1st Concert - What's Yours?

What a great subject for my first post! I think it was 1962, Steel Pier in Atlantic City NJ, I was just a kid and along with my little sister went in to see Herman’s Hermits. An audience of well-behaved kids all sat in neat rows of chairs and sang along to the songs we knew so well. Well, as soon as old Herman was finished the chairs were removed and the complexion (literally) of the audience changed. The place was packed from wall to wall and out came Diana Ross and the Supremes! I was no more than 20 feet from the stage and was mesmerized, the sounds of the band, especially the horns was amazing. I’ll never forget that concert, Oh baby baby.

Great post! Welcome to QQ, grumpyoldquad.

At the risk of sounding contrary, that date seems premature. Could it have been '64 or '65?

grumpyoldquad said:

What a great subject for my first post! I think it was 1962, Steel Pier in Atlantic City NJ, I was just a kid and along with my little sister went in to see Herman’s Hermits. An audience of well-behaved kids all sat in neat rows of chairs and sang along to the songs we knew so well. Well, as soon as old Herman was finished the chairs were removed and the complexion (literally) of the audience changed. The place was packed from wall to wall and out came Diana Ross and the Supremes! I was no more than 20 feet from the stage and was mesmerized, the sounds of the band, especially the horns was amazing. I’ll never forget that concert, Oh baby baby.

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Maybe, I know I was young, like maybe 10 or 11. Where I grew up in eastern Pa. we saw a lot of up-start bands. I remember seeing Little Anthony performing on a flat be trailer in the parking lot of a shopping center. Them were the days.

Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra...1974

My first gig was Yes (classic line-up) playing on the revolving stage at Wembley Arena on the 28th Oct 1978. It absolutely blew me away!

I didn't know at the time (in fact not for many, many years after) that it was recorded by the BBC and has been "available", if you know where to look, as a very high quality sound-board bootleg. It's really nice and quite surreal to be able to go back and listen to this exactly as it was on that night 34 years ago.

Neil Palfreyman said:

My first gig was Yes (classic line-up) playing on the revolving stage at Wembley Arena on the 28th Oct 1978. It absolutely blew me away!

I didn't know at the time (in fact not for many, many years after) that it was recorded by the BBC and has been "available", if you know where to look, as a very high quality sound-board bootleg. It's really nice and quite surreal to be able to go back and listen to this exactly as it was on that night 34 years ago.

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Great 1st show- except you had nowhere to go but down from there.
Loved the in-the-round staging. Better vision, but also better sound: 360 degree coverage and emanating from the center out, which I believe helped tame the acoustics of those old indoor concrete monstrosities. And even though Tormato hasn't had legs for me, I quite liked it at release and there were some great live songs, including release release, which was so draining to play that it was never performed after that tour.

My 1st Yes show was the previous tour. Been to many since, but nothing like the 1st time...

As for having boots of shows I attended, had a few Dead shows and they were nice, but only had 1 Yes boot of a show I was at, one of the Symphonic shows, but the sq was too low for me to enjoy, so it brought back no magic. Same w/ a video boot I got of the OYE tour at Patriot Center Fairfax VA. I had front row seats for that and trying to spot my gal and me was the most entertaining part of the video. You're fortunate to have a good-sounding boot of that night.

ProgRules said:

Great 1st show- except you had nowhere to go but down from there.

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...how about; the year after that I saw Queen at The Bristol Hippodrome. It's a tiny, tiny venue and we were about 10 rows from the front

I thought Tormato was pretty good live, but they also played a *lot* of classics that night; Siberian Khatru, Heart of the Sunrise, Time and a Word, The Fish, Perpetual Change, Starship Trooper, Awaken (highspot of the gig) and, of course, roundabout. The opening was pretty spectacular too, after the firebird suite Rick did a version of the opening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind on keyboards with the stabs synchronised to the lighting - very spectacular!

I've seen them loads of times since too, with many different line-ups, including "The Yeggles" on the Drama tour and "Union" where they all climbed on stage - mental! None of them were as good as that night in '78 though!

You are probably aware but just in case - the symphonic DVD has an extremely good 5.1 soundtrack in DTS.

