The Wonder Stuff, and the last time I was in Berlin I caught The Heavy.

First concert I ever saw was The Beach Boys, at the Ottawa Ex in 1983. I’m older now than they all were then, and they were already a nostalgia act.

12

I saw The Beatles in 1965, first concert I ever went to. San Diego. And despite the screaming I COULD hear them quite well.

In 1967 I saw Linda Rondstat & The Stone Poneys open for The Doors.

Saw the Doors (with Jim) three more times, the third of which was the fanous Inglewood concert where they had a bass guitarist, strings, and horns onstage with them for four songs from the impending Soft Parade album. They did this only one other time, on the East Coast IIRC.

13

I saw Sarah McLachlan in a tiny club in San Francisco in 1992. This was several years before she hit it big. I got to meet her, and she autographed my ticket.

I saw the Israeli singer Ofra Haza (R.I.P.) on one of her rare North American tours. She got the crowd moving!

I see a lot of bands from abroad, Europe or Asia. I figure if they come this far, I should try to see them if I like them at all.

14

Oh damn. I’ve always wanted to see them live, particularly David Thomas.

15

Have you seen Stop Making Sense, the remastered concert that’s been streaming? That was my first real introduction to the Talking Heads, it’s fantastic. The level of stamina that band had was outstanding. David Byrne has commented that remastering the concert helped him come to terms with the fact he is autistic. You can absolutely see that in his music, the themes and echolalia in his lyrics, and how he presents himself onstage. It sounds like he burned many bridges in the past, because of not having this understanding of himself. I hope he’s been able to find some peace with it. That whole thing is worth watching just for the opening number, “Psycho Killer,” alone. Mesmerizing.

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Incredible! I wish I’d done something like that, because I don’t think I remember half the concerts I’ve been to.

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October 13, 2007 - Elton John played the first concert at the newly opened Sprint Center in Kansas City. It was a BIG deal.

No, I wasn’t there - I was at a Wilco show at an outdoor venue about four blocks south of there. All night long Jeff Tweedy was thanking people for coming to their show instead of the big one up the street and just generally making snarky comments about EJ. And as always they put on a hell of a show.

19

I have been to more shows than I could possibly count/recall… My next shows are three night of Billy Strings in St. Augustine FL.

I used to follow the Grateful Dead when they were touring, I’m still really into JamBands.
My most memorable summer tour (following Jerry and the boys) was their last one in 1995… I got to see Jerry’s last 6 live performances.

I have also been lucky enough to see David Bromberg at a dive bar in San Diego ('81) and Leo Kottke playing to an audience of about 12 people in '79 … Oh, I once fixed John Hartford’s bus… he was so so chill.

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I used to take my tickets and open the back of of one of the artist’s CD jewel case and store it in there on display in the back. Can’t really do that these days with a bar code on your phone.

A favorite concert memory for me was seeing Tom Petty at Wrigley Field during his final tour before his passing. It was rainy out for most of the show, no one gave a shit and we all just hung out in our cheap rain hoodies getting wet and singing along. Was a great show and not a single downer vibe from anyone we were near or interacted with for the night.

For artist interaction, the first show my wife and I saw together was Mary Fahl from October Project. Despite her rather ponderous and atmospheric songs, she was a hoot on stage making jokes and telling stories. Later on, we saw her in Chicago and met her, telling her that she was our first date and we were now married and my wife was pregnant. She gave us both hugs, congratulated & thanked us, remembered the show we went to and was a class act all around.