Can You Remember Your First Concert?

I can even remember the particular treat of being served home made Mulligatawny soup before we set out for Malvern in a tiny little Triumph Herald!

Memories!

ATB from George

Rush at the Deeside Leisure Centre in 1980 on the Permanent Waves tour.

The band were good but I can remember my feet getting colder and colder as we stood on the ice rink that had been covered in wooden boards for the event. Brrrrr!

I had tickets to watch them at Deeside on ghe Signals tour and it burned down! Ended up at the NEC instead which is a bit of a shame really although I didn't have to suffer from cold feet

1979.

It was an amazing triple header with

Spizz Energi, followed by

The Cure, followed by

Siouxsie and the Banshees, with Robert Smith of the Cure deputising on guitar.

I am lucky for this to have been my first gig!

Beach Boys, Southampton around 1970-71. I've seen a date of 23rd November 1970, but can't verify it.

Genesis, Southampton Gaumont, 1976. I think they were touring Trick of the Tail.

Chris

Were you beamed aboard the starship Enterprise?

Yes ! Where's Captain Kirk? hadn't been released at the time of this gig, but they sure played it!

I think it was the Beatles at the Princess Theatre Torquay in 1963. I was taken by my father. The first concert I went to with some mates was Jethro Tull at the Guild Hall Plymouth in 1969.

Roy Orbison at Sheffield City Hall  when I was about 12 taken by my mother & aunt. Next was a Motown review with my mates aged 15 featuring Little Steve Wonder not sure what ever became of him?  Still have the ticket stub for this one.

Graham.

[No idea whether to be proud or ashamed of this but here goes]

Frankie goes to Hollywood, G-MEX centre in Manchester, January 1987. The first date of their tour after the release of their second album. Berlin (as in 'Take My Breath Away' from Top Gun) were the support act.

Having just tried Googling it, I was delighted to find a transcribed original review:

http://www.zttaat.com/article.php?title=332

I remember Terri Nunn doing the walkabout in the crowd. It was only much later I realised how unusual this was.

Mark

Dave Clark Five, The Hollies and The Kinks at The Futurist, Scarborough 30th March 1964.

It was a birthday present, I went with my Dad.

The DC5 were the headliners, I can't seem to remember The Hollies but I remember The Kinks. I saw Ray Davies on tour in York a few years ago and he said something to the effect that he remembers the early tours with The Kinks and playing Scarborough!

The first gig with my mates was probably Free or Family at Bridlington Spa. Before that probably The Rats (later to become The Spiders From Mars) at Driffield youth club.

Richard

Pink Floyd, at the Empire Pool (now Wembley Arena), 17th March 1977, on the "In The Flesh ("Animals") tour. I was 14 at the time, my cousin - who was 10 years older than me, took me.

The first gig I went to "on my own" as it were, was Thin Lizzy, at the Rainbow, the following year.

I was at Empire Pool for Floyd's Animals gig too, though it wasn't my first. Belted up to Wembley with a mate in his MG midget. Got home very late. 

Rather ashamed to say I can't remember with confidence the first one. I think it was Deep Purple at the Guildhall Portsmouth but those were the days of seemingly frequent rock bands touring that venue e.g. Tull, Sabbath, ELP, Free, Genesis etc and I was going regularly. All rather a blur now. Must be my addled brain and those decibels (ears ringing for an hour or more after every concern).    

Oddly enough, my first classical concert also featured Harry Blech and the London Mozart Players. That was in 1968, at the Coggeshall parish church (Essex).

My first non-classical concert (1966? 1965?) was of the immortal Jacques Brel, rushing on to the stage like a madman, singing Amsterdam - I must have been 17 at the time and will never forget the sight of that man.

The Beach Boys, Seattle Center Coliseum (now Key Arena) circa 1976. The only thing I really recall was the seat full of vomit in front of us - before the show ever started. Long live rock and roll...

My sister took me to see The Hangmen, a Washington, D.C.-based garage rock band in 1963. I was 6 years old, and she was dating the lead singer. Somewhere there's an embarrasing picture of me in bell bottoms and a gold paisley shirt (think Austin Powers Jr.).

My first concert with friends was 10 years later -- September 30, 1973, at the Baltimore Civic Center.  We drove up to see a crazy young Englishman who was growing very popular in the US -- Elton John. He played a bunch of great new songs that none of us had heard before and then, a couple of weeks later, he released "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road".  

ATB.

Hook

The London Mozart Players were very good. 

There is wonderful story of Karajan being in Abbey Road Studios to review some edited tapes for LP issue in the early fifties, and he popped his head into Studio One to be greeted by some excellent Mozart from a rather small orchestra. He asked what orchestra this was to be told that it was the London Mozart Players. He responded that this was bizarre - "Soon we must have the Salzburg Shakespeare Players!"

I would love to have had the chance to hear Jacques Brel in a live situation! I did have the luck to attend a concert in the Shrewsbury Music-hall of Stefan Grapelli, though ... We sat in the place for the choir behind the players, and the whole band turned round for us at each applause! Amazingly graceful artists. 

ATB from George

George, I must be getting old, I can't remember the last one.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, their first UK date, Marquee Club, London,  nineteen sixty-something.

Difficult to forget, that one.

That's gotta be the best so far...