What was your first ever Live Concert?

Jefferson Airplane, Detroit Cobo Hall, 1972.

I was 12.

 

I have a really lousy recording of that one.

 

Now that you mention it, it was a great sounding show. I caught them at the Kaiser Pavilion in Oakland a month later.

 

The Monkees with Weird Al opening (1987). It was awesome!

 

Wow, Wild Man Fischer. He is one of my all-time favorites. With his mental instability, I'm sure it was a brief set, but likely very memorable. I wish I could have seen him back in his prime, playing the Sunset Strip for a dime.

Let's Merry-Go-Round! Boop-boop-boop!

 

Jimi Hendrix - Dorton Arena, Raleigh NC. 4-11-69. I was 16. Here's a youtube video about a poster from the show.

 

The Who August 1976. Loud as hell! Ears rang for days on end!

 

Asia! Spectrum 1982! It was all downhill from there!

 

Elvis Presley 2-12-1977. I was 13.

 

John Mellencamp - Thanksgiving of 1987, Madison Square Garden, I was 15.

 

Funny - I saw Mellencamp the prior night! Or was it the Tuesday before Thanksgiving - yeah, I think it was Tuesday, not Wednesday...

 

Def Leppard - Hysteria Tour

 

El Chicano, around 1971. They were riding high on the hit Viva Tirado. An older friend snuck me in. It was my first exposure to weed (the auditorium reeked of it) at the tender age of 10.

 

I saw this tour when they played Charlotte. It was in the pro basketball/hockey arena, which was (in)famous for its' lousy acoustics. I remember thinking the bass was going to pound a hole right through my chest. When I got in my car to go to work the next morning, the stereo was about four times louder than I usually kept it, so I guess I was having a little trouble hearing on the ride home from the show.

 

To be honest I'm not entirely sure? I 'think' it was Joe Cocker 1977.

 

The Kingsman who sang 'Louie Louie'.

Saw them when they were young men, maybe teenagers, playing in the record section of Zaire department store in south Chicago. It was back in 1964.

 

I saw this tour when they played Charlotte. It was in the pro basketball/hockey arena, which was (in)famous for its' lousy acoustics. I remember thinking the bass was going to pound a hole right through my chest. When I got in my car to go to work the next morning, the stereo was about four times louder than I usually kept it, so I guess I was having a little trouble hearing on the ride home from the show.

Sounds very similar to my experience at the Pink Floyd show I went to at Yankees Stadium in 1994, when my seat was in the 10th row slightly to the left, in front of the left tower,
where every pluck of the bass guitar and kick of the bass drum hit me like water from a fire hose. That experience was painful, physically (literally!) as well as aurally. I had to
go out to 2nd base to remedy the problem and was able to get a better grasp of Floyd's surround sound system as well. Seeing the Keith Emerson Band in '04 near my house in
NJ was painful, where the sound people were so tone deaf they couldn't realize that the bass was pushing you out the door as it drowned out Emerson's Hammand organ and the
lead singer's vocals... Sucks how you pay good money to see a show and the only thing you hear and feel is the bass and that's it...

 

When was it?
Who did you see?
Who did you go with?
Was it pleasant or unpleasant?

 

Jan 1980
The Clash
My mates
Very pleasant

 

Jefferson Airplane 1969 on a school trip! Capital Theater. Great show but loud as hell.

 

actually the beatles at ac convention center. i was 12 or 13. my neighbors mom got us tickets and took us. stood outside their hotel during the day and waited for a sighting.
i heard the opening notes of their first song and from that point it was sheer noise and screaming but the energy was amazing.
saw their limo drive out the tunnel at the center at the end

 

Jane's Addiction in '91.
Went with my Dad because my "cool" friend's mother wouldn't let her go for fear that someone would slip her drugs.
It was OK. Seats were not very good. My Dad said that Perry Farrell was a "pretty wild dude".
Oh yeah, I remember Henry Rollins was the opening act and him saying how uncool it was to die from drugs and how much cooler it would be to walk into a bank with a bomb strapped to yourself and blow yourself up. And the crowd cheered wildly. Oh, those innocent, pre-terrorism days when Rock was still an act of rebellion. (even if you were with your Dad).

 

U2 Zoo TV tour, 1993. Aged 11 and went with my mum (bless!) I actually found a bootleg of it a few years back, terrible quality but quite cool nonetheless.

As much as still have a big nostalgic soft spot for Achtung Baby, I've seen many bands I like much, much more since then. But in terms of spectacle it's obviously been very much downhill from there. For a while I probably thought that was what all shows were going to be like!

 

Madonna - April 12, 1985. The 2nd show of her first tour, April 10, 12 & 13 at the Paramount Theater in Seattle.
Opening act: The Beastie Boys.
Being my first concert, I was overwhelmed by the crowds, stage lighting, and sound. I came from a very small town so the whole experience of a concert in the city was very memorable.