Your first *real* concert? - Follow-Up

[FSUTribe76]

Really? Lack of opportunity? Lack of interest?

You may have missed your window. Concerts used to be pretty affordable, but now they're all pretty expensive and they sell out in a couple of minutes because scalpers buy them all up, so you have to pay even more to buy them on the secondary market - at least that's my generalization of most concerts nowadays.

I definitely agree with you on the standalone concerts. Outside of music festivals, free entertainers on cruises or in restaurants and bars, the BBC, and the "free" concerts I go to as a Universal Preferred Passholder (and I've seen some really good ones the past couple of years in Barenaked Ladies (some of the best entertainers live), All-American Rejects, Foreigner, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Steve Miller, Pat Benatar, and I'll be going to Pitbull, Goo Goo Dolls and maybe Huey Lewis soon), I never go to standalone concerts.

I was really tempted to see Weird Al in Mobile soon but all of the tickets sold out quick thanks to scalpers. Now I would have to pay $80-100 to stand in general admission.

 

[dmm5157]

First real concert that I went to alone was Family Values '99 with Staind, Limp Bizkit, Primus, Korn, Filter, DMX, etc. I was 16 at the time.

 

[Bobcat07]

My first one was Pantera at Concrete Street Amphitheater in Corpus Christi, TX during Spring Break 2001. I was 16.

 

[dmm5157]

My first one was Pantera at Concrete Street Amphitheater in Corpus Christi, TX during Spring Break 2001. I was 16.

That would have been a good concert to go to.

I missed Pantera so many times growing up in San Antonio, even Damage Plan used to play here in Tallahassee and I didn't see the urgency to go see them. My loss.

 

[NolegirlY2K]

Really? Lack of opportunity? Lack of interest?

You may have missed your window. Concerts used to be pretty affordable, but now they're all pretty expensive and they sell out in a couple of minutes because scalpers buy them all up, so you have to pay even more to buy them on the secondary market - at least that's my generalization of most concerts nowadays.

Really....probably more lack of interest, but also a lack of opportunity. Grew up in the Keys so I would have had to travel to Miami, then moved to Tallahassee and it's mostly country music which I do not like at all.

 

[Chattanooga Nole]

Foo Fighters with the Red Hot Chili Peppers @ the UTC arena. It was fantastic.

 

[cmanole]

Easy to get good drugs at those ages. I'll bet they had a blast.

Like a cheap burbon...

 

[skramer100]

Went to Steve Miller Band every year of high school because at the time is was easy for underage kids to drink in the parking lot at Red Rocks.

Ahh, the high school Steve Miller shows. Went to 2 at the Garden State Auditorium. So much booze everywhere.
My first was Aerosmith on the Get a Grip Tour. Went to a lot after that. VIP seats to Billy Joel, Lollapoolza with Tribe, Beastie Boys, and Pumpkins, Horde, Phish a few times, Pink Floyd in their last North American show, Rolling Stones with Blind Melon, ect...Used to love concerts, just don't care that much anymore.

 

[ZZ828]

Metallica 1989 And Justice For All tour.

 

[DFSNOLE]

A little off topic but is anyone else annoyed with folks who complain after going to a show that the band didn't sound exactly like they did on their album? That is the biggest sign of a bad concert if so in my opinion. I like the rawness of a live show. If I wanted to listen to the album, I would.

 

[MIKE_G]

Rolling Stones '89 in the Orange Bowl. I was 17 and my older sister took me. Had floor seats and probably suffered permanent hearing loss. My ears rang for three days afterward. Great show.

 

[RunRonnieRun]

Interesting thoughts on ticket accessibility. I see a lot of live music -- probably 20+ shows a year -- and while most of them are at smaller venues, I've never had trouble buying tickets during general onsale or presale dates. That includes some of the big ones I've been to recently like Billy Joel.

