Tower of Power and George Benson, Royce Hall, UCLA, 1977 FRONT ROW CENTER.
aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 
Nuff said
My first live theater experience was a performance of The Wizard of Oz at San Diego’s Starlight Bowl in the early 60s.
First rock show: Moody Blues at the Oakland Arena in 1971.
Creedence Clearwater Revival at the old Rhode Island Auditorium on North Main Street back in the late 60’s; early 70’s. Right after Cosmo’s Factory came out, I believe.
My wife was there as well, but I didn’t know it at the time.
Sha Na Na! This would have been around '77 or '78 or so, and I would have been 7 or 8 years old. I was really into 50s rock at the time, for whatever reason, and my dad took me to see them.
Grandparents took me to two broadway shows prior to 1980.
I don’t recall the other one.
My parents took us kids to see Fiddler on the Roof with Zero Mostel on Broadway, must have been sometime around 1970. (Can’t really narrow it down by looking up the production, because Zero Mostel played in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway for like decades.) I was six? seven? eight?
Saw the Paper Bag Players NYC children’s theater troupe at about the same time, though I’m sure not the same trip. Remember them? “Move over! Move over! Make a little room for me! Move over! Move over! Have a little courtesy!”
YES with opening act Poco in the Spring of 1973.
The oldest one I remember was Itzhak Perlman at the Royal Festival Hall, some time in the late '70s. I was taken there by my grandmother, who was an usher at the Hall. Loved most of it despite being only a kid, though I do remember getting relentlessly bored towards the end and feeling a near buzzing in my legs borne of a desire to run around the place shouting. Strangely, classical performances still have a similar effect on me.
Renaissance at the Hammersmith Odeon - mid to late 70s - i was in my teens
An older brother (by 10 years) had a spare ticket otherwise i don’t think he would have been so generous -
IIRC John Martyn was the support -
The Nutcracker at the Aerie Crown for a couple of years toward the end of the 60’s. I was maybe 5? My first rock show without my parents was Foghat at the Stadium in, I think, 1978. IIRC, the opening band was Mountain Ash.
That’s the first one I can remember, too. I must have been 9 or 10.
First rock concert: Peter Frampton “I’m in You” tour (1977?). My introduction to the nosebleed seats (Blue Heaven) in Madison Square Garden. I must have been a sophomore in high school.
My first concert was Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels at Cobo in Detroit. I don’t remember what year, probably around 1965 as I was pre-teen at the time. It was our reward for collecting money door-to-door for the Danny Thomas charity for St Jude’s Hospital. It was a big deal because Ryder had some hits on teh radio then and it was my first trip to Detroit without my parents. I don’t remember anything much else about it. My first big name concert was at Meadowbrook to see Carlos Montoya. I went backstage and got his autograph on the back of my ticket, which I still have. This would have been early 1970’s.
We used to take annual summer family vacations at Monticello, Indiana - at Indiana Beach, a typical beach holiday resort area with boardwalk games, rides and a small concert theater. In about 1965, I begged my parents to hold off a week and go later so I could see The Who. Why they would be performing at this rinky-dink little resort area was a mystery to me, but I was thrilled!
I remember that day well; I was hanging out in the huge pinball arcade playing pinball. It was fairly early and I was practically the only one playing pinball. I looked up and saw the entire group - Daltry, Townsend et al show up and slowly walk to the concert hall. Daltry and Townsend stopped and watched me play pinball for a few minutes, and I was too nervous to say anything but tried to impress them with my skills and was doing fairly well.
They left and that night I saw their concert, standing in the front row, and watched Pete trash his guitar on stage (his tradition at the time) thinking, “wish he had just given it to me instead!”
I have always wondered if their hanging out watching me in the pinball arcade had anything to do with the rock opera Tommy.
I later saw The Who in a double bill with The Kinks in Chicago where they played Tommy in entirety.
I remember seeing Joan Baez when she was doing a concert in Chicago in about 1969 and although she was a great performer, she was also sort of a bitch and complained about the crowd being too close to the stage and people standing off to the side, etc.
