Share your first concert experiences

Another great collaborative topic from Mac: first concert experiences! Here's his story, please share yours in the comments section.

Sometime in 1977...

As with many a young man growing up in the suburbs, music fit largely into the growth of my psyche. As the youngest of four siblings, I was always exposed to records so it was natural to bring (often borrowing from a sibling's collection JUST FOR THE DAY) records to a local friend's house for our meticulous dissection and absorption. All four of us had contributions which we would listen to and examine every minute detail of the covers. We were ROCK kids and our favorite chant was DISCO SUCKS! We would also pick up the tennis rackets and "act out" the songs as we listened in Dave's basement. One of the bands we liked was ANGEL. In the post glam melee of pop music, they emerged as an "anti-Kiss" also on the Casablanca label; all in white satin, chiffon, eight inch heels, coiffed hair, V necks down to the belly button and girly make-up. The were a five piece group of drums, bass, guitar, synthesizer keyboards (often keytar) and a lead singer. The guitarist had the BEST name ever, Punky Meadows and the singer Frank Dimino's vocal range was that of a woman so it fit the image. As a young man, figuring out how to connect to my sexuality, perhaps they were a good step in coming to terms with the lure of REAL FEMALES. They did not strike me as gay but as masculinely girly.

The music was a mix of prog rock and ballads with good guitar and keyboard riffy songs. They presented grand journeys and medieval conquests along with the allure of girls and a hint of losing yourself in the world of rock and roll and mind altering substances. I became a member of the fan club.

Then we heard that ANGEL was playing locally at The Morris Stage right here in NJ! We wondered about how and if we could pull it together to go. It was not too hard to convince our parents that with the chauferance of Dave's sister, who would bring us to the front door of the venue and pick us up at the same spot when it was over, that it would be ok to go.

We got the tickets and I recall being let off in front and joining the throng of freaks and rockers walking into the venue. The smell of pot smoke hit me right away and people were blatantly smoking up right there in the open. We found our seats and the opening band, The GODZ, not the 60's iconic group but an even lesser footnote of the 70's music world, were already on stage. I don't remember any of the music but just that they did a group mooning of the audience at the end of their set.

The light were on between sets and the excitement was palpable. I remember looking around at all the rock chicks and thinking how I like the way they looked. Many of them were prettier and more alluring than the members of ANGEL! WOWIE! The lights went down and loud pre-recorded music came up while we watched the stage fill with smoke. Flashing and colored lights also lit it up for a VERY heavenly effect. The closest I had seen to anything like this was the circus! People were going crazy and so was I. Five large empty boxes rose from the stage which you could see right through. Then, in one blinding explosion, there they were, IN THE BOXES! How did they do that! ANGEL were a magic band! Out they came to the high pitched screams of the girls and pubescent boys. They launched into The Tower! This was on of my favorites! They took possession of the stage and the audience like they owned it. And at that moment they did. Angel was not band to stand there and just play. Spinal Tap's move's pale in comparison to ANGEL. Spinal Tap are a parody of rocks pompous gyrations but ANGEL were serious about it. They wrote the book on rock pomp posing.

We were in the balcony and Dave got up and moved to the space between the rows and was hanging over the edge to watch the show. Were we allowed to do this? Would we get in trouble? I stayed put for now. After a few songs, my other friend Brian pulled out a joint! We had experimented with pot in the past and tried to be secretive as we smoked a bit. We got really high then the whole scene really set in. The inhibitions had come down and the classic whooping and screaming that accompanies 70's rock concerts was born in me. It was a potent combination of cannabis, androgyny and the freedom of being on our own at an event like this. It was mind expanding and life changing. They posed and strutted through all of our favorite songs and coaxed the crowd into a frenzy with the NOW typical banter between songs of “Do you feel alright?!” and “are you having a good time? … I can’t hear you?!” I decided that night that Angel was the BEST BAND EVER!

Of course, that thought did not last too long. I began going to other concerts and part of me realized that ANGEL were a little too posy and I wanted more perceived "substance" in my music as I gravitated to classic rock. Angel were a little too much pomp and not enough substance so I decided ANGEL were probably NOT the best band ever.

They were a little too far behind the first glam wave and too ahead of hair bands of the 80's so Angel never achieved any level of mass popularity. But they did fit largely into my own growth as a musician and pop culture enthusiast. As a member of different rock groups, I now realize that I too was a stage poser and I know where it came from. As a long time Frank Zappa fan, there came a time I discovered FZ's contemporary fascination with Punky Meadows in a recording called "Punky's Whips" in which the drummer Terry Bozio falls in love with Punky all the time declaring "I'm not gay!"