One exception is the Fare Thee Well Grateful Dead shows in Chicago. That was a ticketing nightmare and I paid an astronomical amount of money on the secondary market.

 

[poewilly]

Rush ... grace under pressure tour... Lakeland civc center... I was 13... friend and I was chaperoned by my dad... we all got a pretty sweet contact high... first of literally hundreds of shows...

 

[FSUdawg]

A little off topic but is anyone else annoyed with folks who complain after going to a show that the band didn't sound exactly like they did on their album? That is the biggest sign of a bad concert if so in my opinion. I like the rawness of a live show. If I wanted to listen to the album, I would.

I agree. The concert shouldn't sound exactly like the album, unless it was a live album. Personally I prefer to hear the live songs rather than the cleaned up albums.

 

[Huck Said]

My first "real concert" was the first one at the then-new Tallahassee-Leon County Civic Center, back in 1980 or '81: Foreigner with Billy Squire opening.

 

[seminole1992]

1983 - at the Citrus Bowl when it was known as the Tangerine Bowl. It was part of the "Rock Superbowl" series. Saw the Animals, The Fixx, and the Police. It was fantastic.

This was probably mine as well at the Orange Bowl

 

[NoleNewsIsGoodNews]

Van Halen July of 1982 in Biloxi Mississippi on The Diver Down Tour...ticket was 7.50 with a 25 cent convenience fee!!...incredible show with the requisite atrocious opening act that only got through a song and a half before the crowd chased them off the stage by pelting them with everything in the arena that was not nailed down...as I went to more Van Halen Shows in the coming years I learned this was standard practice at all VH Gigs in The DLR Years

 

[Nole-4-Life]

Doobie Brothers and opening act Bob Seger. Lakeland Civic Center 1976.

Doobies were touring in support of Taking It To The Streets. As far as I'm aware, it's the only tour they did with both Tom Johnston and Michael McDonald.

Bob Seger almost stole the show.

 

[Nole-4-Life]

Van Halen July of 1982 in Biloxi Mississippi on The Diver Down Tour...ticket was 7.50 with a 25 cent convenience fee!!...incredible show with the requisite atrocious opening act that only got through a song and a half before the crowd chased them off the stage by pelting them with everything in the arena that was not nailed down...as I went to more Van Halen Shows in the coming years I learned this was standard practice at all VH Gigs in The DLR Years

I was at the same show. I remember DLR saying something like "Tomorrow in the paper, they won't write about how F'd up Van Halen was...they'll write about how F'ed up the Van Halen audience was." Great show.

 

[NoleNewsIsGoodNews]

I was at the same show. I remember DLR saying something like "Tomorrow in the paper, they won't write about how F'd up Van Halen was...they'll write about how F'ed up the Van Halen audience was." Great show.

Wow..small world...that's back when rock shows and stars really were nuts....it was just a constant cycle of album..tour..album..tour..etc....they played any arena in any size town back then...saw them on the same tour in Mobile 5 months later right after Thanksgiving and I remember DLR lighting up on stage a Joint the size of a baseball bat that someone from the crowd threw to him

 

[Nole-4-Life]

Wow..small world...that's back when rock shows and stars really were nuts....it was just a constant cycle of album..tour..album..tour..etc....they played any arena in any size town back then...saw them on the same tour in Mobile 5 months later right after Thanksgiving and I remember DLR lighting up on stage a Joint the size of a baseball bat that someone from the crowd threw to him

I lived in Biloxi/Gulfport from 1979 to 1983. Saw LOTS of great shows at the Coliseum over that time. VH, Journey, Heart, ZZ Top, REO Speedwagon, Doobies, more I can't recall...all for less than $10 bucks a ticket. I particularly remember Journey in like 1980 when Greg Rollie was still with them for $6.50.

There was weed being smoked all over that place in those days. They didn't even try to stop it.

