In 1983 I went to see The Plimsouls (Peter Case’s pre-solo career band) at The Garage, a tiny little "club" on Ventura Blvd. The room had filled up (elbow-to-elbow tight), and the opening act started their set. My woman and I both looked at each other, our mouths agape. It was Los Lobos, and they were great! Their debut album How Will The Wolf Survive? had yet to be released, but I sure picked it up when it was.
I went to see John Hiatt at The Roxy Theater on Sunset Blvd. during his Perfectly Good Guitar tour, entering the room just as the opening act was starting her final song. The ads for the show listed her name, which was unfamiliar to me. As the song started and progressed, I was stunned; the song she and her band were performing was a great one, and I knew I had missed a quality set of music. It was Sheryl Crow, whose debut album had not yet been released. Damn it!
One that shocked me was the opener for The Faces on their final tour in 1975.
We learned on the way in that the opener was someone called Peter Frampton. Sounded funny to us in our stoned brains, and walking up the ramps of Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena we kept shouting in funny voices "Peter FRAMPton" and it echoed through the corridors.
So, he came out and basically did a shorter version of what would become Frampton Comes Alive, which came out not long thereafter.
The following summer we went to see him, along with 50,000 other people, headline outdoors at Three Rivers Stadium.
Meanwhile, The Faces show has stuck with me all this time. They were phenomenal even without Ronnie Lane at that time. One of my favorite shows ever.
October 1977, Buffalo, NY, Century Theater. Cheap Trick opened for Be-Bop Deluxe. BBD was on the Live in the Air Age tour. CT's In Color had just come out. BBD was good, but CT was incredible. I became a life long fan.
Jesse Colin Young lived around here for over 20 years, moving to Hawaii after losing his house & studio in the Mount Vision Fire of 1995. I saw him do several solo sets in the 80s & 90s. This particular time, he opened for the Rowan Brothers at the Sausalito Art Festival on 9/4/93. He/they were just standing in a wide spot along the main path through the art exhibit, playing through their monitors. Footnote: David Grisman Quintet played on the main stage that day. All local groups, playing glorious acoustic music.
Through the miracle of Youtube, here's Jesse & Jackson Browne sharing a mic to Get Together at No Nukes in 1979 with Steve Stills, Graham Nash, and thousands of others:
August 16th 1974, my first concert....I was 13. My horseback riding friend was a huge three dog night fan, and she asked if I wanted to go with her, her boyfriend, and some friends; one of her other friends had to cancel. The concert was Three Dog Night, Souther-Fury-Hillman, and Little Feat.
Little Feat opened up first, so technically was my first live band.....they were ridiculously amazingly good. Second act was Souther-Fury-Hillman and they were excellent (I later became a Poco fan), and Three Dog Night was fine but not my type of music.
A few years later in 1977 I saw Little Feat at Lisner Auditorium in Washington D.C., which was one of the 7 concerts they recorded Waiting For Columbus......with the Tower of Power. The night was the one where the crowd shouted " F. E. A. T let's hear for Little Feat" at the beginning. They are still one of my top 5 bands of all time, and Waiting For Columbus is still my "stranded on a desert island" album
I think it was around 1970 at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, NJ. The stadium was located right on Newark Bay. We went to see Rod Stewart. The opening acts started playing in the afternoon.
Lynyrd Skynyrd did the first set and just knocked it out of the park (pun intended)! The crowd was blown away. We called them out for two encores. They were amazing. Then Ten Years After came out. Even Better! Alvin Lee was tearing it up with his guitar riffs. Two more encores. By then it was starting to get dark. I guess Stewart was pissed that we made him wait because he made us wait at least 1/2 an hour before he came out. By that time a stiff wind was coming off the bay and totally screwing up the sound. All we could hear was vocals and drums. People in the front started shouting things to that effect and Stewart warned them that if they didn't stop, he would. No one in the band or crew seemed to understand that we wanted someone to come and adjust the sound mix. I don't know if it ever got straightened out. We left.
The same year we went to see The Moody Blues at Drew or Fairleigh Dickinson University. We thought we'd be going to an auditorium. Nope. It was just a large classroom with a 'stage' that was about one foot higher than the floor. The opening act was Mott The Hoople and they were great. In between sets we could just walk up the the band and chat. It was great and Mott was every bit as good as the Moodys.
I've often wondered about the future of the music industry, because I'm not seeing enough quality individuals to replace the likes of A&R men like: Ted Templeman, label exec's like: Ahmet Ertegun, Barry Gordy, Seymour Sten or Lenny Waronker, or mastering engineer's like: Bernie Grundman, Steve Hoffman or Bob Ludwig.
