The Who 1976 Winterland San Francisco - first rock concert (age 17)
I lost hearing but it was well worth it.
I remember that line-up! I saw NGDB with Steve Martin opening at the old Great Southeast Music Hall in Atlanta back in '76. The show in Athens must have been either the night before or the night after.
I saw Steve Martin at the Music Hall on four or five different occasions - God, was he funny!
First concert was Yes '75 or 6? Relayer tour with Patrick Moraz (awesome, btw).
I can vaguely recall some kind of stage show I attended when I was a tyke. Seems like Mary Martin was in it but it would have to have been a touring show. Can’t remember anymore than that and only now just remembered that. Have to query the folks.
Simon and Garfunkel’s first Atlanta appearance at the old city auditorium about '66 or '67. I’d been a big S&G fan since I was 12, and I tagged along with my older brother and his girl friend. The auditorium was maybe half full. S&G sang their songs, accompanied only by Simon on his guitar, and bantered with the audience quite a bit. It was all intimate and personal and wonderful, one of the happiest memories of my teen years. I never bothered to go to the later concerts with tens of thousands of people. It just wouldn’t have been the same.
Joan Baez, sometime in 1967 or 1968. My sister took me when I was five or six.
The next concert I remember would have been Bruce Cockburn sometime in '74 - that was not only the first of many times I’ve seen him live, but that was the first concert I went to by myself. I was twelve.
There were lots of times that Winnipeg Symphony or Royal Winnipeg Ballet would come through town as well - the performance that still haunts me to this day was RWB’s ‘Rite of Spring’, sometime in 1976.
Oh hell! I forgot that I saw Buffy Ste. Marie at Carnegie Hall in 1967. Front row seats: how could I have forgotten that? Also saw Ray Charles in 1968.
Tiny Tim - I got his autograph. The opening act was the Peppermint Rainbow. Circa 1967, WVU Field House, Morgantown, WV.
Only Slightly off topic as it doesn’t include a doper but if you haven’t seen it before, this is a remarkablle clip of a person recalling a particularly memorable and eventful theatre performance they attended…
The first rock concert I attended was one I worked at. I was a spotlight operator for a small theater company. I was in Grade 9 - our drama teacher had a habit of hiring kids from his class and then re-hiring them out as cheap labor, and I needed the money, so I trained as a spotlight operator and he hired us out to various traveling shows. Usually it was something like “Ice Capades”, but then I got to work for Van Halen for their first tour in 1977 or 1978, and in the same year did a show for Heart.
Funny story about that - I worked a ‘Super Trooper’ spot at the back of the stadium, basically just standing behind the last row of seats with this gigantic light. So I’m standing there, and a foreman hooks his thumb at me and says, “You! We need you up on top”. Up on top meant the ring of lights right over the stage - accessible only from a rope ladder. So I climb this ladder up about 40 feet, onto this little walkway with spotlights on each side and a railing that goes up to maybe your waist. It was terrifying. So I slide myself over to the open spot, and start trying to swing it around, and almost fall off the catwalk. Suddenly I hear a voice yell, “WHO THE HELL ARE YOU, AND WHERE IS YOUR SAFETY HARNESS???” I didn’t know anything about safety harnesses. Anyway, they hustled me out of there pronto - turns out the only people up there are supposed to be union and qualified for that job and all the safety gear. I had no idea.
The climb back down was even more frightening.
“Up until that point”? It’d remain mine forever: Live Doo-Wop… and jam! Free jam! Six jars!
Actually, just dropped in to say I’m quite jealous of you oldsters who got to see Beatles, Stones, or older bands. Maaaaaan… you old farts rock! Or rocked, any ways.
Um…never mind; I failed to read the OP in it’s entirety, and wasn’t allowed out of the house until 83 or so. 
Kiss, Cobo Arena in Detroit, 1975. This was the venue where they recorded most of the Kiss Alive album.
I also saw The Bob Seger System at Autorama some time in the late 60’s (this was also at Cobo).
I’d give my left anything to have seen the Beatles (though I did see McCartney & Wings).
I saw the Four Seasons, Lou Christie and Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs, in the Sixties, all at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, IA. Missed the last Buddy Holly Show but know people who went.
Saw the Beach Boys at The Roof Garden in Arnold’s Park, IA before they became well-known.
And attended my first rock festival in 1969 in the mountains near Mt. Rainier, WA. The fact that I can’t remember what the name of it was, nor who played there, should be proof enough!
First stage play - The Sound of Music, 1960, with Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel in the lead roles.
First rock concert - the Byrds, Houston, 1966
Ok, this’ll sound weird, but I don’t know. With no pharmacological excuse… It’s just that Summerfest (Milwaukee) started with just some risers at the edge of a field. Where they’d keep the bands going back-to-back from late morning to… well, early next morning. It’s all sort of run together in my mind, so the band I saw first was either Sly and The Family Stone or Bo Diddley or Blood Sweat And Tears or Poco or maybe just Richie Furay or Melanie or SomebodyElseThatLookedLikeHer maybe Janis Ian or Quicksilver or John Sebastian or George Carlin saying the 7 words or The Doors just after Jim died or maybe Steve Miller or either Edgar Winter or Johnny or Paul or WhoeverItsAllKindaRunningTogether… but I do remember that it cost a whole $2.75.
Incidentally, seeing the Ink Spots perform in 1948 is the oldest concert or theater going experience mentioned so far in this thread.
Ah - the old Atlanta Municipal Auditorium! That’s where I saw James Brown in '66 as mentioned upthread. But when I think of the shows I saw there in later years: The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Vanilla Fudge, the Amboy Dukes and the Soft Machine on the same bill!! I saw the Who there for the first time, and to compensate for being late, they did their regular set, plus Tommy in its entirety. Other shows included the Jefferson Airplane, Johnny Winter, Ten Years After, The Faces, Emerson Lake and Palmer with opening act Humble Pie, Fleetwood Mac long before Buckingham and Nix joined (but sadly, only weeks after Peter Green had left the group), Pink Floyd with opening act Hawkwind, and others my addled brain can’t recall. I guess it was about 1973 when the Omni opened, and shows began to move from the Municipal Auditorium to the new venue. Somehow, they never seemed as good.
First stage play was Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway around 1967. Zero Mostel had already left the production, unfortunately, but it was terrific. That girlfriend was a psycho, but she sure showed me NYC.
HOW THE HELL DID I MISS THAT ONE??!?
The Omni had terrible acoustics. Frank Zappa really hated the place. He once greeted an audience there by drawling, “Welcome to the world’s biggest echo chamber.”
It was in August of 1968 - and there were two shows! A matinee and an evening show. Remember when they used to do those? The Cream show I mentioned had a matinee. And how could I have forgotten the Allman Brothers at the Municipal Auditorium? Another matinee show - my younger sister and a friend got my mother to drive them down to the auditorium and drop them off to see the matinee - Mom only did it because she thought she was taking my sister to see the Osmond Brothers!!