Here’s one that I just remembered that was a true double bill, not a headline and an opener.
In 2015 I went to see Bleachers, Jack Antonoff’s indie rock side project which had just released an album with a retro-'80s New Wave sound. He and the co-headliner were alternating spots on the bill. The night I saw him, Bleachers went on first. Then came on the second act… Charli XCX, the British dance-pop singer who at the time was best known for singing the chorus on Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy”.
Completely different musical genres and styles that brought two very demographics to the show, and I’m really not sure why the decision was made to pair them up.
Looking at their Wikipedia page, I see they composed the music for Disco Elysium, which is a game I find deeply compelling but have yet to make it very far into because I rarely have the time and level of patience to commit myself to long character-driven RPGs these days.
I once went to see Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine, a comedy band that does '60s lounge-style covers of contemporary pop hits. (Probably best known for the jazzy, up-tempo cover of “Down With The Sickness” that was used in Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake.)
The opening act was billed as “iPod on a Chair”. It consisted of a roadie coming out, setting a chair in the middle of the stage, placing an iPod on it, and pressing play, after which it proceeded to play a 30-minute set of mp3s of the same artists the headline band would perform later on.
Public Image Limited in Sydney in 1989, with a lot of the audience in a late catch-up Sex Pistols mindset and keen to be all pretendy punk. The two support acts were Tactics, essentially an electronic dance band by then, and India Bharti, an old serious hippie busker convert to Hinduism, who made his own electronic percussion instruments from old sticks and junk, and did a precursor to very Indian-influenced Dance Trance. Not lots of love from the crowd, judging from how much spit flew towards the stage, but totally in line with where PiL was trying to take music (if only Pistols fans were paying attention and able to keep up).
When Roger Waters did his concert at the Berlin Wall the opening acts were set up a bit differently. The crowd was there for many hours beforehand so there were several acts that played during the day. It was a strange mixture. The Hooters. The Band. And most strangely, The Chieftains with James Galway. Although it wasn’t always easily noticeable members of those bands did participate in the main concert as well.
I’ve posted about this gig before, because the bottom of the bill was…
From top of the bill down
Steel Pulse (then Britain’s biggest reggae band)
Wreckless Eric (alcoholic mess)
John Cooper Clarke (punk poet)
The Police (yes, them)
So you could view this as The Police opening for a poet; but I prefer to think of it as a poet supporting a reggae band.
I saw JCC open a couple of times, and it was always odd. Likewise, I saw Ivor Cuttler open a couple of times, and that was always extremely weird - an elderly Scottish retired teacher playing harmonium and singing inexplicable songs. Very brief sample:
Oh, and I saw the Simply What’s Happening tour. The Slits were opening - an all-girl post-punk band (Viv Albertine was at one time Sid Vicious’ girlfriend). There were a couple of other acts on the bill, but the opener was Don Cherry, a jazz trumpeter, who spent much of his time lecturing us about a collection of African instruments that he’d brought along. (He was also Neneh Cherry’s step father).
I don’t know how strange it is, but I’ve never seen an opening act that totally upstaged the main act like Robert Randolph and the Family Band did to Trombone Shorty. Shorty is no slouch as a NOLA jazz musician, but Randolph ripped the place apart with his steel guitar rendition of Voodoo Chile. Literally everyone was on their feet going wild. I don’t think anyone wanted him to leave the stage.
I saw Bowie as the top act on a bill with Apollo 440, Rage Against The Machine and The Prodigy in 1997. I was still quite young and got exhausted enough by the opening acts that Bowie’s gig became a haze and I don’t remember much of it. Btw., after the concert, I and three friends slept in my tiny Nissan Micra at the parking lot of the Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, Germany.
I went to an Empire of the Sun show, and Luke Steele’s father was the opening act. Just this old dude with an acoustic guitar and Luke came out now and then and helped out.
Long ago, I got free tickets to a show. Combustible Edison was the opener. They were so weird I don’t even remember who was the headliner.
I love The Spree! A few now famous folks came through that mess. Saw them on (I think) Austin City Limits and they had some pretty funny stories about touring with 25+ people. One time they lost track at a Truck Stop and left someone behind. He had to hitch-hike to the next gig!
I saw the Doobie Brothers as the opening act for the Beach Boys. They were barely known at that point and few people had ever heard of them. Not long after that they released “Toulouse Street,” the album that really put them on the map.
The Beach Boys were still trying to break out of their old image around that time. (Their “Holland” LP had just been released.) I interviewed Carl Wilson and he told me they preferred playing their new music over the Oldies. They played songs from that album to lukewarm reaction. But when they launched into “Surfin’ USA” the atmosphere totally changed and the crowd really warmed up.
I saw Violent Femmes and Ice T in 1993 or 94. I think this was at Georgetown University, but it could have been at U. of Maryland. (House of Pain was supposed to be on the bill with them, but they dropped out.) Not really “Weird” weird, I just didn’t think their fan bases overlapped. No DC radio station I was aware of played both acts.
I also saw the Rolling Stones’ Voodoo Lounge tour. Counting Crows opened for them. Despite their flash-in-the-pan nature, Counting Crows’ debut album was outselling Voodoo Lounge by about 20 to one at that point.
