Rules:
1. Tell us about the first concert you ever went to...who played, when it was, etc.
2. Post one song from each band that you remember playing that night.
3. Posted songs have to be ones from that era. No songs that the band hadn't written yet at the time you saw them.
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My first concert that I went to (under my own agency, not being dragged along by a parent) was at St. Andrews Hall in Detroit in 1991 I think. We were going to see The Screaming Trees. First opener was a band called Das Damen, whom I'd never heard of, and the second opener was Superchunk, with the Trees headlining.
Das Damen played an amazing live set and won me over as a fan. Can't say I'd listen to them today, but 16 year old me dug it. Superchunk was never my bag, but I remember they were FUCKING LOUD. All the power pop-punk bands I hate today are just copying Superchunk in the biggest way, so they should at least get the credit. I could feel the bass pounding my chest out in the crowd. The Trees came on and they were LOUD AND AWESOME. They absolutely tore it up. Of all the bands that night, the Trees are the only ones with a portion of their catalog I can still enjoy to this day. Sadly, we had to leave early because my folks didn't want me in Detroit past midnight at 16 years old, and that was the compromise I made to head down there. Parents man..
Kicking the show off with Das Damen. Here's a song from that era called "Mirror Leaks"
And Superchunk with "30 Xtra". This is the least boring song I could find by them.
Screaming Trees jamming hard and showing why they are the headliner with "Invisible Lantern". All the early Trees albums were mixed so terribly. A shame.
What about you Hubski? Show me your fist concert.
1981 - AC/DC, "For Those About To Rock" I was 13. There were huge banks of cannons hanging from the ceiling, and every time a cannon goes off in the song, one of the cannons hung from the ceiling went off. Huge clouds of white smoke. Fantastic. "Hells Bells" of course started with this HUGE bell being lowered onto the stage, and Brian Johnson hitting it with this huge hammer that was almost as big as him.... unfortunately, the bell made a high-pitched "ting!" sound when he hit it, and not the "BOOOOOONG!" sound you hear on the record. So it looked kinda silly. But what really blew me away was Angus Young, standing on top of a sheet of plywood, that was being carried on the shoulders of four security guards. They walked through the crowd from the back of the stadium (the Colosseum in Seattle), to the front, while Angus played a ridiculously crazy solo standing on top of the plywood! It was nuts. The show was sweaty, loud, and every single think that rock-n-roll has ever promised. It smelled like leather, and sweat, and Marlboros, and it was FANTASTIC. I was a rocker for life, and I still regularly listen to that album today. (Of course, this was my first "I want to go to X concert, and I bought the ticket, and I went on my own volition" concert. I had been to many concerts before that with my parents, but this one was ALL MINE.)
So...I saw AC/DC for the first time about 3 years ago. Fucking christ they rocked. I love how Angus was carried on plywood by security while he solo'ed. Obviously a more expansive production by the time I saw them, but it was different in that I saw them in a stadium (Ford Field in Detroit) but bucking the trend of the past 20 years of stadium shows in my town, Ford Field (where our football team the shitty Lions play) had no seating on the entire main floor, so it was old-school in the sense that you could jockey and elbow your way up to the front. Which we did. The energy was so much better than seats...
