What opening act killed the main band at a concert you went to. *

Pink opened for Lenny Kravitz, about 2003. She absolutely, positively annihilated him.

My dad speaks often of seeing AC/DC open for Kiss, and blow them out of the water, in Indy sometime in the late 70's.

 

Saw Blues Image open for Iron Butterfly at Buffalo Aud. in 1969 and they completely blew them off the stage!

 

Nope - the Baltimore Civic Center lives on and continues to prosper!

It's been renamed a couple of times and is now "Royal Farms Arena" but it's still there and it still brings in big names!

 

Not really opening band, but in 1983 at US Festival
Scorpions came on before final act Van Halen of Heavy Metal Sunday bill. Scorps absolutely killed it!! The whole crowd of 350,000+ metal heads were screaming the whole Scorpions set, it was a hurricane of sound...

Once VH came on it was no better than a dry hump.

 

This post makes me so very happy. She is great live. I've seen her a few times now including Massey Hall back in 2002 which was just prior to her getting the Kravitz opening gig. That Massey show is one of the best shows I've ever seen.

 

An up-and-coming band called Pearl Jam opened for the Smashing Pumpkins and Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1991...

Saw the show in Warwick, Rhode Island at an old casino ballroom.

Gave Pearl Jam a ride to URI after the show for a radio appearance and what would have been their first-ever acoustic show, some dimwit DJ had locked and left the radio station because a thunderstorm had knocked out the power temporarily and didn't see fit to wait around. That would have been an audience of three people!!!

Readers' Poll: The 10 Best Opening Acts in Rock History

 

Yes I know about that one. Happened where I live too.
But the year before, Billy opened for Pat Benatar and from what I understand upstaged her. At least there was more enthusiasm from the concertgoers for his set.
Karma happens!

 

Hootie and the Blowfish. They played the "Repo Man" soundtrack before the show and Hootie was kind of a letdown after that.

 

Nick Lowe for the Cars, Boston Garden ~1981
J Geils for Aerosmith Fenway Park. Actually, I would guess J Geils blew away most acts they opened for

 

The David Jo band from around '78-'82 was as good as ANY band I ever saw. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be the band having to follow them.

 

Same with Nick Lowe.

 

Def Leppard opening for Billy Squire(Def Leppard still young and hungry were a force)
Motley Crue opening for Ozzy Osbourne(Ozzy wasn't in great shape this night, Crue killed it, long before fat Vince)

 

And then 2 members of Blues Image joined the Iron Butterfly, beefing up their sound with a double lead guitar attack.

 

I was never a Pink fan, and I had no idea what to expect at this show, but I kept open ears and mind during her set. She included 4 Non-Blondes' Whats Up? and Me & Bobby McGee. Credit to where credit is due, she killed it.

 

Really? Didn't realize that. Been a l-o-o-o-ng time since I've been anywhere for live music. Jeez, I think the last show I saw was . . . Bill Kirchen at the Birchmere, maybe 15 years ago? Time flies. Saw lots of bands at the Civic Center back in the day. Moody Blues, Roxy Music, the list goes on. Many more at Merriweather just up the road from me.

Saw Nick Lowe and Rockpile (Edmunds, Billy Terry, and Paul Carrack, the whole crew) open for the Bangles (top) and the Police (2nd) at the Univ of Maryland Cole Field House basketball arena. They were really on but the ignorant crowd of freshmen just wasn't having it. Police were really good but we didn't stay past the first couple of Bangles songs.

 

The Hooters were much better than Bryan Adams when they opened up in Norman, Oklahoma sometime in the mid to late 1980's

 

Addendum:
Rockpile, fronted by Nick or Dave, always fared much better with packed houses of the dedicated at the Bayou in Georgetown.

 

The former Civic Center does continue to get a good array of acts. I saw Eagles, Prince and Stevie Wonder there in 2015, and I may see Tom Petty there this summer. The Stones, U2 and Springsteen have all played there in semi-recent years, too!

Er, I think you're combining concerts in your memory. I think you're confusing the Go-go's for the Bangles - Police/Go-go's toured together 1981/82, but I'm pretty sure Bangles never played on the same bill as the Police.

