What are your top three live concerts of all time?
Pat Travers at a local bar in Rome NY in the late 70's. Still hear those drums after standing 10 feet away and marveling. Instant Pat Travers fan. Also, Talas fan and spent many a night in clubs in awe of their power of the trio. The drummer had the sweetest voice and of course there was Sheehan making love to his bass. |
My parents took me to Bimbo's 365 Club. The show opened with Comedian Ben Blue pictured (the by plane pilot in the film, 'It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World'). Followed by Dick Contino's straight ahead bop quintet. Less than two weeks later I was taking individual Accordion lessons at Sherman and Clay Music on Broadway in Oakland CA.
I lost interest until I signed up for seventh grade band. Late to my first class the teacher was busy assigning instruments to the students. I picked up the upright Bass and managed to get a shaky A major scale and never put it down. At Oakland High Paul Jackson (who became Bassist for the Headhunters) was so kind to guide this surfy white freshman with records to listen to and coached me on third position open string exercises among many others. By now I'm hanging outside of the Both And, a narrow store front club in San Francisco listening to Rahsaan, Thelonious, John Handy etc. without a clue of just a fortunate it all was. By 1964-65 I believe @bdp24 can attest, San Francisco and the Bay Area in general was the new hotbed for rock music. Jefferson Airplane at the Longshoreman's Hall, the Charlatans at the Avalon, Big Brother and Moby Grape at the Warfield and many other Chet Helms productions soon to be followed by BGP and the Fillmore. Former KYA AM DJ Tom Donahue began KMPX FM. Between 6pm and 7am he played what must have been the only twenty or thirty new rock albums available and filling time with jazz and sitar music in stereo. My avatar is difficult to read unless you drop. A four night stand the weekend soon after Monterey Pop Bill Graham books the Jefferson Airplane, Gabor Szabo, and the opening third act on the bill, the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Bill the idiot. Thursday night the Airplane became unable to play and were replaced with Big Brother. Gabor's quartet should have been unable to play but those guys didn't miss a key change despite the same blue wedge that was going around. There may have been less than two hundred people, mostly musicians including the Airplane in the Fillmore when Mitch, Noel and Jimi took the stage to open the show. After a phenomenal three minute intro to Purple Haze a glance backwards the floor was now filled, all standing slack jawed in shear disbelief. If you saw them you know what I mean. Every guy wanted to play like him, every woman wanted to be with him. Between Duke Ellington and his orchestra at the Grace Cathedral, Tony, Ron, Wayne and Miles at the Greek. Weather Report at the Greek. Led Zeppelin at the Fillmore, Winterland and Kezar all in '69. Mick Jagger's birthday at Day On the Green in Oakland with a six aircraft balloon drop including inflatable sex dolls then Steel Wheels. Tower of Power in residence at the On Broadway or the Beatles at Candlestick. Every New Years Eve or the last Waltz at Winterland. Hardly Strictly Blue Grass for free. Janis, Carlos, the Doobies, Ron McKernan's Grateful Dead. Take your pick? |
