The best bar band I ever saw was Twiste Sister, before the makeup. They played the Rathskeller in Moscow Idaho for a week, and I went to see them 5 times, they were that good. Their last night Dee Snider came and sat at our table and discussed the record deal they were working on.
In 1980 Talking Heads played a dance at Utah State University. Tickets were 5 bucks. I had my elbows on the stage the whole gig. They rocked.
mycoman
When I lived in London I saw the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club, Motorhead debut at Midnight Court at the Lyceum and an early Clash show at the Roundhouse.
Back in Australia I saw INXS at the Manly Vale hotel with a crowd of about 50 and Midnight Oil somewhere up the northern beaches.
Ken West, who runs the best festival in the world The Big Day Out has an uncanny knack of booking bands who in the meantime become huge. It’s a must each year.
Hey, I saw Duran Duran open for Blondie. Now, did anyone see Blondie as an opening act? We could be a chain.
The Goo Goo Dolls played at my high school dance. I remember we were all very excited, they were a “big” local band at the time, although come on, they were still playing dances at Catholic high schools so how big could they have been? All our dates were sour because all us girls were so swoony over the Goos.
I saw Alice Cooper in September 1969 when they were still pretty much a glitter novelty act. They were playing in the middle of an all-day line up that climaxed with The Doors about six hours later. They were so “unfamous” that my friends and I were actually able to get into their dressing room. We had never seen that much make-up on a guy before. In fact, we had never seen that much make-up on a woman before!
Oh, Green Day are another “I knew their drummer when”. He was in another Bay Area band called the Lookouts and I used to see them all the time.
I don’t think I ever saw Green Day’s first incarnation as Sweet Children, but I might have, I had their demo tape anyway.
I saw Pantera play in a little town called Muenster. This was back in 1984 when they were primarily a metal cover band.
Not sure how you define “famous”, but I saw Tom Petty when he opened for Be Bop Deluxe (who?), just after the first album came out. Also saw Elvis Costello’s first appearance in San Fransisco.
My stepdad was walking down the street one day and he wandered into a coffeehouse where James Taylor was playing. It was about a year before Sweet Baby James came out.
Also, more along the personal aspect (as opposed to performance), one of my exes knew Madonna when she was still struggling to make it in NYC (they had mutual friends). According to her; “Back then, she had more sex and did fewer drugs than she does now.” Cheeky!
A friend of mine saw U2 open for The Culture Club… how wrong is that??
I saw Moby before he was really famous. He did that PBS show “Session at West 54th” and I got tickets to the taping. Only about a hundred people in the audience. This was before Play came ou (or maybe when it came out)t, so he wasn’t a nobody, but definitely not a celebrity yet.
I also vaguely think I saw him at a radio station concert, on a small side stage with a couple of drummers. But I wasn’t a fan at the time so not certain.
I went to see The National Lampoon Show (not “Lemmings”) on campus just after John Belushi split to join up with a late night show on NBC that replaced “The Saturday Tonight Show”. His replacement was some guy called Meatloaf. This was pre-“Bat Out of Hell” and pre-Rocky Horror, so nobody knew who he was. I saw him doing skits like “The Rhoda Tyler Moore Show” and singing “We Don’t Give a ____”.
I saw The Presidents of the United States of America as an opening act (for They Might Be Giants) just before they hit it big.
I also saw Ellis Paul playing at a sorority house about five years ago (no stage, no microphone, just stood in the middle of the room with an accoustic guitar), and he’s gone on to be pretty popular in folk music circles.
Stevie Ray Vaughan. It was a local club in Atlanta. He was billed as “Little” Stevie Ray. He had straight, ass-lengthed blond hair, very hippie-ish and wore those flowing Rick Wakeman/Yes kind of gowns.
A friend of mine told me about him. “Plays like Hendrix” was the rep.
He was good but much more psychodelic. Before any of the Double Trouble stuff. Mostly jams, extended solos, noodling and Voodoo Chile. I remember he had his then wife, very cute foxy babe, come up and sit on the stage at one point while he played this screamin ‘love song’ that he had written for her. Can’t remember the year but it was a couple of years before Double Trouble.
These may not exactly fit into the OP’s challenge, but what the heck.
Late 1970’s I lived in an apartment in Miami, Flagler Street and 48th Avenue, and most evenings after school I would listen to the guys in the apartment building next door practice with their band, they called themselves The Latin Boys, and they sounded like crap. But they had a couple of nice looking girls in the band though, too old for me of course, but nice to look at. A couple of years later I saw them play at a wedding, the nicer looking of the two girls was now lead singer and the band called itself Miami Sound Machine, the cute looking girl was Gloria Estefan.
