What concerts have you been to?

[harley]

You win. I've seen them all separately, but never together. Pretty sure my cousin was at that concert, though.

 

[SumDay]

Thanks for the memory jog. We went to a Little Feat concert about 4 years ago. Only concert we've ever left early. It was an outdoor venue, the pot smoke was so thick (there was a day that wouldn't have bothered us), people kept knocking over our lawn chairs (with us in them) and they just didn't sound good.


And how the heck did I forget to list Bruce Springstein? And Kenny Chesney? And Brad Paisley? I responded too quickly.

 

[Tailgate]

I've thought of a few more since my OP, but you get the point. Been to several rock, blues, and bluegrass fests, thought I don't recall much about the line-ups,, or, in some cases, the festival itself!

I don't do large venues much these days. Maybe if they had a Laz-Y-Boy section... Don't do much nostalgia, either. Many of the old classic rock acts should FIRE, though I suspect many have drank/snorted at too high a SWR, and are touring because of the money. A few acts always impress: Jeff Beck hasn't lost anything; in fact, I think he gets better. But many acts are no better than a tribute/garage band, with few "original" members, and often sloppy playing and squeaky vocals. Anyhow, unless Lennon and Harrison reincarnate, and The Beatles reunite, I'm mostly done with nostalgia.

Luckily, there are programs like "Austin City Limits", "Later with Jools Holland", "Live From Daryl's House", and "Texas Music Scene", among others, that offer exposure to unknown artists, from the comfort of my iCouch!


Sent from my iCouch using Early Retirement Forum

Lol


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[stepford]

I'm deeply envious of you folks who got to see the great acts of the '60s. I was just a hair too young for that, but saw a lot of shows in the 70's - 90's.

A few I remember well:

Queen in '74 in NYC (first time they played Bohemian Rhapsody in the USA)

Patti Smith in Central Park in '75 (when chanted avant garde poetry could still blow my teenaged mind)

ARMS benefit in '84 (Clapton, Beck and Page in the same show)

Red Hot Chili Peppers in '85 (when they played wearing only socks - 1 each)

Janes Addiction in '89 in Hollyweird

Nine Inch Nails in '93 on the opening night of the Downward Spiral tour.

Jesus and Mary Chain in '94 on the Stoned and Dethroned / Honey's Dead tour. Great show, but I probably still have tinnitus from that one.

PJ Harvey in '95 at the Mayan in LA - phenomenal performer

Also in '95 Kristen Hersh in a tiny club with an audience of maybe 100. 180 degrees different from PJ Harvey, but just as gripping a performer. The mid-90s were a great time for female rockers.

Dick Dale in '96 - who still rocked as hard as when he premiered Misirlou 35 years earlier.

and a whole bunch of Punk, New Wave and Grunge (and a dozen or so Dead shows) in the mix.

Like a lot of folks here though, I eventually got tired of the loud and the late and pretty much quit going to concerts by the time I turned 40.

 

[Nodak]

There are some pretty good concert lists here. This one would make a good wish list for me.

I was extremely lucky to be in Minneapolis from 1968 to 1975. There were a lot of great venues. The best was the Tyrone Guthrie Theater.

 

[imoldernu]

Not really concert oriented... Only two come to mind as being memorable, though I'm sure we've been to many over the years.

Most memorable... The first Newport Jazz Festival in 1954, when I had just graduated from High School, and it wasn't really like being there in the audience... With a couple of buddies, we drove from Pawtucket down to Newport, and managed to park the car just outside the fence with a peek view to the stage. The three of us sat on the roof of our '46 Nash, and watched and listened to almost all of the concert until the cops made us move along. Fond memories.

The other memorable concert was in 1972 when we lived in Saratoga NY, and went to see the Carpenters at the then fairly new SPAC Saratoga Performing Arts Center. We sat on the lawn on a blanket with our four kids, who were big fans. Tickets $1.75, kids free, and we brought our own picnic dinner.
Found this news article here:
Schenectady Gazette - Google News Archive Search

So, no big list, but some great memories.
..........................................................

edited to add another memory... at the end of the linked article was a note about Nancy Hanks, Lincoln's mother. My college best friend is married to Mary Hanks... a direct descendant.

 

[ERD50]

Not really concert oriented... Only two come to mind as being memorable, though I'm sure we've been to many over the years.

Most memorable... The first Newport Jazz Festival in 1954, when I had just graduated from High School, and it wasn't really like being there in the audience... ....

