Loudest I ever heard was the Ramones in a C-U bar in 77-78. My ears were still ringing a couple of days later.
The discussion of modern concert prices makes me happy I’m a fan of bluegrass and oldtime. I get to see my favorite performers like Bruce Molsky, Special Consensus, Natalie Haas, Jake Blount, etc., in intimate settings for $20-30!
Since the ticket price discussion has continued, I’ll add that I had gifted concert tickets to a nephew of mine last month and happened to mention that concert tickets used to cost about the same as a vinyl LP. I knew that he believed me, but it was a huge conceptual challenge for him when he basically thinks of “unlimited” streaming as his main method of music consumption.
(“Yes, Uncle ZonexandScout could go to the record store with a $5 bill and come home with either a copy of Who’s Next or a ticket to see The Who perform live…plus change.”)
Here are some ticket prices for the early-to-mid 80s. They’re kind of all over the place, and higher than I remember.
Nice. Some pretty good prices there, regardless. The multiplier is about 3.5-3.7 for the early 80s tickets, and then closer to 3 for the mid-80s, just to get a sense of the price. Like the Stones ticket would be about $60 in today’s money. I imagine they’d be closer to starting at $90 these days.
Minimum wage in Texas was $1.40 at the time, which I was making more than working at a grocery store, but not wildly higher. Which was all fine, but I rarely bought concert t-shirts.
This reminds me of that live performance of A Quick One While He’s Away for that Rolling Stones thing in the 60s, where of course all the signature moves were on display. I just love it to so much I’ll take any excuse to post it:
Way before my time. I saw them in high school during the late 80s, though, and they were awesome. Pretty sure it was at Giants Stadium.
You’re all forgiven. Classic example of why The Who was the most engaging live band.
The names Townshend and Entwistle are funny, because people are always leaving out the “h” in the former and sticking it into the latter. Even on album jackets and record labels. John even called an album “Whistle Rymes” to make fun of it.
Kids, please do stop capitalizing the definite article when writing band names (except at the start of a sentence). “I like the Who.” Not so hard. I don’t like tripping over those clunky capital "T"s I keep seeing here. Surely they taught you correct practice in third grade.
I never learned about spelling band names in school. It wasn’t exactly Rock’n’Roll High School.
I went to The Ohio State University, so I’m still a little confused on the topic. 
Here’s the correct way to do it: “I went to State”.
A quick glance at their album covers suggest the band* itself has trouble deciding whether they are The Who or just Who.
*Not to be confused with The Band, which seems to be completely comfortable with that name/stylization.
They don’t get to choose. I mean, sure, they can do it however they like in their websites and promotional materials, but just remember, a lot of musicians are only semi-literate.
If the name of the band is The Who, which it is, the gets capitalised in exactly the same way you would capitalise The Merchant of Venice
Hell, I thought they were The Guess Who early on, and simply dropped the adjective in question a bit before they hit the big time. [like how The Cult sucessively dropped the words “Southern” and “Death” from their name 2 decades later]
Good question. The article is capitalized in titles, but not in names. “In 1964, the Rolling Stones released The Rolling Stones No. 2.”
I saw the show in Chicago the week after this one:
My memory is that it was the very next show, but google says otherwise.
Anyway, before the band came out, I was at my seat in the truly cavernous Chicago Amphitheater, when a huge hand descended on my shoulder from behind. I turned and saw a big frightening biker looking fellow (I was a skinny 17yo) who said, “you dropped your coat” and handed it to me. “Thanks!” I squeaked.
That week after Cincinnati, everyone was really darn polite in that crowd. It was never that way in the late 70s. You felt the difference. No pushing, everyone being careful not to mess up. Let’s not all die being assholes.
I looked it up. The band name “The Who” is a registered trademark Two words, both capitalized…
And here’s how they chose the name. according to Pete’s best friend Richard Barnes:
“The first two names that I thought of were ‘the Group’ and ‘the Name.’ Pete came up with ‘The Hair.’ Another contender was ‘No-One,’ or ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, the next group is called “The Group.”’ But I finally thought ‘The Who’ worked best for many reasons. It made people think twice when they saw it and it worked well on posters because it was so short and therefore would print up so big…it narrowed down to a choice between either ‘The Who’ or ‘The Hair.’ Pete suggested ‘The Hair and The Who’ and seemed really keen on it, but it sounded too much like the name of a pub…The indecision was resolved by Roger who came around to the flat the next morning to pick Pete up…‘It’s The Who, innit?’ So that was that and a new name had been born.”
Next you’re going to tell me it’s supposed to be “the the”.