I have written ANGEL off as pop trash of my childhood for decades and although I have distilled my collection down many times, I never have gotten rid of their records. As I write this I am listening to ANGEL which I probably have not done for over 20 years. On a conscious level, I hear that the music is a little hokey and I smirk as I want to belittle their contribution to pop history. But on a gut level, I am getting a very warm feeling inside. I can only interpret this feeling as pleasure. Pleasure to be reconnecting to an innocence of my past and a twinge of that naive discovery of things that would come out of myself. I can only interpret this now as LIKING ANGEL and coming to terms with their place in my personal history. Pop music is a complex and diffracted entity and I think that I now see Angel’s place in that mystique.
Punky Meadows' classic pose which I can never get out of my mind was a big pucker from his pink glossed lips. I realize that they certainly were NOT the best band in the world but I AM a little fond of chiffon in a wrist array. But I am NOT GAY!!! Oh Punky, you still have me all mixed up.

Comments

[Lex10]

http://www.glyphjockey.com/2007/12/babys-1st-concert.html

[xangoir]

While just starting the 5th grade, I saw KRISS KROSS at the Midsouth Colliseum during the Midsouth County Fair in Memphis, TN 1992.
The laser show was awesome! I also won a huge stuffed animal at the fair, which I had to carry to the concert.

[Lex10]

Now that I look at it.... all the boomp3s are dead and The Perfect American site has "wandered away" from Rock n' Roll & more towards naked ladies. So don't get all weird on me if you see some NSFW when following links - mine specifically deal with the titled subjects. The Fillmore program is cool. Thanks!
Iknow, I know, check your homework!

[BrianTurner]

1st show: Pretenders, made my brother take me to Allentown Fairgrounds and
he had to miss Jerry Garcia playing in our town because of it.

1st show on my own : Eddie Money/Hooters (won tix for me & jr. high date on
Magic 92) -- yeah, they were the Israelites!

[Bob Ham]

I actually had a really great first concert experience - R.E.M. on the Green tour in 1989 at Great Woods in Mansfield, MA. Throwing Muses was the opening act. Pretty amazing show from both acts. I remember they sort of muddled their way through "Stand" and "It's The End Of The World" but they did a great version of VU's "After Hours". I wish I remembered more about the Throwing Muses set other than thinking "Fall Down" sounded really good.

[BrianTurner]

1st show: Pretenders, made my brother take me to Allentown Fairgrounds and
he had to miss Jerry Garcia playing in our town because of it.

1st show on my own : Eddie Money/Hooters (won tix for me & jr. high date on
Magic 92) -- yeah, they were the Israelites!

[martin]

The Stranglers at the Rainbow Theatre, Finsbury Park, North London. Must have been 1979, supported by an awful US band called the Curves. Very few memories, we were school boys, drunk on booze stolen from our parents drink cabinets and loving the punk rock thang.

[Chris Oliver]

God, I remember reading a blurb about this band in a magazine I bought for the KISS cover story. I think it said they had a hologram of an angel projected on the stage that spoke to the audience or something. I also thought I remembered them being in the movie Foxes, but then I saw it on TV once, and they weren't in it.

[Joe Veselenak]

In 1979, at age 12, I was taken to my first rock concert at Municipal Stadium (now gone) in Cleveland by an older friend and - believe it or not - his mother. The concert was billed as "The World Series of Rock" and featured Ted Nugent, Journey, Aerosmith, Thin Lizzy, AC-DC (a few months before Bon Scott died) and a few others I can't remember. The show was opened by the Scorpions, who nobody had ever heard of at the time. There were something like 50,000 fans there. One person was shot and killed, while another - under the influece of something - tumbled into the harbor and drowned. I remember being told not to eat any of the watermelon slices that were being passed around.

Awesomeness!! ANGEL's logo reads the same upside down!!!

Awesomeness!! ANGEL's logo reads the same upside down!!!

[Jeff Stern]

Mom thought concerts were dangerous, so my first one was in high school - saw Young MC at the Louisiana State Fair with Boogie Down Productions opening up. First stadium show was REM's Green tour - Pylon opened but I missed them because I got lost trying to find my date's house. First small club show with a touring band was Follow for Now with local openers FuncHaus at the Art Bar in Baton Rouge. First actual bar fight I saw was also the first show where I got in on the guest list - a Sir Mixalot show at the Varsity in Baton Rouge (FuncHaus also opened for that one and got me my guest list spot).

[Cynthia]

Joe Jackson at Seton Hall, Look Sharp tour. I recently found out that a pal was at the same show, and it was his first concert as well!

[Michael G]

http://www.classic-rock-concerts.com/

[Ken Shimamoto]

The Who at Forest Hills, July 31st, 1971. I'd turned 14 the month before and my father took me and my sister for my birthday. What really impresses me is how, as much as he hated that music, he still took us. It was an excruciatingly uncomfortable experience, especially once the joints started passing around. We were far away and it all kind of runs together in my memory, but I do remember "Baby Don't Do It" and Townshend running in circles until he unplugged his guitar. He broke two of 'em, too, which is why the '68 SG I bought for $275 the following years is worth ten times that now. Wish I still had it.

