The Who in a hot sweaty club in '70–Keith Moon was divine
Jethro Tull and tear gas in Red Rocks, 70 or 71
Santana in the same hot sweaty club, same year
The Doors (Morrison in leathers drinking Coors)
Grateful Dead '72 (“lids” complete with matches and papers thrown into audience)
CSNY at Mile High Stadium
Allman Bros at same
Ten Years After and Grand Funk RR at Red Rocks
Springsteen at Red Rocks
I could go on and on but won’t
Jethro Tull during their Aqualung or Passion Play or Thick as a Brick Tour. Any one would do.
Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, October 28, 1964. We’re going to The T.A.M.I. Show !!
At least I got to see the movie in a theater, around 1970 I think, before licensing disputes threw it into limbo. But to have been there - seeing Mick Jagger and Diana Ross bump and grind onstage together during “I Used to Love Her!” I saw James Brown in Atlanta in 1966 do “Please Please Please” complete with staggering offstage in his cape. But his performance at the T.A.M.I. Show was amazing!
Concerts I attended and wish I could relive:
Led Zeppelin and The Who, Columbia, MD, May 1969
Jimi Hendrix at the Baltimore Civic Center, June 1970
Cream at the Baltimore Civic Center, November 1968
Yes and Jethro Tull, Alexandria, VA, summer of 1971
Derek and the Dominoes, Owings Mills, MD. 1970 I think
R.E.M. at the 8 X 10 Club, Baltimore, sometime in the mid-1980s
Wish I had seen:
The Beatles, anywhere, any time. They were in Baltimore in 1964, but I was 10 and my parents wouldn’t go for it
The Band, anywhere, any time
Isle of Wight, 1970
The ABB record makes me think of that concert. I wouldn’t have thought of the Buddy Holly event except for this post.
I’d also like to have seen Sinatra live, maybe with Antonio Carlos Jobim or the Rat Pack in Vegas.
References to Newport made me wish I had seen Ellington’s band at the NJF in the 50’s (56, was it?) when Gonsalves did the 20+ choruses and turned the place into a near riot. Miles doing Round Midnight, too, but that may have been a different year.
For sheer excitement, I’d like to go back to concerts I actually attended in Nashville and Murfreesboro:
Dave Brubeck
Stan Getz
Dizzy Gillespie
Pat Metheny
Leo Kottke and Michael Hedges
The Chieftains
Was that the famous Paul Whiteman concert? I had always heard Paul Whiteman premiered * Rhapsody in Blue *. If so, please take me with you.
I would love to go back and see *Yes * during the *Fragile * tour. The lineup was Anderson, Squire, Howe, Wakeman and Bruford. Then I want to see *Close to the Edge * tour when White replaced Bruford who had moved on to King Crimson.
Led Zeppelin in concert, any concert from 1969 to 1973 especially. If pushed came to shove, I would try for the first live performance of Stairway to Heaven, just because that would be a specific special moment.
There is a half fable *Jimi Hendrix * performance in England that occurred the week Sgt. Peppers was released. Paul and maybe John attended the show Hendrix played “Day in the Life” in such a fashion that Paul was blown away by it. If this really happened, I would want to be there with some really good compact recording equipment. Hey, if I have access to a time machine, I should have access to some sensational sound equipment that I could disguise as something else.
I would like to go see Pink Floyd for the first leg of the Dark Side of the Moon tour.
I would love to have seen the Allman Brothers Band early on in the clubs.
I would have liked to have been with my sister in 1975 when she saw Bruce play Born to Run at the Stone Pony. It was one of the earliest live performances. It may have before the album release. The opening act had her husband’s cousin in it. I believe this was the house band Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes.
I would love to go see so many of the ones mentioned above. I will pass on Nirvana though.
Jim
I’m only 12, so this is a good 15 or so years before I was born, but I’d like to see Rush in the early 80s performing Tom Sawyer, The Spirit of Radio, and YYZ, among others.
Oh, and Pink Floyd too.
Any Stevie Ray Vaughn concert
Grateful Dead - Fillmore East - 2/13-2/14/70
The Who - Leeds University - 2/14/70
Santana - Fillmore West - 12/19-12/22/68
Grateful Dead - Fillmore East (late show) - 2/11/70 (w/ Duane & Gregg Allman, Butch Trucks, Mick Fleetwood, Danny Kirwin, & Peter Green all jamming with The Dead…sigh)
That’s just a few…
Wow, what a great thread. There hasn’t been a show mentioned that didn’t make my ears drool. I especially like ** Stratocaster’s** list, but again, everything else from Gershwin to Brubeck inspires.