Newport 1954 had a great lineup - but I was just a baby-bump at the time:

Newport Jazz Festival | 1954 - 1963 Programs

Again, the list of others is stirring up more memories, I missed some big ones (and not so big ones) on my list:

Speaking of Newport, how could I have forgotten to list... Dave Brubeck (late 80's? Post Paul Desmond, he had his sons with, and he gave me and my wife an autograph at the bar and was very nice)!

Vasser Clements - awesome fiddle player, and I saw Doug Kershaw as well, about that time. Also Papa John Creech.

David Grisman (mandolin), and another mandolin master- Jethro Burns.

The Dillards.

Muddy Waters (how could I forget that, "I'm a M-A-N" just moved the place!) and about that time, Willie Dixon.

Leo Kottke, Tom Waits, Cephas and Wiggins, George Thorogood (just last year, I missed him by one day before he got famous, back in the 70's), Norman Blake. Folkie Bob Gibson, Kenny Rankin

Gary Burton (jazz vibraharp - had tickets to also see him with Chick Corea, but the show was cancelled ) Scarlett Rivera (violin, toured with Dylan).

I actually did see Blood Sweat and Tears at a local summer-fest type thing in the late 80's - it was kind of a small deal, so I figured it was the band in name only, but they had mostly original members (Lew Soloff and D-C-Thomas among them), and they were great. Steppenwolf was there too, but I had seen them in the 70's.

Memory is getting fuzzy at this point, did I see David Bromberg, or just planned/hoped to?

-ERD50

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon tour, March 1973, Madison, Wis.

 

[KB]

OK, please don't be mad at me, music is subjective and all, but we were invited to go with some friends to see TSO some years back. Itas... an 'experience'. We kept rolling our eyes and tried hard to keep from LOL with the other couple we went with, while the TSO fan couple that invited us were total engrossed in the spectacle.

-ERD50

I agree that TSO can be rather dramatic but we like the rock Christmas music. We go because my youngest son loves Al Pitellli (formerly in Megadeath) and Paul O'Neill and he met them both at a concert when he was in High school. He (my son) travels 11 months out of the year and I only see him for about two weeks around Thanksgiving each year, when TSO comes to town. So, it's a family get together thing...

 

[imoldernu]

Speaking of Newport, how could I have forgotten to list... Dave Brubeck (late 80's? Post Paul Desmond, he had his sons with, and he gave me and my wife an autograph at the bar and was very nice)!
-ERD50

Ah yes... Almost forgot... Brubeck Concert at my College circa 1956 @ Winter Houseparty I think... A first introduction to a different kind of jazz that lives on in my car CD player... "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo a la Turk"... (do CD's wear out?)

He came to our fraternity after the concert, and played w'Paul Desmond using the piano in our party room basement. Very memorable... freestyle fun...

from a Brubeck interview...

Can you describe the first time you came to Maine, and what it was like for you?

DB: Well, not counting Bowdoin College (I performed at a number of Maine colleges in the 1950s – I’ve even been up here when it was all snow and people had those little red flags on their fenders … you know, it was really a lot of snow, I remember) … not counting that, do you know Swan’s Island. One of my close friends lives there, Eric Kunzel, conductor of the Cincinnatti Symphony, and I used to go visit Eric on Swan’s. It was fun to go to Swan’s Island because the crab were so abundant that you could eat all you want and not feel like you were spending a lot of money. The people would give you crab and say, ”Here, take this.” Fishermen would come by once in a while. We like Monhegan Island, too. You know the Black Point Inn? We like to go there, too.

Thanks for bumping the memory!

 

[ERD50]

...

He came to our fraternity after the concert, and played w'Paul Desmond using the piano in our party room basement. Very memorable... freestyle fun...
...

Thanks for bumping the memory!

Wow, Brubeck & Desmond playing up close and personal, I am jealous! I feel fortunate to have just chatted with him after the show, and of course those autographs are extra special now that he has passed.

In the process of searching out a few of the performers that are listed, I came across this post from a Chicago area guy, listing the concerts he attended. There are more I've forgotten about (and a couple more that I honestly can't recall if I saw, or just planned to see....)

Artists and Bands Seen Live (A Work in Progress) - Rate Your Music


So here's an awesome violin icon of the jazz world, I feel terrible for forgetting this one - Stéphane Grappelli. Stéphane was incredible, but we also were just blown away by his guitar player at the time, so much that we remembered his name - Martin Taylor. It was the first time we heard anyone do blistering fast, powerful runs on acoustic guitar (like I'd hear John McLaughlin do some years later). Many years later, we saw Dave Grisman (I listed him earlier), and Martin Taylor was with him! We remembered the name, caught him at intermission, and mentioned we remembered him from the Stéphane Grapelli show many years prior, and we had a nice chat.