My biggest regret was when the Beatles came to Chicago and I was too young to go alone, but my older brother had a chance to get free tickets and turned them down! I still hold a grudge. I once spotted John and Yoko as they walked through Central Park in the early 80’s, but that was as close as I ever got to seeing the Beatles live.
Saw the Rolling Stones at the Munich Olympic Stadium in the 70’s…cheap seats and they were the size of ants from my perspective, but still - was at the concert. Funny story about that - I knew an American couple in Munich who were huge Stones fans, so they splurged and got front row tickets. They also bought some high grade hash for the concert and smoked a bowl before the show started. I found out later they slept through the entire concert and had to be woken up by ushers cleaning the arena. They were sitting in the front row of a Rolling Stones concert and didn’t hear a single note of the music! (Must have been some killer hash!)
And last regret - had a chance to see Janis Joplin in Chicago, but had promised somebody I would go to their stupid party that same night, so said, “Oh well, I’ll see her next time she comes to Chicago…” There was no “next time” as she died shortly after.
The first famous performer I saw was Ginger Rogers (yes, Fred Astaire’s dancing partner) in Hello Dolly! on Broadway, circa 1964. She looked pretty good. I saw plenty of famous folks on Broadway, off Broadway, and in theaters elsewhere before 1980.
Also before 1980 I saw Rick Wakeman in Concert in 1975, and MeatLoaf performing in The National Lampoon Show long before Bat out of Hell. Nobody knew who the hell he was.
I saw The Supremes (minus Diana Ross, who’d already split) at the Steel Pier at Atlantic City in the late 1960s
With less enthusiasm, I admit I saw Herman’s Hermits and The Cowsills (the real-life model for The Patridge Family) at the Steel Pier about the same time, too. And I saw John Denver in concert circa 1979.
List by no means complete.
I was coming in to say the same thing. It was probably around 1965 or so, and the one I saw included a very young Joanne Worley, pre-Laugh-In. I saw a not so young Joanne Worley in San Jose a couple of years ago.
If the circus counts, I saw that pre-1960, and I vaguely remember a rodeo too. Man of La Mancha in 1968, before it moved to Broadway, but that is kind of late for me.
My first Broadway Play was **Jesus Christ Superstar **(this makes 3 of us so far) in 1973.
I saw **Kenny Rogers and the First Edition **at the Ohio State Fair in 1971.
My first rock concert was **The Rolling Stones **at Madison Square Garden in 1975. Also in the 1970s at the Garden I saw **Ted Nugent **with Black Sabbath ('78?) and Aerosmith twice (also late 70s).
I saw U2 in concert at the Capital Theater in Passaic, NJ in 1980. At one point during one song Bono started singing “Send in the Clowns” while climbing on the amps.
Earliest I can think of: My parents took me and a friend to see the New Christie Mintrels live in concert in 1963.
Earliest without parental supervision: James Brown and the Famous Flames - 1966
Earliest “rock” concert - Cream in 1968
This is totally pathetic, but the earliest stage show I can remember going to was a singing and dancing performance by the Brady Bunch kids. Around 1970-71, L.A. Shrine Auditorium, I think. I’d have been about 7 years old.
The very first thing I can remember seeing with somebody famous, or at least semi-famous, was comedian Billy de Wolfe, doing a hotel act in DC. I was probably 10 or 11, on vacation with my parents.
The first musical act I remember is Judy Collins with Arlo Guthrie, at Blossom Music Center (Ohio) in, I believe, 1967.
That was also the first really major-league theatrical production I ever saw… and I think it was in 1970, and Herschel Bernardi was Tevye, so I’m guessing that you saw it before 1970.
My first rock concert was Jethro Tull in, I think, 1972… the Thick as a Brick tour. (I also saw them the next year, touring behind A Passion Play.) Some other concert highlights from that time were Bowie’s Diamond Dogs tour (1974), and Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue (1975). I also saw King Crimson in Providence, RI, on June 30, 1974… the show has since been released in its entirety on CD (The Great Deceiver, Part 1).