Don’t feel bad–that was mine, too, about a year later. Kenny G opened for her.
My first “real” rock concert was a John Cougar Mellencamp, in about seventh grade, on the tour behind “The Lonesome Jubilee”.
Technically, though, it would have to be the Rolling Stones on July 4, 1975, in Memphis. I wouldn’t be born for three more months, but I was there. 
Dr. J
Sheesh. How the years make your memory foggy. If that was '70 then I’m not as old as I thought I was. Or, since I can’t remember, maybe I’m older!
Tull shows were always A-1. Manic energy, stage props, crazy comments. During Thick As A Brick (must have been '72?) there was a phone on a little pedestal on stage (because there’s a phone that rings during the piece). So the phone rings at the proper place in the music, and the entire band stops and Anderson walks over and answers the phone, then announces “Phone call for Mike Nelson…Phone call for Mike Nelson”…and they go back to playing like mad. As they play a guy in a full SCUBA outfit–wearing an Aqualung, don’t ya see–climbs the ladder to the stage, answers the phone, talks for a while and then leaves. I love that stuff!
Led Zep, Day on the Green, Oakland Collesium, July 1977 with about 50,000 of my closest friends. I went the first of two days they played, but can’t remember the exact date.
Dang, Tull was the first rock band that I became a fan of. I didn’t see them until 78 or 79 and they had lost it by then. They were good but not awesome, and certainly couldn’t hold a candle to their Aqualung daze.
It’s very cool how many Tull fans we’ve got here – seeing them was also a highlight of my high-school years ('70-'72). Who’da thunk that all the Tull fans would end up being Dopers 30 years later? Do you think most message boards have this high a concentration of people who get misty-eyed at “Lomotive Breath”?
I feel like I’m climbing on a bandwagon here.
I saw Jethro Tull for my first concert. Pocatello, ID 1978. Kept the t-shirt for almost twenty years until it disappeared in a move.
I was fifteen, thought they were great, and marvelled that someone (the guy next to me) would drink so much that he’d pass out and miss the whole thing.
I had a chance to see them for a second time in 1994 in Budapest. They were playing on an island in the middle of the Danube. As we were going to get into the concert, my friends and I discovered the Guinness beer tent, so we just sat on the grass, drinking beer, and listening to the music come over the hill.
September 1965, Sydney Showground - main act was Roy Orbison. The opening act was some new English group called the Rolling Stones. Just like the footage from then - the girls stood aon their seats and screamed. We heard very little of the concert. The ironic part was we were going to see Orbison and he cancelled that night. They replaced him with a group called the New Beats. We very nearly cancelled!
When I saw them at the end of '70 they were playing songs from Aqualung. BTW Black Sabbath opened for them. They sucked big time!!! I get a laugh out of how far Ozzie Osbourne has gotten on so little talent.
Hey Hook come out and play more often!
My first concert was also Jetho Tull, when they were touring behind Roots to Branches in 1996. Emmerson Lake and Palmer opened for them. It was a good show. Ian anderson wasn’t terribly kinetic because he had recently broken a leg or something like that. I’ve seen them one more time (when supporting Dot Com) and the show was even better, with a few resurrected gags and a lot more energy.
Van Halen - Balance tour in Vancouver. 1996 I think?
Decent concert. I remember Alex was in a neck brace or something… he hurt himself golfing or some damn thing.
Seatrain, Wildwood, NJ, summer 1971 (or was it 2?)
Yes, sometime in the '70s. I thought it was too loud and left early. I hate myself.
First concert: 1974 Bob Dylan benefit concert for Hurricane Carter. Not that I had any feelings one way or the other towards Hurricane Carter’s situation.
Jimi Hendrix Experience, February '68 at the Electric Factory in Phila. I believe the tickets were $2.75.
Over the next few months saw Cream, Mothers Of Invention, Jeff Beck Group and a number of other bands there.
A true psychedelic dungeon, with body racks in the back, dayglo monkey bars, body painting, full blown light shows.
God… those were the days…
Mine was Weird Al, on the Bad Hair Tour, '96 as my birthday present. If that doesn’t count, my next concert was The Smashing Pumpkins (alas, without Jimmy Chamberlain) in February '97.