[Dominick Costanzo]

Led Zepplin - NYC stop of their first US tour.
The venue was the former NY State pavilion at Flushing Meadows Park.
The terrazzo floor I remembered from the ’64-’65 fair was, for some inexplicable reason, coated with black grease, preventing anyone from sitting.
Most memorable part of the night was the opening act – Buddy Guy.
He wasn’t getting much respect from the crowd who wanted to see rock stars, not some blues guy. Catcalls etc. There were lots of balloons being bounced around and someone managed to throw one up toward the stage and hit Mr. Guy. Rather than getting flustered, he picked the balloon up and used it as a slide for his guitar, completely blowing the collective mind of the crowd.
Zep was amazing and loose.
My buddy’s girlfriend got wasted on ‘ludes which put a damper on the evening.

[Debbie D]

My parents wouldn't let me go to concerts. But they would let me go to the roller skating rink. My first concert was Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five AND the Sugarhill Gang at Olympia Skate Center in Macon Georgia 1982. Score!

[Tony Coulter]

The first concerts I can remember seeing were all in NYC's Central Park in the early to mid '70s, as part of the Schaefer Music Festival. These took place at Wollman Skating Rink and shows were so cheap that they were almost always sold out -- so I and my friends (and loads of other people) would camp out on top of a big rock from which you could get a pretty good view and hear just fine. I usually didn't even know what bands were scheduled when I showed up, and the only groups I can recall struck me at the time as being pretty terrible: Journey, Aztec Two-Step, Heart ... but it was fun anyway.

The first band I purposely went to hear -- and paid to see -- was Roxy Music ... maybe around '74? It was great and Bryan Ferry was super suave....

[Taso]

The Monkees and Weird Al Yankovic. A double billing at Six Flags Great Adventure sometime in the mid-80's, 1985 possibly. I remember teenage girls screaming for Mike Nesmith, who was long gone from the band at that point.

[Ivy]

My first rock concert was Weird Al Yankovic too. I saw him at a nightclub in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla, in 1982. Al was great!

[East High]

KISS in 1978 from the sixth row! My ears rang for three days.

[Emile]

First concert I remember going to on my own was gonna be Bad Brains at the 9:30 Club in D.C., must have been 1985 when I was 16. But when I got there BB had cancelled and this local band I had never seen called Scream had taken their spot. I was initially extremely bummed to miss BB. Scream was part of my peripheral vision but I didn't really know them. They took a way long time getting to the stage and I was looking at my watch and wondering how I was going to meet my midnight curfew... Finally the band members got up there by one and started this slow kind of atmospheric guitar thing that was kind of spooky and unexpected for what I thought was going to be a hardcore act. Soon everyone was up there save the singer and the riff kept going on and getting louder and I was thinking where's the singer and what's this going to be like? I was basically right at the foot of the stage. At a certain moment someone forces his way violently past me from behind, basically shoving everyone out of his way, climbing around and over people to get up on stage. It was Pete Stahl, the singer, dressed in a leather jacket a white t-shirt and jeans and wild hair. In a very punk-conscious era this basic rock outfit was a bit of a surprise. When he gets up behind the mic he looks out from under the lights like an maniacal animal assessing whether the crowd was going to be able to keep up with the band, sways forward on the mic stand and hawks a throat full of spit high into the crowd, and they launch into the thrashing, unhinged hardcore number 'Who knows? Who cares?' and I was never the same after that. It was truly an 'oh shit' moment that happens a few times in your musical life, part awe, part fear, part disbelief.

Of course they went on to be one of my favorite bands and I saw them many times over the next few years and even went up to Boston to see them when a friend's band played with them up there.

Metal afficianados know Stahl from later acts like Wool and Goatsnake and he is part of the loose Desert Sessions collective. Many people agree he has one of the best rock voices ever and I agree! What I hear of those other bands I like just fine but I'll never forget that first shove, the first loogie, and the awesome and delicious fear of that concert!

[SJ]

Huey Lewis and the News at the Lee Civic Center in Fort Myers, FL, 1985. With my parents. I was ashamed of it for a long time but have since made peace.

[Mr Mannn]

1st show - Sammy Hagar (Three Lock Box tour)

2nd show - Sammy Hagar (Voice of America tour)

3rd show - Farm Aid 1 (among the performers - Sammy Hagar)

Sammy must have liked playing central Illinois.

[Jude]

The Police Synchronicity tour opening night @ Comiskey Park, Chicago 1983 with special guests: The Fixx, Joan Jett, A Flock Of Seagulls & some guy named Al from Chicago going under the name "Ministry" all the while faking a British accent. I was 14.