INXS (Kick tour) with Public Image Ltd. opening. I guess I was 14? maybe 15.
“My Accountz Reeceevable Posse don’t call me Tha Troubleshoota for nothin’. Suckas think I be chillin’, but I gots to represent at all times, 'cuz ain’t nobody else reeceeve accountz right but ME.” --Herbert Kornfeld
I think my first concert was ‘Our Lady Peace’ about 5 or so years ago, before they broke into the United States. It was free, on New Year’s eve, outside, and small… so it wasn’t very concert-like.
That was a well-plotted piece of non-claptrap that never made me want to retch.
Mine was Def Leppard with LA Guns opening when I was 14. I had to lie to my parents and tell them I was babysitting that night, and my friend’s parents drove us.
Everybody knows that Steve McGarrett only takes orders from the governor and God - and occassionally even they have trouble.
I cannot remember exactly - I was probably 14, and it was with my dad. Probably had something by Sibelius played, though, my dad was crazy about Sibelius (and I still am!)
Every year grwoing up we’d volunteer to answer phones at L.A.'s Classical station, KFAC - they had a “Top 40 Countdown”, a special day where they’d play the top 40 pieces that listeners voted on (Ravel’s Bolero and Pachelbel always were on the list.) This special day was all to get people to sign up for the KFAC listener’s magazine (a la PBS viewer drives). Volunteers like us would answer phones, take subscription orders, and get two free Hollywood Bowl tickets as a reward. The first concert I remember going to was one of those “freebie” Hollywood Bowl concerts. Remember having to walk several blocks to get to the Bowl, since parking is tight, and expensive, and my dad (who went with me) was cheeeep.
Polydactyl Cats Unlimited
“A Cat Cannot Have Too Many Toes”
Duran Duran, Carrier Dome, Syracuse NY,
1984, Seven and the Ragged Tiger Tour,
with Billy Idol opening.
I wish I still had that t-shirt.
Johnny Cash – 1961 at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. I was 15.
Then a long dry spell – I think the next one was in Seattle at the Paramount – took my 11-year-old daughter to see the Bay City Rollers.
My first concert was R.E.M on the Monster tour. Madison Square Garden. I had just turned 13. It was amazing.
“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” -Winston Churchill
This is actually a tough thing for me to remember. I am pretty sure my fist concert was a Bruce Springsteen show at Six Flags Great Adventure in NJ, I was about 8. As far as my first real no parent show, I am gonna guess and say Ramones at City Gardens, Trenton, NJ, at about age 14.
I took my boys to their first concert for their 12 & 8 birthdays last March. They had a great time.
Korn with Rob Zombie opening.
Any similarity between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
Primus. What a show. My first and best experience ever with the pit. John The Fisherman was a religious experience that night.
I saw Green Day at a house party a few weeks before, but there were like fifty people there, so I don’t know if that counts.
The Police, Ghost in the Machine Tour, 1982. Opening act Joe “King” Carasco.
With my mom–I was probably 8 or 9, John Denver. I puked after the show. I don’t know why, no drugs or alcohol involved.
With my friends–Van Halen when I was 15.
My first live concert: ZZ Top, Eliminator Tour.
Other firsts that evening:
With parents: Simon and Garfunkel '92 at Skydome-amazing, Blue Rodeo and Gordon Lightfoot opening -still LOVE Blue Rodeo
Without parents: I was 14 when I saw Rush at Maple Leaf Gardens, with I Mother Earth opening (before their alternative switchover-Edwin was drunk as a skunk on stage)
'94 was Pink Floyd Pulse tour, fucking GREAT tour, awesome times.
When he was ready, it was already far too late, to go back.
There will never be another.
He is lost to me, as surely as if he had died.
Standing alone, I stare into the flames trying
to remember what went wrong.
I haven’t been going to concerts long, but my first was Metallica’s Poor Re-Touring Me in '97, Pecatonica, IL. Very nice outdoor venue in the middle of nowhere.
Styx (yargh!) in about 1978 at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky. The Babies (Babys?) opened.
Been here so long he’s got to calling it Home.
The first was a free concert by the Beach Boys at Nassau County Community College around 1968. At the time, the BBs were pretty much thought to be washed up, and there were less than 500 attending.
The first real concert was Mountain and the Allman Brothers Band at SUNY Stonybrook about a year later. Or maybe it was Chicago and the Allman Brothers at the same venue; I forgot which was first.
“What we have here is failure to communicate.” – Strother Martin, anticipating the Internet.
The Black Crowes
headlining Furthur Festival in 97
featuring Planet Drum, Bruce Hornsby, Mickey Hart, and Ratdog
and a lot of others…
awesome show but their set was too short.
it proved to be a landmark show for them since 2 members left after that tour
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Chief’s Domain
My first show was KISS! I made my dad take me. I was twelve. The first one without adult supervision was Rush.
(Taking this to mean rock concerts)
Beach Boys at Mile High Stadium in June 1984, $8.
Second one: Beach Boys on the Washington DC Mall, two weeks later, free. (This is of course after James Watt realizes the Beach Boys are about as subersive as Donnie & Marie.)
Wrong thinking is punished, right thinking is just as swiftly rewarded. You’ll find it an effective combination.
The Fixx w/ The Alarm at the Fillmore in San Francisco. Around 91.