First real concert?

Wishbone Ash, Apollo Theatre, Glasgow, in 1973 when i was 15.

Mine was Gary Wright (you know, "Dreamweaver"). I had no clue who he was, but I wanted to go to a rock concert. I was maybe twelve or thirteen, and I had fun.

The next was a little more memorable: Aerosmith, and an opening act nobody had heard of at the time. The lead singer split his pants partway through and had to leave the stage; the guitarist, some guy in a cap and shorts, covered with a long solo. The singer came back out with the split held together by a prominent figleaf of gaffer tape.

A few months later, when the band's next album came out, we all thought, "Oh, THAT'S who they are". The album was Highway to Hell.

Bruce Springsteen, Los Angeles Coliseum, Born in the USA tour.

The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley.

George Michael (believe it or not) -- blew the roof off.

Not sure what "real" means in this context... Probably the first live performance I saw was a few different bands playing at my university, in 2002: Machine Gun Fellatio were the headliners (yes, that's really their name), and there was also a band called Ungkas. I remember Ungkas because they had 3 people playing drums on stage for one song, and this was right around the time I started wanting to play drums. I bought their EP, and there was nothing of the sort on it.

It's also possible that the first live performance I saw was in a goth club (Sanctuary), where I saw local doom metal band Chalice play.

I suspect that these being rather small-scale events means they don't qualify as "real" concerts, in a sense. In which case I went to The Big Day Out (forget which year), and saw, amongst some rather hum-drum (to me) bands, first Slipknot, and then Metallica. That was definitely big enough to be a real concert!

The first big one I remember was Queen at Earls Court in 1977. Otherwise lots of new wave bands in London, mostly at the Music Machine in Camden. Don't ask me who and when. It was the 70s.

The first big one for me would have been Journey at the Long Beach arena sometime around 79 or so. I think I saw Queen that summer too.

The Moody Blues 1978 Rupp Arena Lexington, KY.

Charlie Daniels Band, 1980.

Elton John. Don't ask me which tour or which year, would have been in the early to mid-90s. I was still in the single digits.

"Real"? Pioneer Club Christmas pageant, I'm guessing.

MacEwan College Jazz Orchestra? I was 15 years old.

LTJ Bukem & MC Conrad for the first paid concert in a non-educational concert format. Would have been 19 or 20 at the time. Went to a lot non-concert format music events (i.e. raves) before that. That would have been around 2005, I believe.

Neil Diamond in Seattle, sometime around 1979.

Styx, Riverfront Coliseum, Cincinnati, 1983. The Kilroy tour. That was the last tour with that lineup (DeYoung, Shaw, Panozzo, Panozzo, and Young).

It was either Billy Idol or Kenny Loggins. I can't remember which. 1983.

Caught Rufus featuring Chaka Khan as the headliner and the opening bands were the otherwise obscure Mandrill and Funkadelic, and this is before P-Funk became a thang.

Funkadelic tore the roof off the sucka. Not hard to do when you got George Clinton and about ten other futhamuckas rompin' n' stompin' on stage including a brother playing guitar wearing nothing but a diaper. Hellified show.

By the time a very high and very lethargic Chaka Khan came on most folks were ready to go. Funkadelic had worn us the funk out.

Bob Seger, 1975 or 1976.

My uncle took me to see Tony Bennett when I was eight or nine years old. I've seen him a few times since. Glad he's still around.

rfitzwilly63 said:

Man! I love your witting. You need to be a music critic.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I am.

The Cream 1968

The original Alice Cooper band, Eric Burdon and War, Ike and Tina Turner and Wolfgang.
I came for Alice Cooper. It was right after their Easy Action (2nd album) came out. Swing Auditorium, San Berdoo, 1970.