# Major rock-n-roll stars you got to see before they became famous

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rock-n-roll-stars-you-got-to-see-before-they-became-famous/187052>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [July 8, 2003, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rock-n-roll-stars-you-got-to-see-before-they-became-famous/187052 "2003-07-08T18:35:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Alex-NC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a587f6/32.png) [@Alex-NC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex-NC)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rock-n-roll-stars-you-got-to-see-before-they-became-famous/187052/41 "2003-07-10T01:18:19Z")

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Tom Petty was a local Gainesville, Florida boy who had a band that played at my, and many other frats at The Univeristy of Florida. The band name was something like Mudcrutch. This was early 70’s.

I also saw John Denver…but he was still John Deutschendorf and played and sang in the Mitchel Trio after Chad Mitchell went solo. Saw at a free concert in Miami Beach.

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**Author:** ![Sassy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@Sassy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sassy)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rock-n-roll-stars-you-got-to-see-before-they-became-famous/187052/42 "2003-07-10T03:18:58Z")

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**Grateful Dead** in the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park. They had wires strung across Fell Street and played on the back of a truck. It was 1967 and I was ten years old 🆒

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**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rock-n-roll-stars-you-got-to-see-before-they-became-famous/187052/43 "2003-07-10T04:20:04Z")

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I saw Jane’s Addiction open up for Iggy Pop for before they were well known. I thought they were pretty bad.

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**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rock-n-roll-stars-you-got-to-see-before-they-became-famous/187052/44 "2003-07-10T04:43:58Z")

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:scratches his beard and mumbles about kids today:

OK, dating myself horribly here, but in the spring of 1964, when I was a freshman in high school, \*\* Paul Revere and the Raiders \*\* played for the senior prom at my rural Oregon high school. They’d had some regional airplay with their version of “Louie, Louie” but weren’t really known nationally. In the fall of '64 they would tour with the Stones, be noticed by Dick Clark and be signed as the house band on his “Where the Action Is” series. As the All Music Guide notes:

> [@](#):
>
> One of the most popular and entertaining groups of the 1960s, they enjoyed 10 years of serious chart action, and during their three biggest years (1966-69) got as much radio play as any group of that decade, sold records in numbers second only to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and received nearly as much coverage in the music press of the period (which included a lot of teen fan magazines) as the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.

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**Author:** ![zoogirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b9bd4f/32.png) [@zoogirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoogirl)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-rock-n-roll-stars-you-got-to-see-before-they-became-famous/187052/45 "2003-07-10T05:12:21Z")

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Mr zoogirl in his band days used to party with members of Trooper.

My own brushes with fame are, more or less chronologically,

Went to the same HighSchool as Michael J Fox. (He was in gr 8 when I was in gr 9)

Heart played a dance at the same school.

Had children’s performer Charlotte Diamond as my guitar and choir teacher, gr. 11 & 12.

I realize they’re not all rock, but what the heck. Fame is fame!

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