There's way too many producers to mention; but, I had a real interesting conversation with Alan Parsons about this very subject after he led a panel discussion at SXSW back around 2013 or 2014. I know David Kershenbaum was one of the other producers on that panel
For those who don’t mind a history lesson as a post :
The first concert I attended was The Beach Boys at The San Jose Civic Auditorium in the Summer of 1964 (before a fair number of ya’ll were born, right?). The opening act was a 4-pc. Surf band from nearby Santa Cruz California (a town on the northern tip of the Monterey Bay that was a hot spot for surfing) named The Tikis. When the curtains opened the audience saw four guys in regular business suits, but with the trouser legs cut off at the knee (perhaps in acknowledgment of the knee-length swim trunks surfers wore).
By that Summer the Surf craze was obviously on it’s last legs, the British Invasion making the music seriously out of fashion. The Tikis therefore headed in a more trendy direction, recording demo tapes and submitting them to San Francisco label Autumn Records (home of The Beau Brummels). Autumn released two Tiki’s singles in 1965, both of which flopped. Autumn Records sold their catalog to Warner Brothers in 1966, including all the Tiki’s recordings.
Warner Brothers put The Tikis in the hands of a young producer named Lenny Waronker, who decided to have them record the Paul Simon song "The 49th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)". The Song was released under their new name, Harper’s Bizarre, and it turned out to become a hit single. I remember looking at Harper’s Bizarre’s debut album and seeing a 5-pc. lineup, which included Beau Brummels drummer John Petersen. Original drummer Ted Templeman was still in the band, having moved over to guitar.
So what’s the point of the above three paragraphs? Running across the top of the mountain range that separates San Jose from Santa Cruz is a road upon which in 1970 was located a biker bar named Chateau Liberte’. In 1970 a band formed in San Jose that often played at the bar, who were going by the name The Doobie Brothers. And in 1970 Ted Templeman was now an A & R/talent scout for Warner Brothers. Ted secured The Doobies a record deal by year’s end.
Lenny Waronker and Ted Templeman became the main players in Warner Brothers and associated labels throughout the 1970’s and beyond, and The Doobie Brothers one of the biggest bands in Rock music. One early casually was Dave Shogren, bassist on the first album. During recording sessions for the band’s second album (the first stiffed) Shogren was shown the door. Funny story: In the Summer of 1975 I was driving through a residential neighborhood in Santa Clara (a suburb of San Jose) when I spotted an odd sight-----a Rolls Royce parked in the driveway of one of the tract houses I saw up the block. I slowed down to get a good look at my first Rolls, when out of the house sauntered.....Dave Shogren. I guess he took his share of the advances on the first two Doobies albums, put a down payment on a house, and bought himself a Rolls Royce.
Several years ago, at the Sheldon in St. Louis. The featured act was the Milk Carton Kids. The opening act was Molly Tuttle with, I believe, "She's with Her" as her band. IMHO, they blew the Milk Cartons into the weeds.
November 17th 1978, The clash played my local town and The Slits were one of the warm up acts. They were outstanding. Between the Clash and The Slits it was certainly the best concert I have been to.
Hooten Hallers warming up for Reverand Horton Heat a close second
1979 south side Johnny and the Asbury Jukes opened for j geils band, Boston Gahden. Floor seats, $7.50. Next time Ian hunter and Mott the hoople opened for j geils, v maybe 1980.whew amazing opening acts
Night Ranger opened for 38 Special at Saratoga Performing Arts Center in 1984.
I saw the Journey Departure tour in 1980. The Babys were originally scheduled to open but the date got pushed back and they had a conflict with the make up date. Too bad, I would have liked to have seen them live.
Outlaws opened for Skynyrd. "There goes another love song" was on the radio some, but few were prepared for The Florida Guitar Army. 40 minute long Green Grass and High Tides encore blew everyone away.
Skynyrd came out drunk and were terrible and we left.
@joeyfed55 - Also was at that Emerald City Beefheart concert, one of the few memories I have of the show is the Captain doing a song where he did his impression of a man in a straitjacket where the song lyric was 'I need some thorzine'
Always will remember the day my friend came over with orange sunshine and Trout Mask Replica - we musta listened to it 5 times and my brain never returned to earth
Hey Richmon that must have been a great show! I did see Allen Toussaint open for Little Feat at the Irvine before Lowell left us. Caught The Captain with The Mothers for the Bongo Fury tour at the Trenton War Memorial and at Emerald City with Rootboy Slim opening. Saw him at the Bijou for the Bat Chain Puller tour also, a true original. We were shouting " webcor, webcor, webcor!
