I saw the Sugarhill Gang at bar bar called Rio in Conshohocken, Pa. There couldn’t have been more than 150 people there.
Saturday 9/8 Ratt
Show starts at 7pm ($15) 21+. Purchase tickets at door and at 219-763-0031. Silver Bullet
This is at a bar that is close to my house.
In the early-to-mid 80s, I saw the requisite Beach Boys/Jan and Dean show. It was really packed with people in the 35-45 age group, so I felt really out of place at 14 or 15.
More recently, I got to see Judas Priest at a club in Albuqueruqe. They ROCKED. This is with the new singer, btw, and he brings energy to the band that they haven’t had in 15 years. Unfortunately, though their popularity isn’t waning, their appeal is becoming more selective. 
(bonus to whoever catches the movie line)
In 90-whatever I saw Sponge and Letters to Cleo (they had both just had their one hit album), but the real reason I went was to see Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. They were really good, but I felt bad because I think my friend and I were the only ones there specifically to see them.
I didn’t see it but I heard about Pat Benetar playing at a Vo-Tech high school in North New Jersey.
I saw the Romantics in 1992 at University of South Florida. Also Living Colour at USF on their last tour (before the current one) when their popularity was almost dead. There was barely anyone there.
I saw BOC for free at Party On The Plaza, a Thursday night free concert series in downtown Houston a few years back. They all looked like substitute math teachers to me. Pretty decent show though.
More pop than rock, but an object lesson in how to age gracefully in the music world.
Saw Al Stewart at the Tucson Folk Festival a few years back. You remember; Time Passages, Year of the Cat, and um… some others? Well, I’ve liked a couple of his albums, and it was free, so what the heck. Took a friend who didn’t know Year of the Cat, even.
He played an acoustic guitar, and had one occasional accompanist, Lawrence Juber (?). And he was amazing. Great guitar work, excellent singing voice, and good showmanship. He really made the songs live.
At one point in the show, he recounted being on an elevator, and hearing a song that was vaguely familiar. Gradually he realized it was Time Passages. He was indignant; they’d remade his song as a Muzak piece! Exept, then, gradually, he realized it was the original version.
He went home and rewrote the whole thing as a jig. And played it live, solo, acoustic, and well.
I really don’t think this is a fair question. To say a rock band is “on the skids” is to say that they do not produce or play quality music anymore.
I saw DIO last winter at the Fillmore West in San Francisco for a sold out show (Yngwie was also playing which probably had something to do with the overflowing crowd). I would not consider Dio to be “on the skids”.
In the metal community, the fair-weather (causual) “fans” are gone and the artists are left with the true, devoted independent-thinking fans. Those whose loyalty goes beyond what is popular at the moment.
Lest you forget, Iron Maiden had a down-cycle in the 90s but I saw them at a packed Shoreline Apitheatre last summer. Poison/ Dokken/ Slaughter/ Cinderella sold out the same Ampitheatre (perhaps a bad example as the strength of that particular tour was the novelty factor). None of those bands have had a “hit” album in 10 years. Tesla’s mini-tour earlier this year was so successful that they are starting another one.
I understand partly where you are coming from, but I would reserve the duragotory label for flash-in-the-pan artists not somebody like Dio or thrash-innovators like Nuclear Assault, who I doubt even in their heyday, ever sold out large clubs.
Well it wasn’t me personally, but my dad has the best story yet. His high school booked Styxx a year before his graduation, and the next year Styxx hit the top if the charts. Well, unfortunatley for them , they had a contract and had to play at the graduation. My dad got to see them free of charge at the best moments.