Here’s a few that are wayyy up there for me.
First, I wanna be on the bus for the Dead’s '77 run, and since it’s a time machine, I might as well do it again.
Speaking of might as well, I want to catch the Trans-Continental Pop Festival (the Festival Express) with the Dead, Joplin, The Band, NRPS, among others. Might like to ride it just one more time.
Do I have to know exact dates? I’ve a killer Parliament disc, it’s from a show in Houston during the mid seventies. Not just a night with Parliament, but a night with Parliament, Sly, and Bootsy.[sup]*[/sup]
And if exact dates aren’t a problem, I want to go way back – way way way back. I want to hang with the first person to stretch skin across wood, the first person or persons to make Rhythm with a drum. Not only do I want to catch the 2001-esque scene and watch it all happen, I want to spend the night drumming with them.
Rhythm
[sup]*If anyone wants it, let me know – AFAIK it’s legal; see www.georgeclinton.com
If I’m wrong, I hope the mods will remove this addendum[/sup]
right on monsieur nuggets
you don’t have to have been there
i guess it doesnt have to rock but try to find a rock concert
personally here are a few:
U2 at the Red Rocks
Led zeppelin -Knebworth music festival (their return happened to be their last)
David Bowie around 1972-1974
Queen during their Hot Space tour (i have a dvd of them at wembley stadium)
Why just Rock?
I wanna visit New York’s Jazz clubs in the 20s, 30s, 40’s & 50’s.
Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Billie Holiday…the list just goes on & on.
It was a great show, and it was one of the last ones they played, I think. It was at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, and what was kind of funny is that Kurt thought it sucked, because the acoustics there are really pretty bad. He was pissed at the end and said we should all get our money back, then smashed his guitar and stage-dived out into the crowd. It was very, very cool.
I saw a lot of good shows back in the 90s. I miss that time.
Your list is really really good.
I would say the band I most wish I’d seen when I had the chance was The Who.
The band I most wish I’d seen that I never had a chance to see was The Beatles.
I would’ve liked to see Guns N’ Roses around 1987.
I would’ve liked to see Guns N’ Roses around 1987.
sorry about the double post. That happens sometimes.
This may not be my top choice, I’d have to give it some more thought, but I had tickets for a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert scheduled for the month after their plane went down, so I’d definitley want to go back to a concert before the crash. I guess this is kind of morbid and even selfish sounding, but there it is. I forgot to add that this would have been my first concert, when I was around 15 or so, and was probably the first incident in my life that screamed out, “Life isn’t fair!”
Wonderful choice.
My Way Back selection: The music hall on Dublin’s Fishamble Street when Handel premiered his “Messiah” back in 1742. Per request, I’d leave the hoop out of my raiment & ask my gentleman escort to leave the sword at home. (They planned on packin’ 'em in!) My favorite recording of the piece (Sir Neville Marinner conducting the orchestra of St Martin In the Fields, 1976) replicates the performance & it’s exquisite.
More recently, I wish I’d gotten off my ass to catch The Allman Brothers at the Houston Coliseum–their last swing through town before Duane died.
And perhaps a 13th Floor Elevators show before Roky Erickson’s first hospitalization. (True fans said they were never the same afterwards.)
But I’ve had a bunch of pretty good nights. Little Feat while Lowell George was gonig strong. And Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band at Houston’s Liberty Hall. That was his first gig beyond the East Coast & Columbia wanted to know if his appeal was limited by geography. It wasn’t.
Lollapalooza, 1996:
Main Stage: Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine, Metallica, Cocteau Twins, Waylon Jennings, Cheap Trick, Violent Femmes, The Tea Party, Wu Tang Clan, Steve Earle, Devo, The Ramones, Rancid, Shaolin Monks, Screaming Trees, Psychotica (emphasis mine)
Devo and the Ramones, can you imagine? So like my dreams it’s scary.
I also would have loved to see Nirvana again. I was so young when I saw them, 15 or 16, I loved Kurt Cobain and Nirvana’s music to death but I didn’t have much appreciation for concerts other than a place to hang out with friends and socialize. I barely remember what songs they did. If I could have seen them again, only somehow magically be the age I am now, I would remember every tiny detail and treasure it forever (not that I don’t now, but, well, you know what I mean).
From Wikipedia
I would want to be there on the 26th, if only to tell Stevie not to have that helicopter leave.