My first show without parents was seeing Lords of Acid at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC in early 2000. I was 17. Two friends and I drove up, which from our hometown took about 3 hours. We basically listened to lots of music on the way up, followed by getting super lost in downtown DC. This was before Google Maps, so I'd printed out directions from MapQuest. Unfortunately, MapQuest was shit, and so took us through various traffic circles and just generally not where we needed to be. We eventually found the place. We parked nearby (only a few bucks), and were promptly asked for pocket change by a guy who said he'd just been mugged. He may have been lying, but if so he was a really good actor...had the voice quaver down and everything. I'll add that the 9:30 Club is in NW DC, but is not far from SW DC, which is about as rough inner city as you can get (especially back then, when DC's murder rate was much higher than it is now). So it was my first club show, and I had a blast. The crowd energy from a place that small was so different from anything else I'd experienced, so we had a ton of fun. The opener was a guy called DJ? Acucrack. More electronic-y than I like these days, but my tastes lay a little more in that direction back in high school. Then came LOA, who put on a fantastic show. They were promoting Farstucker, which was a more industrial-sounding album than their earlier stuff. As I said, great crowd, and the place is small enough that you're never far from the stage (plus I'm tall, so that helped). I remember how much fun the whole thing was, and was super glad that I'd gotten out of my shell and gone (I have some latent agoraphobia). The show itself was about as close as they could come to being a strip show (lot of electrical tape over the naughtiest of bits), with some vaguely pornographic stuff projected behind them. Their guitarist was in a gimp suit. Also! After the show finished, I was going towards the merch thing in the back (I still have the t-shirt somewhere, although it no longer fits), and some guy tells me "she said yes!" Apparently he had like just that minute proposed to his girlfriend. That was a cool way to end things. After that, we got super lost in DC again (fuck you, DC), this time ending up in some of the really terrible parts. Eventually we made it out to the suburbs to crash with my grandparents. We spent the night there and then were well-fed the next morning before returning home. ------- First real concert with parents (or, more specifically, my mom, her sister, and the latter's husband): The Rolling Stones, Voodoo Lounge Tour in 1996. I was 13. It was at the now-defunct RFK stadium (again in DC). We got there super early for some reason, and people were already drinking. I can remember even before it got dark that some guy was drinking beer out of a shoe. It was also the first time I smelled weed. I have a really vivid memory of it being dark and the light going out, and all these people broke out cigarette lighters. We were up in the nosebleed section, so I could see this huge dark crowd with little pinpoints of orange. It was cool. The Stones were great, even if they were about an inch tall from where we were sitting. My mom almost got in a fight with a guy who was being loud and obnoxious in some way (don't really remember why). A lot of people left early, so we got to move down closer for the encore. My mom bought me a bootleg t-shirt on the walk to the metro station (still have that one too). I didn't know their music as well then as I do now, but still remember really enjoying it.
Lords of Acid was my second concert ever after The Trees, and my buddies fell through so I ended up going alone at 16. This time I stayed for the whole show. Loved it!My first show without parents was seeing Lords of Acid at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC in early 2000. I was 17.
Jamie Duffy. The Cold Waves festivals in Chicago started as a memorial show for him.The opener was a guy called DJ? Acucrack. More electronic-y than I like these days, but my tastes lay a little more in that direction back in high school.
Huh, sure enough. He apparently opened for KMFDM on their 20th Anniversary Tour (which I also saw, although I didn't remember him being there...I think we got there after his set).
First concert with a friend, not parents (but his parents): Oak Ridge Boys at Tingley Colloseum, 7th grade. Obviously a part of the New Mexico State Fair. What I remember is they put on a very good, very polished show. Now let's see how awesome the video is. Second concert, first without any parents: Starship, summer between 7th and 8th grade. Don't play that video, whatever you do. Read this instead. Third concert, first with any real intention of actually wanting to see the show: Opening act was Skid Row. So much hair. Aerosmith's stage was designed to look like a rooftop. Steven Tyler hobbled out on a cane, then fell over into a cartwheel like Willy Fucking Wonka. It was dope AF. Got my first girlfriend out of that show. We made out about two weeks later in the theater for National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, then she dumped me right after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
I remember that oral history. That was a good one. Went to high school with Sebastian Bach and our parents were friends. He comes from a very talented family and from his early teens walked around like a rock star: tight leather pants, vests, leather jackets with the sleeves pushed up, lots of jewelry, etc; and saying he was going to be a rock star. Hated the guy, Have to give it to him though, from a young age he knew what he wanted and did become somewhat of a "rock star". He still goes back to his small town hometown and hangs out with high school friends.
First Ever This summer. I'm the DD. Bucket Head at The Grenada. No opener. He comes out 2 hours late. First Enjoyed My wife bought us tickets to a second concert for my birthday this fall. I'm not the DD at Sandstone.
I saw Death Cab For Cutie at Starr Hill in Charlottesville, VA one summer in college (so like 2004). They were much better than I expected them to be. I also remember being a little worried when the floor (the concert part is on the second floor) was shaking noticeably during the more raucous parts.