In the early 1980’s the nightclub of choice in Miami was called Casanova’s, of course back then we called them “discos”, not nightclubs. At any rate, this was the place to be, open every night except Monday, and with a live show about once a month. It had the tiniest dance floor, and it was always packed, but when they had a live show it was really, really packed, because the removable stage took up almost half the dance floor. A dance floor which, apropos of nothing, was a replica of the Saturday Night Fever disco set, with the lighted panels on the floor.
I hated nights with a live show, and avoided them like the plague, but this was really the place to be if you wanted to pick up chicks, yeah sue me, so once in a while I relented and went to put up with the live show. This is how I saw Grace Jones, but she was already famous, I also saw Laura Brannigan, when she had her song “Gloria” out. And one time I saw this one girl, who had a catchy tune, and danced up and down the stage, once in a while banging her hand on the stage lights, she was cute, and actually hung around after her show and danced with a few guys. It was Madonna.
One time, probably 1979 or 1980, I was at Chicago’s O’Hare airport waiting for a flight home to Miami when I saw a group of weirdos walking down the terminal. I mean, they were weird, one guy had a purple mohak, another had a shaved head and ripped clothes, but oh man, the girl was something else. She was wearing a cut off tank top, very obviously no bra, a huge blonde mohak, and when we made eye contact gave me a smile that made my head spin.
I considered the possibility that if I approached her, the very mean looning characters with her would kick my ass, but the power of her smile had shorted out most of my cognitive brain function. Approach her I did, and somehow managed to say something along the lines of “Hey, are you in a band or something?”. She gave me that smile again, and said that yes they were, and would be playing in Chicago later in the week, and that if I was interested they had some extra tickets. I fingered my $600 airplane ticket, and considered changing the flight, but it was just too complicated, I declined and we parted ways, never having found out her name or the name of her band.
A few days later, back in Chicago, I caught an article in the local paper, the girl’s picture brandishing a guitar, which talked about how she had just been released after being arrested during her show, on charges of “abusing herself with a sledge hammer”. Made me really wish I’d ditched my flight. The band’s name was the Plasmatics, the girl was Wendy O.
Sorta off-topic, sorta not.
A decade or so ago, I was trapped in South Carolina with a bunch of friends on a road-trip of sorts. We were all kinda weird looking, definately out of the ordinary for the semi-rural area we were in. Anyway, we went to the local eatery, and we left the camcorder on (as we were trying to ‘document’ our whole trip). On the way out of the place, one of our companions is talking into the camera about how he wishes he was back in Chicago at the bar he was working at. He then grins and says, “The manager of that place was lookin’ at us kinda funny, so I told him we were from Smashing Pumpkins. Which’ll be really funny if they ever make it big…”
"I saw Dave Matthews play in late summer 91’ in a bar in Richmond VA. I can’t remember the name of the place, I was visiting a friend of mine and she said I had to come see these guys who had a violinist in their rock band. (I was a big fan of a Chicago band called Big Hat that also had a violin player)
What a show. The energy level was incredible"
That would be the Flood Zone, now closed. I saw the DMB every Wed. night there for about 6 months. Boyd Tinsley, the violin player, played at my bosses wedding in Charlottesville.
I saw No Doubt when they opened for the Goo Goo Dolls, who were opening for Bush.
When Gwen Stefani came out, she said, “Do you guys even know who we are?” The crowed booed and said no. They were booed the whole time actually.
I felt bad for them. Then again, this is where she met Gavin Rossdale, so it worked out.
Hey I saw that show too! That was at the Palace, right? I think, if I remember correctly, “Just a Girl” had just been released. I think I had heard it once or twice and thought it was total crap. I just wanted these flashes-in-the-pan to get off the damn stage so Bush could come out.
I also met Kid Rock at the State Theater in Detroit in the mid-90s back when he was just starting out, but with a little bit of local noteriety. He was with a couple of hot girls and was dressed pretty flashy. I asked a friend if that was someone famous. He said he thought it was Kid Rock. I said “Who?” He said, “You know, that one guy that has that one song on 89X once in a while.” I said “Huh.”
So, with a little alcohol in me, I walked up to him and asked him if he was Kid Rock. He looked at me for a couple of seconds, sort of scowled and smirked, said yeah, and walked away.
An asshole even back then. Since then, my friend claims he saw Joe C there that night too, but I don’t remember that.
Happy
My husband used to work construction gigs with Paul Gray, the bassist of Slipknot, before Slipknot hit it big. Met him a few times in passing, and he was a slacker loser then, mooching off his girlfriend(s). Never could take that band seriously.
mmm, saw Nine Inch Nails open for the Jesus and Mary Chain in February 1990… Pretty Hate Machine had only been out for a couple months and nobody knew who they were really.
That spring super punk girl at my high school got a hold of the NIN album and played it incessantly… when I told her I’d seen them live a few months ago she got pissed off, I wasn’t worthy because I loved the Cure.
-fh