 

[NoleNewsIsGoodNews]

I lived in Biloxi/Gulfport from 1979 to 1983. Saw LOTS of great shows at the Coliseum over that time. VH, Journey, Heart, ZZ Top, REO Speedwagon, Doobies, more I can't recall...all for less than $10 bucks a ticket. I particularly remember Journey in like 1980 when Greg Rollie was still with them for $6.50.

There was weed being smoked all over that place in those days. They didn't even try to stop it.

Biloxi did get great shows back in those days....still regret not getting to go to The Who Show there in Dec 1982...had tickets for it but got grounded the week before for getting smashed at a party and not coming home till the following day

 

[nolejam99]

R.E.M at the old Omni in Atlanta. I was 12 and went with my "cool" aunt.

 

[dero316]

I think it was Tim McGraw & Faith Hill @ Tom Brown Park for 4th of July but not sure of the year.

Either that or:
Summer Sanitarium tour 2000 @ the Georgia Dome
Metallica - Korn - KidRock - Powerman5000 - SystemOfADown

 

[flaff26]

I mean real as in a show that you went out of your way to go to - not "I was at a car show with my parents when I was a kid and Steppenwolf happened to be there performing".

Mine was George Strait on New Years Eve in Dallas. I was 14yo when I went. My grandmother got tickets for me, my sister, and two cousins. She dropped us off and left us there unattended. It was an awesome time and we had a lot of fun.

The reason that I'm asking is that I'm about to get tickets to take NDallasDaughter to her first concert, and I'm excited to be able to do this with her, and also reminiscing back to when I was younger.

FWIW, I'm going to take her to a Dead Milkmen concert in July. She listed to some of my old CDs and really got into them. They're playing at an "all ages" club in DC, so I'm going to take her to the show. I think she'll have a blast.

Junior in high school 1972..Three Dog Night with T Rex as opening act..actually got to see Marc Bolan before he died..also my ticket numbers were 0001 and 0002..got them as soon as it was announced on AM radio..geez,what an old fart I truly am....seen a lot of GREAT concerts,tho..

 

[Manch.]

Van Halen July of 1982 in Biloxi Mississippi on The Diver Down Tour...the requisite atrocious opening act that only got through a song and a half before the crowd chased them off the stage by pelting them with everything in the arena that was not nailed down...as I went to more Van Halen Shows in the coming years I learned this was standard practice at all VH Gigs in The DLR Years

From what I can find, a band named After the Fire opened for VH on that part of the tour, and to this day, I had never heard of them.

 

[NoleNewsIsGoodNews]

From what I can find, a band named After the Fire opened for VH on that part of the tour, and to this day, I had never heard of them.

That's exactly who it was...the only thing I remember about them was their one "hit" was an English Version of the awful Falco Song Der Kommissar...well one can only imagine how that style of music went over with a crowd of drunk/high teens and twenty somethings that were there to rock out with VH at their pinnacle

 

[Manch.]

That's exactly who it was...the only thing I remember about them was their one "hit" was an English Version of the awful Falco Song Der Kommissar...well one can only imagine how that style of music went over with a crowd of drunk/high teens and twenty somethings that were there to rock out with VH at their pinnacle

Ya, we were known to sit in the car and drink until about 9:00 and skip the shitty opening act. To this day, only once do I regret skipping the opening band, and that was late 1991 or early 1992 when we stayed in the car and drank Southern Comfort while some basically unknown, bluesy, Seattle band called Alice in Chains opened for Van Halen on VH's F*U*C*K tour. I think Man in the Box was getting some rotation play at the time but the song did nothing for me at the time.

 

[SoProudNole]

My mom took me to see Johnny Cash in 1977-1978. That was pretty cool, even for me then.

The first one without chaperones was Duran Duran in Washington D.C. at the old Capital Center in 1983.