I don't know if this was my first concert... but it was an early one... and a good one. some friends of ours walked around the venue after the show was over... picking up spare cash and T-shirts that drunk people left on the ground. I think they cleared $40 and more than 2-3 shirts. I remember being in love with Björk's flighty voice… and she was making laser shot sounds "BYOO BYOO" during one of the songs.I remember Johnny Rotten calling everyone fucking wankers.
2009 was the first "major" concert I went to, outside of small local performances. There may or may not have been a time in my life when I was super, super into Coheed and Cambria. They were touring and playing The Starland Ballroom which is pretty famous for them given that live show linked. It. Was. Amazing. I had never experienced something like that before, an old Nabisco warehouse turned concert venue, a ton of nerdy metal people and scene kids, and loud, rockin' music. This was around the time No World for Tomorrow came out, before they completely jumped the shark and it was a classic setlist. The opener was a band named Recover who I can't really remember and didn't know well at the time, they were okay but I was just too stoked for Coheed considering the six hour drive it took to get to New Jersey. Pretty typical, terrible, Fueled by Ramen band. Anyway. Just. Listen, Okay? You hear that first note and you know what's coming, and it's nine minutes of moshing and going crazy and you go through that for the entire show. In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 is a song that still gives me goosebumps and this band is the reason I picked up the guitar. At 1:45 when the chorus kicks in? Yeah, one of those voices are mine. I couldn't talk or hear for the next day...worth it. The sound quality is bad but you get the point. Oh god. Nostalgia. I'm getting old.
Def Leopard. Hysteria tour. Sept 18th, 1988. All my pals got t-shirts. I only had enough money for a Def Leopard pin. I gave it to a girl named Lynne Stevens. She ended up being the first girl I ever smooched. -We were in a burger king in briarwood mall. Super romantic.
Aw man! Now we can't ever be friends again, TNG... Def Leppard (note the spelling!) was "the end of real heavy metal" to me and all my metalhead friends. They marked the turning point from the hardcore "real" metal we loved, of Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, (early) Metallica, etc, and inaugurated the era of Motley Crue, Ratt, Whitesnake, Night Ranger, and all the other radio-friendly "girly" metal with pointy guitars, hair spray, and makeup. (Seriously though, "On The Road" is a GREAT rock album. I just hated every single other song they ever wrote. Can't tell ya why... they just always rubbed me the wrong way.)
Lol. I was 11 years old. I haven't listened to DL on purpose since I was 13.
Rush, the Presto tour. February 22, 1990. The Miami Arena. Mr. Big opened. I was young, so my older cousin took me. We were way in the back. It was loud and awesome. I remember that Paul Gilbert and Billy Sheehan had tassels hanging down from the necks of their guitars, which I thought was silly. Still do. I never was a Mr. Big fan. But, a Rush fan? Yes!
he very first concert that I can remember was attending a live symphony playing the classical music of the old Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny cartoons. The tunes played on a big screen, the music was live in front of us. It's stuck with me forever. On the same vein, I've been to see Video games Live! six times now. Best concert ever? NiN, hands down. Amazing presentation, arguably the loudest, cleanest sound ever. Neck and back hurt from the mosh pit. Favorite concert experience? Hand-to-Boot combat with skinheads in the mosh pits at a Slayer concert in Irvine, CA. Most chill concert? I was the DD for two Tori Amos shows back-to back also at the Irvine Amphitheater in the 90's when she was still a 'pop' star. Most attended? 24 Weird Al concerts since 1988, no shame at all, fiteme. Symphony and cartoons? Like this but sadly only a shitty cell camera. Best one I could find with the whole experience.
tinnitus sort of ruined all these memories for me however the first concert that comes to mind was dylan at acl maybe a decade ago. we were way too broke to afford tickets, so my parents and i went over to zilker and sat with the homeless men on the train tracks that ran behind the stage. for some reason the sound quality was extremely good even though dylan was facing away from us and separated by a giant apparatus covered in lights. the next year i discovered acl was really easy to con your way into, never looked back. i didn't even follow your rules ecib, wow, sorry