Police/Go-go's played the Cap Center January 1982 - Go-go's opened, as Police were always top-billed on that show. Looked but couldn't find evidence Police ever played Cole Field House.

No Rockpile at the show - they'd disbanded by that point. Carrack was never a member of Rockpile - according to Wiki, he was in something called "Noise to Go" headlined by Lowe but without other members of Rockpile.

If Rockpile ever played UMD, seems more likely they'd have played Ritchie Coliseum - lots of big "New Wave" bands played there in the late 70s/early 80s...

 

Kind of an odd pairing.

 

In the early seventies my friends and I went to The Long Beach Arena to see Rory Gallagher, Fleetwood Mac and Deep Purple (we were really there to see Rory).
Rory Gallagher was the opening act and he came on full bore and didn't let up one bit. At the end of his set the crowd was calling for an encore even though we knew it wasn't going to happen.
Up next was the Bob Welsh version of Fleetwood Mac and I was not impressed. They opened with Oh Well and then went right into The Green Manalishi which annoyed me because those were Peter Green's top songs. They were okay but they couldn't fire up the crowd the way Rory did.
When Deep Purple finally came out I think half the people were ready to go home. It only took a couple of songs for DP to realize that they just weren't connecting with the crowd. They tried to compensate by turning up the volume on the guitar and organ and that just annoyed people.
When they finished their set there was no encore because neither the audience nor the band wanted one.

 

I think you're right, it was probably the Go-Gos. Given the levels of "pre-medicating" we used to do prior to any show some of the memories are bound to be a bit fuzzy. I hit most of the DC/Balt. area venues at one time or another from '69 into the early '00s. Nick Lowe (with the band unofficially known as Rockpile) was 3rd billed to the Police and somebody. It was definitely not Ritchie so must have been the Cap Center. The intent of the comment was that Lowe and friends played an excellent high energy 30-40 minute set which was largely ignored by all but a scattering of us stalwarts. At least they got some exposure beyond popping up on WHFS. When Nick/Dave played the smaller clubs the crowds were filled with diehards.

In the latter part of the '80s roughly once a year a "stalwart" buddy and I would go to the Bayou to see either Nick Lowe and Rockpile or Dave Edmunds and Rockpile playing a mix of each others' songs. "Lowe and . . . " played mostly Lowe songs and "Edmunds . . . " mostly his. When either iteration had a piano in the mix it was either Paul Carrack or Geraint Watkins, both of whom were unofficial/honorary members. Of course Carrick always got to do "How Long." And yes, Nick sometimes toured without Dave and vice-versa but I never saw Nick without Dave and the rest of the boys. Saw Dave once with Watkins and and a generic band.

I absolutely saw TYA and ZZ Top at the Civic Center. "Tucky Buzzard" was 3rd billed. Nothing fuzzy about that one. "Z - Z . . . Z - Z . . . Z - Z . . . !!

 

The lineup of Monsters of Rock, Mainz Germany '91 (in order of appearance)-
Black Crowes
Queensryche
Motley Crue
Metallica
AC/DC

Metallica absolutely killed it during their set. It was astonishing to see 30-40k people banging their heads for an hour and a half. As much as I love AC/DC, they didn't have a chance.

 

It was definitely Go-go's - I was there!

And Police definitely headlined, though Go-go's were so popular at the time, it wouldn't have been a huge stretch for them to be the headliner.

No other opening act - just Go-go's and then Police after a long delay. Don't remember why there was so much time between the opener and the Police, but I remember they apologized for the wait - the surly crowd wasn't too happy!

 

I was there, too! But where the hell was I when I saw Lowe? I remember they were great and was surprised and disappointed when the crowd was "Meh!" Maybe it was Cole Field House.
Well, I'm not going to belabor it. I kinda stretched the thread with my Lowe post anyway. Much as I like scruffy pub-rockers I honestly can't see them blowing away the Police!
Carry on, folks!

 

The Bangles headlining over the Police? In what universe does that make sense?!
Never mind I see now that has been corrected.