Roy Orbison was my favourite. I’ve seen him about 4 times. Gene Pitney was another.
I’ve been to numerous silver sixties shows and seen acts such as the Searchers, Hermans Hermits, PJ Proby and many more but alas not the Beatles.
I saw Status Quo at the Motorpoint arena Nottingham the year before Rick Parfit died.
In December I’m going to the Genting arena Birmingham to see Frankie Valli in concert. I’ve been a lifelong fan of The Four Seasons but never seen him live. Really looking forward to that.
Oh Blue, my sweet friend…now you’ve gone and done it, I’ve been going to concerts since I was about 14 years old. My early ones were mostly at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto…where the rock’n’roll superstars of the day would come together for an evening of fun. I was fortunate as my parents were anything but prudes when it came to the new music…
Two days before my 16th birthday in 1957…my friend Diane and I went to see Elvis at MLG’s. We had 2nd row Blues…at the side of the stage…with no one in front of us but a few police officers…making sure no one got out of control. He was amazing, to be sure…and I recall not being able to talk for a few days…
I worked at Quality Records part-time whilst in high school…and was offered a job in downtown Toronto, right out of school…which I jumped at. Met so many recording stars whilst there…including Mr. Conway Twitty…I should have had to pay them rather than vise versa. He recorded “It’s Only Make Believe” in 1958 on The MGM label…during my time working there…
When Blue and I went to see Neil Diamond…we were only about a half hour into the concert before she got so sick…and went to the washroom. After which she spent the rest of the concert in the infirmary. Blue had told me to stay where I was and watch the concert…and that she’d find me later… At the end of the concert a lovely lady came and asked if I was Beautiful Filly…and said “I am here to take you to Blue”…and off we went.
Then from the infirmary we were transferred by ambulance to one of the Toronto hospitals…where we stayed until about 5 AM…at which time we took a taxi back to our hotel…
OK, I think that’s enough for now…don’t want to talk your ears off, I don’t. Oops, too late.
Thanks blue…this little romp down memory lane has been so fun… …I’ll add some more stuff later.
These sort of concerts are more my thing
I wouldn’t know where to begin with a list but I’ll get one together tomorrow afternoon (Tues) when I’m not at work.
Just for now though I believe my first major concert was the band Asia at Wembley Arena, 28th October 1982 when I was 16.
Great memories, not a bad performance in the bunch:
Julie Andrews
Burt Bacharach
Crosby Stils and Nash Eagles
Chicago
Queen
Boston
Bread
Tears for Fears
Hall and Oates
Bee Gees
Styx
Simon and Garfunkel
Bob Dylan
Donny Osmond
Carpenters
Neil Diamond
America
Jimmy Buffet
Peter Gabriel
Sarah Brightman
Andrea Bochelli
Pavorotti
Fleetwood Mac
Moody Blues
Queen
Rush
Three Dog Night
Andy Williams
Glenn Cambell
Earth Wind and Fire
Commodores
Peter Gabriel
Little River Band
Supertramp
Santana
Michael Jackson
Dionne Warwick
Aretha Franklin
Sting
Elton John
Billy Joel
Beach Boys
Peter Paul and Mary
Louis Armstrong
(Excluding classical and jazz)
Wasn’t it always so? I used to go to a lot of those One Night Stands at the local Odeon and the first band with a PA that could actually drown out the screams was the Dave Clark Five - they didn’t lend it to the previous acts who could have been miming to O Sole Mio for all I know (BTW that show was opened by The Kinks)
Yes I remember discussing some of the groups and have seen some of your music list . Good stuff. You obviously have great taste :-p
That’s quite the list Surfer mom.
It’s a great list. I’ve been to a few classical concerts also but couldn’t tell you who they were off hand and a bit of Jazz.
I’ve been to see these from your list also.
Boston
Tears for fears
Hall & Oates
Styx
Carpenters
Moody Blues
Little River Band
Max Webster
I think I saw Billy Joel too but can’t temember.
I would have liked to have seen the Beatles and led zeppelin. :-p
That’s quite some list Surfermom. I used to go to a lot of concerts in my youth.
Duran Duran
Wham!
Meatloaf
Rush
Aerosmith
Bryan Adams
Poison
ZZ Top
David Lee Roth
Stranglers
Alice Cooper
Santana
More recently we went to a Festival called Latitude about 9 years ago and saw Hall & Oates, Paul Weller, Elbow, Ben Howard. Around that time we also went to an 80s revival with bands such as ABC, Nick Heyward, T’pau, Heaven 17 among others. We were in the second row so was really strange seeing these icons of our youth up close.