I have to agree with everyone who's said this is a great thread! Brought back lots of memories.
For me, the first great opening act I ever saw was UK with Bill Bruford, John Wetton, Allan Holdsworth and Eddie Jobson at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in 1978. They did the entire first album and repeated "In The Dead of Night" for the encore.
The main act was Al Di Meola doing the Casino tour. When he came out for his encore, he said he'd like to introduce "3 very special friends." Chick Corea, Lenny White and Stanley Clarke came out and they did a 45 minute improv of "Romantic Warrior" mashed with "Duel of the Jester and the Tyrant."
No one was "better" than anyone else that night. It was simply 8 of the best musicians on Earth at the top of their game playing for people who loved them. A truly transcendental experience.
The only other one as memorable was seeing a young Joey Bonamassa at all of 10 or so doing a set with his dad's band at a place called the Beginning II in East Syracuse NY. We saw him play a couple of years later with B.B. King in the Landmark Theater in downtown Syracuse. 5 or 6 years later, he was showing up on PBS specials. We can truly say "we saw him when..."
Damn @petaluma, great post! I saw our (yours and mine) favorite band at The Berkeley Community Theater in 1969, on their tour in support of the brown album. By a wide margin the best band I’ve ever seen and heard live (and I’ve seen a lot). I sent for tickets to their ’74 tour with Dylan (held in my area at The Oakland Coliseum), but wasn’t one of the lucky ones whose number came up (it was a lottery). Damn it! And then I moved away from the Bay Area just before The Last Waltz was announced. Double damn!
I saw The Beatles at The Cow Palace in 1965, and they had a hot opening band, an instrumental one named Sounds Incorporated. Call me crazy, but I found them more exciting than the headliner. My first favorite band was The Ventures, whom I finally saw live in 2003, on the Surfin’ To Baja Cruise. Their opening act was another instrumental band, Los Straitjackets, who were a hard act to follow. And I don’t say that because their bassist was an old friend of mine (we met on the first day of 7th grade, and performed together in the 8th grade talent show). LS are now out on tour with Nick Lowe, doing an opening set and then backing him in his.
I’d give one my two hanging organs to have seen Emmylou with The Hot Band live.
Since Santana & Michael Shrieve have come up a few times I’ll relate a story told to me by a friend of Michael’s:
Carlos & Michael were friends and hung out together a lot. To see the movie Woodstock they, like everyone else, went to the theater when it first came out.
At the end of the show, when the light came on, people looked over, recognized them, and everyone there started applauding them!
I had a similar experience the first time I saw Los Lobos in 1983. Robert Cray was then king of the West Coast blues circuit, but on this night in Portland, OR he was headlining the Key Largo, not a blues bar (saw the great Emily Remler there on another occasion). One of the pre-concert rumors was that Los Lobos included the son of Garth Hudson. They had to have meant David Hidalgo, who kept soloing on different instruments throughout their set.
When Gram Parsons died with an album in the can, the studio needed to do something to reclaim the situation. They put together a hot studio band, recorded an album featuring Gram’s backup singer, and got them a slot opening for solo guitarist extraordinaire Leo Kottke on tour (late ’74 or early ’75?). We were front row center, and didn’t even know there was an opener until we saw the stage set up for a band! The evening ended up being truly life-changing from the moment the young Emmylou Harris walked onstage and literally stunned the audience.
Many years later, I saw an interview of Leo where he talked briefly about this tour. On later dates, Emmylou joined Leo onstage to sing some harmony vocals. Leo was flat-out amazed.
“I don’t sing in tune. How can you harmonize with me?”
“I sing halfway between where you’re singing and where you should be.”
Some other special opening acts:
Stevie Wonder opening for The Rolling Stones in 1972 - as mentioned several times by others
Bonnie Raitt opening for John Prine in 1973 - my first live "Angel from Montgomery", done as a duo with the author & Bonnie Raitt
Marshall Tucker opening for Charlie Daniels Band & The Allman Brothers in 1973 - the MTB seemingly owned the Santa Monica Civic for good stretch of the 70s
The Band opening for Bob Dylan in 1974 - first time seeing my all-time favorite group
Jackson Browne/David Lindley acoustic duo opening for Bonnie Raitt in 1975 - just before the Running on Empty tour, when Bonnie opened & Jackson had a kick-ass band featuring Lindley
Roy Buchanan opening for Robert Cray, Albert Collins & Freddy King in 1984? - Roy could do anything that could be done on an electric guitar
This isn't technically a case of an opening act, but at the 1968 Northern California Folk-Rock Festival I witnessed The Electric Flag precede The Doors on stage. The concert poster shows Country Joe & The Fish as the act between the two, but I don't remember them (didn't like 'em).
