What was one of the first concerts you attended!?

With the exception of small concerts at the beach in Santa Cruz, or county fairs, the only real concert I was able to go to was when I worked for the county, I was up on the “soundstage” about 75 feet back from the center stage, were the mixers etc. were for the “Spirit West Coast” concert, basically my job that day was to make sure the concert loudness levels did not exceed a set level (believe it was 120db) and at that time if they did go past which several groups did I had to tell them to turn it down. It was an interesting experience as I was able to meet all of the bands and band members that were playing that day.

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My first concert! Wow, what an experience that was, and mine was with none other than one of the best guitar players ever, Carlos Santana at Starplex in Dallas, TX.

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Wow! The Grateful Dead, is a hard one to top. I would have love to have seen them live!

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I saw Rush too, at one of the early concerts I paid for. They were new, I was able to locate some images of the playbill on the net. Lock Haven is a town about 30 miles from State College/Penn State. Great concert.

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In looking around, I saw an article on “Remembering the Civic Arena” a multipurpose venue in Pittsburgh. They had the Jethro Tull concert that I saw (intro group Gentle Giant). on 10/17/1972. That was probably the first big concert that I paid for. Earlier than I thought.

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Triple-headliner: Eagles, Jackson Browne & Linda Ronstadt at the Balboa Stadium (outdoor amphitheater, no longer exists), San Diego, September, 1975, with my parents and a bunch of their friends. I was 10. Not a bad first concert!

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A buddy I work with saw Gentle Giant in the early '70s. I envy you both=)

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Awesome :sunglasses:!!!

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That would have been a great show!

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First album Queen Day at the Races.
First concert Queen,1980 @ The Forum,Inglewood,Ca.

Needless to say Queen is one of my alltime fav bands.

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This too me awhile, but I think that it was probably Weird Al in 1992.

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I think I might have been a little wasted to remember the Gentle Giant set, I do recall Jethro Tull vividly,

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One of my all time favorite bands too!

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No shame buddy, what your parents took you to doesn’t count since it wasn’t your personal choice. :slight_smile:

In my case it’s easy to remember the first real live concert: the venue was humongous, the sound was (too) loud, the band was stellar. Summer of 1977, 55,000-seat Montreal Olympic Stadium, Pink Floyd. Had to beg, bug and harass my parents for a week to let me go and the 55,000 tickets were flying off the booths at an alarming rate and I couldn’t afford scalpers so the sense of urgency was almost unbearable to me. Being 15 is not funny, you feel you’re mature enough to handle anything but you are still under parental control. In the end my buddies and I were allowed to attend but not before we had been ordered not to “smoke weird stuff like heroin”. Heroin? Yup, that was Mom at her best rendition of concerned mother. Sheesh! We did smoke… cigarettes. Every teen was a smoker in those days. 85 cents a pack or so.

Looking back, the concert was thrilling but that was more due to the crowd’s boisterous enthusiasm than actual SQ, which was downright atrocious. The sound engineers the band had brought from the UK were obviously more familiar with theatres than with enormous stadiums, and it showed.

At one point Roger Waters spat at a spectator who had eluded security and rushed the stage, a well-known episode of Pink Floyd lore. Personally I didn’t notice it when it happened though. Bad sound is what I remember most, and to think that ELP performed there that same year and the sound quality was so good they made the band’s only live album using material taped there that night exclusively. I did not see that concert myself unfortunately. ELP’s chief sound engineer had hired local talent to handle it and they got the job done right. But still, large stadiums has never really been my cup of tea for concerts, sonically speaking. There’s just too many things that can go wrong. Theatres, arenas (when prepped good) and small stadiums have my preference. By small stadiums I mean les than 15,000 or so. Small is beautiful was a popular saying in those days.

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@MuseMuff this is exactly the kind of story I hoped to read about when I posted this fun thread. I honestly feel this forum is one of the coolest communities I have experienced online. The different perspectives, experiences, backgrounds, and personalities honestly make this a special place. No drama, no BS, just music, and all the cool stuff we use to enjoy it! Thanks for sharing this story!

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I was really grateful for the chance, I was only 14 years old and was already a huge fan of them. It was the last show they played in Oregon before Jerry passed. I remember being devastated when I heard he passed but also so thankful I was able to see them perform and have the life shaping experience as a teenager.

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You’re most welcome :slight_smile:

I had as much fun reminiscing about this concert than you seem to have had reading about it. It allowed me to revisit a pivotal event of my teen years during that surreal decade that were the 70’s. By some coincidence Roger Waters is giving a concert in Montreal soon, I don’t remember the actual date though. Sold out already I believe but this time at least it won’t be at the stadium but at the city’s main arena downtown.

I like the laid-back attitude of this forum as well, it’s a breath of fresh air compared with the collectors and/or vintage oriented ones I usually hang out at. Some have very stringent policies regarding “sticking to the topic” and it can get a little cold there let’s put it that way. But since I mostly go there for technical issues it doesn’t really matter I suppose.

I had to wait 'til 1979 to attend my next major concert. Jethro Tull at the Montreal Forum (now called the Bell Centre), a 16,000-seat facility downtown. It sounded great which is a little weird considering that Tull albums of the 70’s did not have the most outstanding sound quality, as if the weren’t tuned properly. Some sound engineers just lack the “Golden Ear” required for a clean finish. They must have switched engineers 'round that same time 'cause Stormwatch sounded awesome. Same thing happened with Rush (RIP Neil Peart) but they fired the guy much earlier in the decade. It was such a good move that Rush became almost synonymous with good SQ. Their album Moving Pictures I consider to be one of the best produced albums ever, it was spectacularly good. Unfortunately their live album Exit Stage Left released a few years earlier sounded like schlitz. :frowning:

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You have had some great experiences and thanks for sharing them. Sadly I haven’t had any of these big experiences like you guys. I would have loved to have gone to see some of these great bands. Respect.

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The first concert I went to with a friend rather than an older family member was Joaquin Sabina. I doubt any of you know him :wink:

I was about 14 I think and he had set up a full bar onstage with a waitress and barstools etc. He would spend around 30 minutes drinking whisky until he couldn’t talk and then he would leave his backing singer to do a song while he went backstage and came back out with wide open eyes and as fresh as a spring chicken. (Even at 14 I understood he had an issue!)

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Cool stuff! I have actually have seen Jethro Tull and Rush, at the same venue I saw Santana at. All three shows were special, for me. I remember how clean and clear sounding Ian Anderson’s flute was, and how that sound carried all the way to the back of the venue with ease. Rush was quite a unique experience as well. Funny thing is I never liked the sound quality of a lot of JT’s and Rush’s stuff I heard on the radio and cd, but they both sounding amazing live. Yes, was another one of those bands that sounded better live. Man, this just bought back lots of memories. . .

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On Rush’s plaque at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame it is written “numerous awards for live performance sound effects and outstanding sonic delivery” or some similarly Olde Worlde wording for “sounds friggin’ hot live”. One of the awards came from Alan Parsons. He should know :sunglasses:

You have to admit though that SQ on Rush albums starting with Moving Pictures was out of this world. This coincided with Rush moving production from a standard studio in Toronto to one in the middle of nowhere north of Montreal. It was called Le Studio and at the time was the only studio in the world to use a 48-track console when most others used 20 tracks. Resulting mixes were fabulous as you could tell right from the first note in the song Tom Sawyer. Numerous music celebs used that studio afterwards such as John Lennon (mix only, he was already dead by then), Paul Simon, The Police, John Mellencamp, Carly Simon, Joe Walsh, to name a few. Sadly, Le Studio moved to the Bahamas around 1990, the place is now abandoned and decaying.

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