 

[MIKE_G]

Ya, we were known to sit in the car and drink until about 9:00 and skip the shitty opening act. To this day, only once do I regret skipping the opening band, and that was late 1991 or early 1992 when we stayed in the car and drank Southern Comfort while some basically unknown, bluesy, Seattle band called Alice in Chains opened for Van Halen on VH's F*U*C*K tour. I think Man in the Box was getting some rotation play at the time but the song did nothing for me at the time.

Alice in Chains got booed off the stage by VH fans too. At least in Tally. I was at that show and I remember Lane Staley throwing the mic down, telling the audience to eff off, and walking off the stage. And I loved After the Fire's version of Der Kommissar. It was an MTV staple in '82. Cool video with a tarantula too. But what a horrible pairing for Van Halen.

 

[cmanole]

A little off topic but is anyone else annoyed with folks who complain after going to a show that the band didn't sound exactly like they did on their album? That is the biggest sign of a bad concert if so in my opinion. I like the rawness of a live show. If I wanted to listen to the album, I would.

I agree and disagree with this. Used to be the equipment they played with live was no where as good as the studio equipment was so that was the reason for the different sound. Now a days the equipment is so good and with overdubbing they can sound exactly like the studio versions if they want to. Tom Petty comes to mind.

Now in the case of bands with a lot of guitar they might go off on tangents (think Jimmy Page live) but then they get back to it and finish the song sounding like it ought to sound - and that's great. It's the ones where they sing way off key or play fast songs acoustically that I don't like. Personally I want to hear the songs played the way I'm used to hearing them played.

I saw Clapton one time and his whole show was like a drunking 16 year old trying to play and sing Clapton's songs. It was turrible...

 

[nole831]

First concert was Dio headlining with Megadeath and Savatage in Tampa around 85 or 86. Great show

 

[SoddyNole]

Not a lot of concerts booked in our area back then but my first concert was probably Billy Squire or Steve Miller band in the early 80's. The first memorable concert we drove to see REM in 85 at the Fox in Atlanta. I thought they put on one hell of a show.

 

[montconole]

Parliament, Lakeside, Gap Band and Shalimar at Sunrise Musical Theater.

 

[BelemNole]

I remember Poison getting chased off stage in San Antonio. Can't remember who they were opening for but hit was a heavier act. They were pissed that no one was standing up for their act and let the crowd know they didn't appreciate it. Bad idea. The next song was "Talk Dirty to Me"....and we did. They left after two songs.

 

[FSUATT]

In 1974, when I was a senior in high school, my girlfriend and I went to see Seals & Croft at Doak Campbell. I was fairly sheltered back then, so it was a real eye opening experience.

 

[NY_22_Nole]

Aerosmith - Nassau Coliseum 1979. Both Joe Perry and Brad Whitford had left the band. Tyler lasted about 6 songs before he literally passed out on stage.

My first complete show was Genesis Nassau 1981 - that show turned into the three sides live album which followed the tour.

 

[seminoleed]

Chicago Transit Authority, Curtis Hixon in Tampa, either '70 or '71. They had just shortened their name to Chicago for the second album.
3.5 hour show, 2 sets. Also my first high.
I've been hooked on live rock shows ever since.

 

[Nole-4-Life]

Alice in Chains got booed off the stage by VH fans too. At least in Tally. I was at that show and I remember Lane Staley throwing the mic down, telling the audience to eff off, and walking off the stage. And I loved After the Fire's version of Der Kommissar. It was an MTV staple in '82. Cool video with a tarantula too. But what a horrible pairing for Van Halen.

Yeah, I have no memory of the opening act at the 82 Biloxi show, but I was also at this Tally show and AIC did get booed off the stage by the 1/4 full arena. Layne was definitely pissed. Soon as they left, the place filled to capacity.

 

[FSU_Nole_Girl]

Kenny Chesney in 2003. I was a Junior in HS and had floor seats. Montgomery Gentry opened and I have been a concert junkie ever since. Will be going to Tampa in June to see Garth Brooks for the 4th time.