Since live music
is better, I've been focused on trying to find a live recording I made to fit every day's prompt.
So far so good, but I felt compelled to dig out some stubs to post because all the cool kids are doing it.
What this exercise taught me -
- I've been incredibly lucky to see a ridiculous amount of great live music.
- I have a lot of ticket stubs.
- I have even more that I wasn't able to retain over the years, especially from my college daze.
- We are getting so screwed on prices today unless you're talking about your local venues.
First thing I noticed - tickets were just so much cooler back in the 70's from a visual standpoint. Some used the band's actual logo. Many had glitter mixed into the heavy ink. And if you take a look at the example below, I paid $9.00 to sit 5th row orchestra center and the service charge (convenience fee by today's verbiage) was one shiny quarter. Two dimes and a nickel. Five nickels. Three nickels and a dime. Twenty-five pennies. Basically, less than I could find in my couch cushions - that was the service charge. Another thing about many of these tickets back then - you called in to make your purchase and then sent a check for payment. After receiving the dough, they mailed you the tickets. This basically eliminated scalpers, and we were still in an age when the internet was a twinkle in Al Gore's eye.
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Here are a few selections from the 70s and 80s. You'll see a definite turn to the banal and boring beginning in the late 80s...
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L-R, top to bottom...
- The Doobie Brothers at the height of their powers.
- Kansas on the Monolith tour. I got teargassed at this show.
- AC/DC and Molly Hatchet. Bon Scott, baby. A few months later he was gone.
- Boston. Left half - 'S/T' tour. Right half - 'Don't Look Back' tour.
- Willie Nelson & Family tour. He played 53 songs.
- ELO with the full-on spaceship.
- ELO 'Time' tour.
- Chapel Thrill was a yearly benefit concert held in Kenan Stadium. Todd Rundgren was the headliner, but this was the first North American show of U2's 'War' tour and they stole it.
- I saw so many monumental shows while I was in Chapel Hill - Elvis Costello, Squeeze, The Tubes, Neil Young, Talking Heads, The Clash, Lou Reed to name a few and the only stub I can find other than the one above is Jefferson Starship. Fail.
- Crosby, Stills, & Nash. They were just sublime.
- John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers. Short, potent show. Glad to have had the opportunity.
- Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble when they were absolute gods in 1987.
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L-R, top to bottom...
- The Cult supporting 'Electric'. Absolutely sublime. GnR opened.
- David Bowie on the Glass Spider tour with Peter Frampton on guitar.
- The Stones coming back in 1989. Stadium show but seated about 40 rows back so pretty nice. '2000 Light Years From Home' > 'Sympathy" was so good.
- The Who in the same venue in 1989. Roger was doing his famous mic twirl during the show, and it broke loose and flew into the crowd. He said that was the first time it ever happened.
- Stones 1989 take two at Death Valley.
- Lou Reed supporting the 'New York' record. My car blew up on the way to this show. Friends backtracked and got me there on time. Also, my first time taping with a new deck. Stress, anyone?
- The Replacements open the 13.13 Club with its inaugural show. Great venue full of wonderful memories and good recordings.
- Two Robert Plant shows from '88. My wife insisted I go to the July show. Less than a month later, our daughter was born. The November show was our first night out after her birth.
- Robert Zimmerman playing Cameron, a venue that was built for everything but music.
www.setlist.fm