I’ve been to lots of big concerts…to be honest though I prefer small venues, I saw 10cc in Halifax the other night they were good and I could see them close up…at big venues I end up watching the big screens because the artist is so far away I end up wondering why I bothered I could watch a live performance at home on TV
The Eagles are at Leeds Arena soon my pal enquired about tickets…£184 For a restricted view seat…I love the Eagles but not that much
Been treated to last night of the proms a couple of times, proms in the park too, also been to festivals where you see a lot of different musicians. I’ve also been to several Cliff Richard events, I won’t call them concerts as they are much more than that.
Those ’ 60’s “dance-hall” concerts were strange locations - in 1967, my local Locarno had a double-bill (two separate concerts on the same night) - The Kinks from 8 to 10 pm and Pink Floyd from 11 pm to 1 am (both with supporting acts that I can’t recall ) … but they weren’t “big”, probably a couple of thousand fans at each …
Santana - Edinburgh
Eric Clapton
Earth Wind & Fire
Joan Armatrading
Baker Gervitz
Rolling Stones - Glasgow
The Who
Alex Harvey
The Faces - Reading
Frank Zappa - London
Dr Feelgood
The Tubes
Rush
Rory Gallagher
Led Zeppelin
Queen
Peter Frampton
Robin Trower
Deep Purple
Ian Dury
Steve Winwood
Carol Grimes
Rainbow
Neil Young
Elvis Costello
Morrissey
Led Zeppelin - Knebworth
It’s all a bit vague, but I’ve definitely seen the above, and quite a few more. And some of the above I saw more than once.
There used to be a club in London called The Maquee that I used to go to regularly. I am pretty sure it was in Oxford St They had bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Jimi Hendrix, in fact name an act during the 60s and they played there. The Rainbow Theatre was also a great place for gigs as was the Albert Hall, I saw Captain Beefheart there
I saw the Stones the first time at the Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone just as their first single hit the charts (Come On I think?)
Wow, that brings back memories of my Mum and Dad, one of their favourites…
Jealous
The only live concert I went to was in the 90s, it was The Lighthouse Family.
Whilst they were excellent I was more impressed by the support act, Connor Reeves. His CD was on sale afterwards, we bought a copy.This is my favourite track from it.
More recently Lionel Richie was supposed to be performing locally, I was all excited to go and watch him but it got cancelled at the last minute
The Marquee Club was a music venue first located at 165 Oxford Street, London, England when it opened in 1958 with a range of jazz and skiffle acts. Its most famous period was from 1964 to 1988 at 90 Wardour Street in Soho, and it finally closed when at 105 Charing Cross Road in 1996. It was always a small and relatively cheap club, located in the heart of the music industry in London’s West End, and used to launch the careers of generations of rock acts.
It was a key venue for early performances by bands who were to achieve worldwide fame in the 1960s and remained a venue for young bands in the following decades. It was the location of the first-ever live performance by The Rolling Stones on 12 July 1962.
Band residencies during the late 1960s included Alexis Korner, Cyril Davies, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, The Who, King Crimson, Yes, Jethro Tull, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Pink Floyd (who played on Sunday afternoons as part of the Spontaneous Underground club). Another band that made regular appearances was The Manish Boys featuring David Bowie, who first played there in November 1964; and Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac gave their first performance there in 1967.To find out who was playing on any given night, you could just call in at the ‘Ship’ pub a few doors away.
Sadly, I never made it there …
I did make the Royal Albert Hall several times, though, one of my favourites being the Joni Mitchell and James Taylor concert in 1970 …
The majority of London gigs I went to in the 70s were at the Hammersmith Odeon. I saw 2 or 3 bands at the Marquee back in those days … absolutely brilliant, but I cannot remember their names. I thought one was an American act called The Tramps, but just google them and it doesn’t look like what I saw.
In the 90s I lived walking distance from the Half Moon Putney, I saw Wilko Johnson there more that a dozen times … I preferred a good pub gig to anything bigger.
Tramp were a British blues band, active during the late 1960s and early 1970s on an intermittent basis. This on/off activity and the loose, transient nature of the band’s line-up were reflected in the group’s name.
The line-up centered around the brother-sister pairing of Dave Kelly and Jo-Ann Kelly, and included various members of Fleetwood Mac, plus various session musicians.
What a lot of fabulous concerts you all have been to. I will have to read though this thread again…it is so exciting… (what great memories we have eh?)
He recorded “It’s Only Make Believe” in 1958 on The MGM label…during my time working there…
…I’ll add some more stuff later.