Here's a nice video of the two that I'm listening to as I type:

Some more memories that list tickled:

Harvey Mandel (first time I saw hammered-tapping guitar up close, I think he called it 'inside-out' guitar playing - ahhh, wiki says he was one of the first to use this technique!).

Bryan Bowers - master auto-harp player I mentioned in another thread.

Jim Post - a folkie that I saw often in the days of Steve Goodman, etc. He is actually a one-hit wonder "Reach Out in the Darkness" as 'Friend & Lover' with his ex-wife, I was in 8th grade then, but I'd see him performing in the clubs ~ 7 years later . He still performs, doing musical stories, and is a great talent. That 'hit' had a pretty funky bass line for the time (and now for that matter):

Saw the BoDeans recently when out of town guests visited, they were pretty good. Saw John Mayall in a small theater a few years back - it was cool to see him, but he really wasn't all that great - but worth the experience.

Ramsey Lewis (he was doing a lot of electronic keyboards at the time, late 70's?) and Duke Tumatoe and the All-Star Frogs (yes, that's the 'correct' spelling).

Another iconic addition: Odetta! And another, Yehudi Menuhin, playing a classical concert - I think I forgot that he also recorded with two I mentioned earlier, Grapelli, and Ravi Shankar - interesting circular references among all these names.

-ERD50

 

[ERTX]

Been to many concerts in my life. My first was Def Leppard/ZZ Top when I was 7. Best concerts I ever went to was The Clash and Depeche Mode. When I lived in Maine I saw; Ronnie James Dio, Natalie Merchant and Tracy Chapman at a small bar/club when they were trying out new material - just showed up and did 3 or 4 songs, those were also very good.

 

[ERD50]

I agree that TSO can be rather dramatic but we like the rock Christmas music. ...

OK, thanks for not being mad at me. It's all subjective, and that was just one that was so polarizing as to whether people like it or not, it's just kind of funny in a way, and I couldn't help reliving the experience and that hilarious (to me) review.

Enjoy the next TSO concert!

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

OK, found an example of Harvey Mandel (with Canned Heat) doing his two-handed tapping:

Start at 23:20 to set the tone for the tapping at 23:40 (the link should take you to 23:20, but doesn't always seem to work).


Imagine hearing that in the mid 70's. Mind blowing (unless maybe you had seen Hendrix).

-ERD50

 

[harley]

Many of the old classic rock acts should FIRE, though I suspect many have drank/snorted at too high a SWR, and are touring because of the money.

Another thing I've seen recently is pulling some oldie out of retirement, and a bunch of young guys touring as his band. I saw Peter Green a few years ago, and it was pathetic. I think it was called Peter Green and Friends. They basically stood him up leaning on an amp, and he played a few licks every so often, but was pretty much out of it. That was a major rip off.

There are a number of old masters that are phoning it in these days too. BB King and Dr. John are examples of artists that just show up with a good band and lend their name to the marquee. Great musicians, but way too old. I mean, Mac's 75, and BB is like 90! I haven't seen BB play with any passion since maybe in the '80s. I admire the fact that they're still out there, but I hope it's because the like the lifestyle, not because they need the money.

 

[steelyman]

This is not really a concert, but a recording session which is different but you're still watching people play.

It's mostly for HFWR, who's mentioned John Hartford a few times. During a session break, I was talking with him about what types of music we were currently listening to.

I found a little piece of personalized notepaper I took back with his personal header printed along the top. His name and a riverboat.

The handwriting on the paper was mine and there were two things written: a reminder to myself to send a tape I'd recorded as an audience member at a show, and then a band he thought I should check out as I might like them.

The band was "Flim and the BB's", who I'd never heard of. Hartford nailed it in the context of what I was listening to at the time.

 

[ERD50]

...

The band was "Flim and the BB's", who I'd never heard of. Hartford nailed it in the context of what I was listening to at the time.

Cool, I'm pretty sure I added John Hartford to my list along the way here. He was great, and I've seen some documentaries later, he really was super knowledgeable about American music. Must have been something to be able to chat with him.

A friend was a "Flim and the BB's" fan, I recall listening to the CDs a time or two. Bright, pop-jazz, IIRC, pretty cool, might seem dated now?

Doesn't seem like something right up Hartford's alley, but I'm sure he had a wide range of tastes, like many of us.

-ERD50