The Electric Flag were absolutely on fire, Michael Bloomfield proving what a great guitarist he was, drummer Buddy Miles making Keith Moon seem like a light-weight. The Doors had to follow them, and in contrast sounded pretty weak. I had seen the Doors about six months earlier (at The Continental Ballroom in Santa Clara, where I played my first live show in 1966), and they were much better that night. Maybe hearing The Flag intimidated the members of The Doors.
In the Summer of '68 my best friend and I went to The San Jose Civic Auditorium to see Lee Michaels open for Steppenwolf. The curtains opened, and there was Lee sitting at his Hammond organ and dual Leslie speaker cabinets, with about fifteen Vox Super Beatle amps running from left to right at the back of the stage. Impressive!
Lee and drummer Frosty kicked off the set with one of the songs from his Carnival Of Life album, and they sounded fantastic. A roadie brought out a glass of some liquid for Lee, setting it on his organ. Unfortunately the kid wasn't looking at what he was doing, as the glass fell over, the liquid splashing all over the organ, shorting something out. End of set!
We stayed for Steppenwolf's set, but I can't tell you much about it. The only live show at which I fell asleep.
First warm up band that blew my mind was a little band from TX, before the beards, wearing white cowboy suits and hats. Never heard of ZZ until that night in Tulsa. Main act was Humble Pie. IIRC, it was summer of 72.
A more recent warm up act that endeared me forever to her music was Shawn Colvin, who preceded Don Henley on his Cass County tour earlier this century. It was at the Cobb Energy Center in GA, and her acoustic guitar was as good as I've ever heard live.
Most disappointing warm up band (and please don't bash me, they're very talented) was Tedeschi Trucks, who filled in for Steely Dan when illness took them offline as warmup for the Eagles tour with Vince Gill. Or Vince Gill's tour with his new band. TT was just not what my ears were looking for, given my original expectation was for SD. The Eagles were better than ever that night, so my disappointment was short lived.
Mine was seeing Pat Benatar open for Billy Squire. Pat and Spyder killed it, and Squire got booed off the stage. As a side note... Santana's drummer Michael Shrieve was the youngest performer at Woodstock.
1978 The Warehouse in New Orleans. The Specials opened for The Police. We didn't know who they were at the time, but were absolutely blown away by their pure fun energy. They were actually swinging from the rafters in the venue. Everyone in our college gang immediately went out and bought their album.
In February of ‘74, I saw Billy Joel open for Harry Chapin. Joel was on his first tour for the Piano Man album.
So much energy and great music that night!
@jreiter- Styx opened for Marty Robbins??!!! That's inspired! Dang, somebody should start a thread about the most unlikely-billed shows they've ever gone to..
@kqvkq9- I moved to San Francisco in 1973 and I've been here ever since; I was in the retail and wholesale record business from '74 - '84 so I got to see a lot of shows for free.
The New Riders weren't really any wing of the Grateful Dead; just good friends; they were a totally separate band except that they sometimes toured with the Dead, Jerry played pedal steel on their first album and when I saw them back in '70 or '71 opening for the Dead, Jerry played pedal steel with them there, too. After that, Buddy Cage joined, one of the best pedal steel players ever...
On the other hand, Jerry Garcia Band and Kingfish were certainly wings of the Dead!
I wasn't here yet in March of '73 but I wouldn't have gone to that in Berkeley anyway; I'm not much into roots/Americana; the Grateful Dead is about as close as I venture there!
Man, you do get around. Sure, the Dead stopped and talked and fiddled around during shows, nothing odd there. What was hilarious about this particular show was that they had just started and they stopped and tuned up specifically in response to this group of idiots making fools of themselves right up front. I remember the sentiment from the stage being along the lines of "We really must be bad, damn, they're yelling at us, let's fix this."
I guess you had to be there.
Wait, you were.
Anyway, I haven't seen the Dead but a few times since Pig Pen died. I'm a native San Franciscan so I guess I got used to seeing them for free.
Here's a show you most likely saw, March 8, 1973 in Berkeley, a single guy strode onto stage with his guitar. We, in our ignorance, didn't know who he was but after he got the spotlight on him we figured out that Ramblin' Jack Elliot was something special. He was followed by Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen with the New Riders of the Purple Sage headlining. The New Riders, as you know, were the country wing of the Dead. Great show. Great opening act.
Why is the date significant? Well, we didn't know until later that that was the day that Pig Pen died.
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