Huey Lewis and the News, during their Sports tour, at the Jones Beach Ampitheater on Long Island. I was 9 years old. If there was an opening band, I missed it, as all I remember was some guy cracking jokes onstage. Either the News had a crappy stand-up comedian as an opening act, or this sucker was trying to warm up the crowd or something. It could have been worse: my parents used to listen to the Oak Ridge Boys 
The first concert that I actually wanted to attend was the 1989 “Monsters of Alternative Rock” tour featuring New Order, Public Image Limited and the Sugarcubes. It too was at the Jones Beach Ampitheater. We were dropped off two miles away from the Ampitheater, and had to walk the rest of the way, cutting across the Fire Island dunes. The Sugarcubes were horrible, PIL was great (but then, I was a big PIL fan, and they were the main reason why I went to the show), and New Order was so-so (I enjoyed their albums, but they didn’t work as a live band IMO). Not having a ride home, a friend somehow convinced two girls to take us home in their limo 
My first concert in a club (where I have seen almost every concert I have attended, hence making this an appropriate inclusion) was Dysfunctional Idiots, Mucky Pup, Biohazard, and the Bad Brains side project H.R. (named after Bad Brains’ singer H.R., of course) at Sundance in good old downtown Bay Shore, also in 1989. The place was conveniently located only a few hundred feet from the local hospital, as the pit was not only pretty violent but also had several load bearing columns painted black, making them hard to see in the smokey atmosphere. The minimum age to enter was 18, but despite my age of 15 I managed to get in without having to show ID. I met the leader of the notorious local suburban gang called SOB (Strong Island Boys… out of curiosity I did a google search on SOB and found that they made a movie about them!), who would shortly thereafter appear on the front cover of Newsday, and for some reason he was convinced that I was on acid. Biohazard, just starting out at the time, was pretty good even then, but the payoff was H.R. H.R. was on yet another break from his band Bad Brains (although, as always, his brother Earl was there on drums), and despite having released a lot of solo songs featuring a Bad Brains-esque hardcore/punk/metal sound, he decided to do a completely reggae set… for 3 hours. He stood there on stage, smoking several joints throughout the set, as he sang reggae song after reggae song. As the crowd dwindled, I was right up in front of the stage, most likely getting a second hand high from the cloud surrounding H.R. We ended up walking out of the place at about 4am. While Huey Lewis and the News and the Monsters of Alternative Rock were my first two concerts, that show at Sundance came to be my definitive concert experience, as for years afterwards, I would find myself in yet another dingy club hearing yet another band play on a way too small stage in front of an energetic crowd, and I would think about that show at Sundance in '89.
SUCCESS! …or maybe not…
I almost hate to admit it, but I titled my thread (which inspired this one, for those of you wondering who the hell I am) like I did to try and bring more people into it.
Even though anyone who looked at my original thread knows this, my first rock concert will be (June 15…getting closer by the day now) Godsmack. My second will be Summer Sanitarium in August. And yes, I have tickets, I’m not just spouting out my fantasy here.
Twickster, I feel honored to have the first thread inspired by something I said be in somewhere other than the Pit, and think I should say more, but have no idea what.
1983, Sammy Hagar, I can’t Drive 55 tour. I was 14 and went with my friend Dave and his Mom who took us. Tickets were $12.00. For the life of me I can’t remember who opened. I want to say Krokus but I don’t remember (I did see Krokus open for Judas Priest a couple of years later).
Oh dear. I’m embarassed before I even SAY anything!!
My first TWO concerts were Alanis Morissette. First one was December of 1995 at the Murat Egyptian Room here in town; second one the next summer at Deer Creek. 
Early summer of 1998 I saw Yes, with The Alan Parsons Project as an opener. (Does that count as a rock concert? 
)
August of 1998 I saw Pearl Jam with Iggy Pop as an opener. It was the day that Bill Clinton had to testify before the Senate (or something like that), so for an encore, Eddie read part of Bill’s testimony, then played Better Man, just for Hillary!!
Night Ranger, at the 1986 Kansas State Fair. I was 17.