Are you saying the Queen show topped your 1st show? Sacrilege! Somebody order the Spanish Inquisition!

Yes, they played a lot of good stuff on that tour, but I focused on Tormato b/c while all the shows from that heady period had pretty outstanding setlists (not any bad music to choose from!), what separated them was the album of the tour- because in those days they still fully supported the new album. Agree about Awaken being the highlight; it always seemed to work esp. well for in-the-round- it was the highlight of the Union tour as well, which they did i-t-r 1st leg.

I thoroughly enjoy the DTS track of Symphonic; I was referring to a boot I have from that tour from Wolftrap, a show I attended.

The Groundhogs, St. Albans City Hall, 28th June 1974, just after my O-Levels finished!

The first quadraphonic gig was Pink Floyd, Knebworth Festival, 5th July 1975, £2.75!!!

One I missed was, Led Zeppelin @ Knebworth, 1979, I'd just finished University and was broke, I'd never seen led Zep and thought well I'll see them next year.............

Led Zeppelin! Day On The Green, Oakland CA. July 23/24, 1977

http://youtu.be/XhAgwNpJgzk

Boston, Doobie Brothers and Poco at Miami stadium in 1978. Poco showed up late, was booed and said "fuck you Miami we are never coming back". And they never did.

Beach Boys and Grass Roots and some other group I seem to remember as Sweetwater, but I could be remembering that wrong.

Hey All,

Great thread! I have visual aids for this one:

My first show was Boston and Rick Derringer, with the former being the headliner. Hartford Civic Center, 5/3/77. Met my first ever girlfriend at that show. The concert was memorable, and part of the Derringer set actually made it onto an official LP release called Derringer Live. The specific song was his big hit Rock And Roll Hoochie Coo, and I still remember the one note he hit and held - ear piercing!

My second show was Dave Mason, Heart & the Sanford-Townsend Band in Springfield. I was front row center for the latter two acts. Heart were at their peak (my opinion), and the show was fantastic!

For those who are interested in finding specific dates for performances, here are links to two resource pages:
http://home.comcast.net/~mrrandom/tour.html
http://www.lookatstubs.com/helpdatingconcerttickets_links.php

Enjoy!

Ken

The Yardbirds (Jeff Beck version) at the Wellington Pier, Great Yarmouth. Must have been in '65 - where have the decades gone?

Genesis - Invisible Touch Tour 1986 in cologne.
Oh....I'm a young one .

IMachine said:

Genesis - Invisible Touch Tour 1986 in cologne.
Oh....I'm a young one .

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Phil Collins - Both Sides tour , Wembley Arena, 7th December 1994.

Maybe I'm even younger than you!

UFO - Brighton Dome 29th January 1979. Strangers In The Night tour. Sadly Michael Schenker had just left, but great gig none the less.

So I'm younger than most on here (no offence, just guessing!), but older than some! I'm soooooooo jealous of all the people on here saying that their first gigs were Yes - 1977/1978 @:

colsky said:

UFO - Brighton Dome 29th January 1979. Strangers In The Night tour. Sadly Michael Schenker had just left, but great gig none the less.

So I'm younger than most on here (no offence, just guessing!), but older than some! I'm soooooooo jealous of all the people on here saying that their first gigs were Yes - 1977/1978 @:

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Oh yeah mate...and Genesis with PG.
But we have so much time left, that we can hear all Yes albums in 5.1

IMachine said:

Oh yeah mate...and Genesis with PG.
But we have so much time left, that we can hear all Yes albums in 5.1

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Hopefully yes .

I was lucky enough to see Genesis with PG - reunion gig at Milton Keynes Bowl 2nd October 1982 - amazing and very wet experience, it rained a lot! I heard recently that Phil Collins was considering coming out of retirement. If this is true then hopefully it means to do proper Genesis concerts!

colsky said:

Hopefully yes .

I was lucky enough to see Genesis with PG - reunion gig at Milton Keynes Bowl 2nd October 1982 - amazing and very wet experience, it rained a lot! I heard recently that Phil Collins was considering coming out of retirement. If this is true then hopefully it means to do proper Genesis concerts!

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I'm soooooooo jealous