My first 135 bands, experienced from April 1969 to January 1974

I'll be darned. I was at that show. I forgot they were on the bill. The only song I remember Taj playing was Nobody's Business. Mahavishnu was amazing.

 

Small world, eh?

 

Cheers! It was a lot of fun putting all that together! Digging through the archives

 

Man I have no recollection of Crystal Mansion playing that night. My Brother drove me and a friend to the show. He was friends with Jerry and Ronnie from the band. I think my Brother actually even got backstage and met John McLaughlin before he went on stage.

 

Yes.

 

Was I the only person who read the thread title and momentarily thought, "Gee, I didn't know Bebe Buell was a forum member"? Yeah, probably just me. Nevermind.

 

He'll be here all week, folks!

 

Look how yellowed that piece of loose-leaf is.

 

Don't forget to tip your server. Definitely my least proud Hoff moment, and that's really saying something. Mea culpa, Bebe.

 

Don't know why, when I got to 108, I didn't splurge on a whole new piece of paper

 

Wow, very cool. Thanks. So out of all those shows, what was your favourite?

And how's your hearing?

 

I am from Texas and was working in Doylestown, Pa. in 72-73 and went to The Spectrum on a cold winter night and saw The Mahavishnu Orchestra open for T-Rex, and apparently you were there also! I remember Jon Mark telling the unruly crowd, who only wanted to see T-Rex, that they had just seen the best band they would ever see(MO), and they were too f***ing stupid to realize it. About two weeks prior to that we drove up to Bethlehem and saw Mahavishnu at Lehigh University, one of the greatest concerts I have ever seen. Local band opened and then Mahavishnu for almost two hours. Just before Birds of Fire came out, so they were playing songs from it, which were totally new to us. I'm jealous of your list, I wish it was mine!

 

I probably saw 50% of those same bands myself. It's a great list.

 

Inarresting. I'll have to check my photos, try to find out where that gig was at. I want to say the Ripley but I can't recall for sure.

 

I was just commenting on the age of the entries..

 

Since we're reminiscing about Philly shows - and snow has also crept into the thread as well - was ANYBODY at the gig that Mountain played at the Ripley in a snowstorm? Think it was in 1981? One of my craziest concert experiences but my memory is understandably hazy. Would be cool if anyone else was there and could fill in some details....I kind of recall that...

...there was a local opening act (who?), and they had their gear left setup on stage for Mountain to use. One of the bandmembers had their younger sister there and she sat at our table and we were talking for awhile. She must have been way underage, like 14-15?

...Leslie West & the bass player arrived despite the snowstorm but were late

...Corky Laing had not shown up though (because of the weather) and they couldn't wait any longer so they went on without him - I think Corky was coming in a van with their gear (?)

...Leslie & his bassist started the show using the opening band's amplifiers/equipment, and the opening band's drummer sat in on drums (playing his own kit!)

...Leslie told the crowd (there probably were not many of us there btw) that Corky was late because "he was jerking off on the New Jersey turnpike"!! This was way before cellphones btw so they had no idea where he was by that point.

...They opened with Never In My Life and Leslie promptly blew up the opening band's guitar amp! I think he might have been using the opening band's guitar as well - a Les Paul maybe? I could be 100% wrong on that.

...Chaos ensued as the soundman/venue people scrambled to fix the amp but were unable to. I think they even asked the audience if anybody had "whatever it was" that was broken - might have been blownout tube or something (?)

...Someone had to go out to get a replacement part - by that time probably around 11pm? And it wasn't until after midnight that the amp got fixed and they restarted their set.

...They resumed with Never In My Life yet again. And right before the end of the song, I heard some commotion behind me, and turned around to see Corky Laing fighting his way through the crowd (perhaps even running on top of the lengthwise bar), jumping onto the stage, and pulling the very surprised drummer off of his kit so that Corky could finish the song. After that song I think Corky gave Leslie his trademark Les Paul Jr to finish the set with (?) - that Corky had brought that with him (??).

...How long Mountain played, or what happened next I am drawing a huge blank on though.

Anyone else there who can help fill in my hazy recollections?

 

Excellent list Frank3si!

I love the original handwriting as you wrote them in the era. I did the same thing,but these are no means the only shows I've seen..these are just the shows I saw at ONE place, Chicago's Kinetic Playground between Fall 1968 and Summer 1970. Here's my list, written down on note cards in my high school handwriting back in the day.

 

Wow - The Flock. Very cool!

 

Yeah, I didn't know them then, but I'm friends with two of the ex Flock guys now..Jerry Smith and Jerry Goodman.

P.S. Some of the bills we saw are crazy. I saw Tyrannosaurus Rex, with Bolan warbling earnestly playing an acoustic guitar while sitting on an Oriental rug...followed directly by the MC5, and The Who following the Buddy Rich Orchestra. Nutty!

On my list, if you see two or three bands listed on the same line, they were on the bill at the same show.

I missed writing down a couple of the shows I saw there. I know I saw Johnny Winter there and Mike Bloomfield also but I don't remember if Mike was billed as Mike Bloomfield or if he was with some band other than his own that night.

 

Great stories and cool lists. Never kept a list, but I do have most of my stubs. A few of them disintegrated along the way. I'd scan some and post them, but I dont have a scanner. It'd make for a cool thread, to post our own stubs from our favorite shows.

 

Looks like the average 1970's teenager music collection to me. Those could have been my music collection.

 

awesome!

 

Sorry for the delay - fighting through a nasty stomach virus.

Anyway, my favorite was the Jimi Hendrix Experience, 4/12/69 at The Spectrum. I'm working on a book about Jimi, where in the Introduction I flesh this out a bit (actually, a lot!), but this probably hints at why it's my fave: taken to the show on a bus with a block of tickets provided by our church which apparently thought "Electric Church" was a religious thing (and oh, it was ), 13-year-old me left the group up in the rafters and made it to the 5th row right before the Experience came on, where a beautiful blond hippie girl asked if I wanted to stand on her seat with her so I could see. So I did, and what I saw and experienced and felt literally changed my life. So: it was all good

My hearing is, as you might suspect, not good at all. All of my bands used to practice at sonic-roar level, and add in all the shows and you get the expected result. Tinnitus for me is weird though - it's like it's on its own frequency and I'm pretty good at tuning it out entirely, for up to days at a time. If I am in silence of course there's nothing else to focus on and I hear the ringing, but I just kind of look at it as that is now what silence is for for me. It's all in the mind

 

I'm 35 years old and seen most of the classic bands still going in my lifetime - but this thread Jealouses the Crap outta me///

 

Thanks, great story and sorry to hear about the hearing.