EEK!! EEK!! SHAUN!!

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When I was 13 years old, I saw a multi-artist concert sponsored by KHJ in Los Angeles. I barely remember who was on the bill, but Tony Orlando was the MC, Jermaine Jackson performed for much longer than you think he'd have the balls to, because we were all waiting for the headliner, Shaun Cassidy. He wore red satin pants and jumped through a paper hoop. Me and my friend Dana screamed our little 13 year old lungs out. My father suffered in silence.

What was your first concert?

-- Kymm (hedgehog@hedgehog.net), June 30, 2000

Answers

Donny and Marie Osmond. It was so exciting, particularly when she ripped off her long skirt in the middle of a number to reveal hotpants underneath. The crowd gasped with shock at her brazen carry- on.

-- Jackie (jackiec@diaryland.com), June 30, 2000.

I was thirteen years old and went to see The Monkees at Boston Garden, with my best friend Kathy. We stood on our chairs and screamed for three hours. I was hoarse for days. My mother took a valium before we left, but by the time the Monkees came on stage it had worn off. She sat with her fingers in her ears while we had the time of our

-- kw (wishjrnl@aol.com), June 30, 2000.

I have yet to see a concert. Sad, no?

I remember about 10 (or so) years ago, my sister and all her friends went to see New Kids on the Block... I was SO jealous. Ha!

-- Katie (mrkite@apci.net), June 30, 2000.


Wellll... like I admitted in the 'guilty pleasures' topic, The Monkees were my first concert as well, during their 20th anniversary tour. I was 14, and my best friend was 18, and we were all over The Monkees and anything else hippie-related.

Because Dana was 18, we didn't have a parent with us, although her parents drove us there. We howled and screamed our way through the concert and generally had a grand old time. I got to relive the experience about a year or so later, when I saw them a second time.

I have no shame. :)

-- Lisa (lisa@selkie.net), June 30, 2000.


Technically, it was the Blue Oyster Cult, which my parents went to see when my mother was pregnant with me. After that it was yet another lame concert -- Cheap Trick -- that I was dragged to by my parents. I was about ten, and I made sure to ruin it for them by whining the whole time about how 'poopy' the music was.

-- Jackie Danicki (nein@freeuk.com), June 30, 2000.


My three brothers took me to see Supertramp the summer before I started high school. We had really good seats. "What's that smell?" I kept asking. "Oh, those are special cigarettes," they'd say.

-- Amy Lester (amy@petdance.com), June 30, 2000.

When I lived in Denton there was a plethora of opporutnities to see homegrown bands like Brave Combo and Little Jack Melody and the Young Turks. I saw the Dixie Chicks when they were still wearing long skirts and straw hats. I saw both Tripping Daisy and Deep Blue Something before they "made it." I saw The Reverand Horton Heat once in Deep Ellum.

But if we're talking about seeing a big name band at a big name arena somewhere...then I'll let you know as soon as it happens.

-- Jackie (jackie@jackie.nu), June 30, 2000.


The first concert I ever saw was The Boston Pops, Arthur Fiedler conducting.

Pete Seeger was next. Followed by Holly Near. Dave Brubeck. Oscar Peterson.

And that is the sum total of my concert-going experience.

-- Laura (windmills@diaryland.com), June 30, 2000.


Laura!

You saw Dave Brubeck????

Oh man. I'm turning deep sea green. Lucky girl.

-- Jackie (jackie@jackie.nu), June 30, 2000.


Hey Kymm - I was at the Jonathan Richman / Randy Newman show last night too! Aside from those few tense moments when it seemed like the sky was going to open up and dump gallons of water on all of our heads I thought it was great.

One thing though - did you happen to sense an Adam Sandler-esque vibe from Jonathan Richman? I think it had something to do with the inner child thing.

Anyway, my first concert was Simon and Garfunkel in Central Park. I remember feeling really grown up because my girlfriends and I were allowed to wander freely about the sheep meadow and pretend we were not being chaperoned by our parents. There were THOUSANDS of people there and at the end of the show we got lost in the crowd for at least an hour and I was sure that I would be kidnapped and sold into slavery.

-- Sarah (scampbell@frankfurtbalkind.com), June 30, 2000.



One of the benefits of attending a college with a conservatory of music attached to it was having big names appear on campus.

Dave Brubeck has a recording called "Jazz at Oberlin" that was recorded in the same place as I saw him -- Finney Chapel.

Not to deepen your greenness, but it was great.

-- Laura (windmills@diaryland.com), June 30, 2000.


Jethro Tull, at the Worcester Coliseum. It was my brother's idea. It was a freezing night, the hall was so cold it might as well have had no roof, our seats were halfway to Hartford, and we couldn't hear a damn thing because of all the screaming, lighter-waving fans. I've avoided stadium rock ever since.

-- Diana (diana@alum.mit.edu), June 30, 2000.

First concert? Violent Femmes, circa 1983. Kicked ass. But mostly I wanted to contribute to avow that I've seen Jonathan Richman five times now (number five having been in Montreal just last week) and am very pro-Jonathan. Anyone looking to add a little Jonathan to their CD collection couldn't go wrong with Jonathan Sings!.

-- Eric (epfeffin@indiana.edu), June 30, 2000.

The Jacksons, during their big reunion "Victory Tour" at Rich Stadium in Buffalo, NY. I was 11 years old, and a huge Michael Jackson fan. We probably had the worst seats in the world, but I remember it being like magic, especially when Michael did his solo part without his brothers. Ah, the good old days.

-- Kim (fresh@fresh-hell.com), June 30, 2000.

Well... it should have been KISS in 1976, but I was only 7 and my mom didn't want to take me. Then it should have been ZZ Top in 1985, but my mom didn't like the idea of me driving to a concert. Then it should have been Foreigner in 1986, but I sold my ticket to a friend who was actually a fan.

Finally, in 1987 I saw David Lee Roth's "Eat'em and Smile" tour. It's silly, but I still really dig that album. I suppose your first time is always special.

-- DinoNeil (nheidorn@hotmail.com), June 30, 2000.



Weird Al Yankovic, in the Alapalooza tour at the Paramount in Seattle. Now THAT was one awesome show, except that it was sponsored by KidStar and little kidlings got all the good seats (I was 16 or 17, I think). Well, and except for the fact that during "Yoda" I got a lot of dirty looks when I headbanged for a few brief seconds and managed to hit people three seats away with my hair.

I thought it was really cool that people on their way to prom went to the concert, too! OH, and the first song had a seamless blend between a sequence in UHF and the opening guitar riff of the song that just ROCKED.

Seen Al twice more since then, and he always puts on a fantastic show. If you're ever able to go I highly recommend it.

-- Katie (uncorked_shadow@yahoo.com), June 30, 2000.


Kymm, you saw Shaun Cassidy? Ooh, I am sooo jealous. He rocked my adolescent world.

I don't really remember my very first concert, but it was when my family lived in Rhode Island and we used to go to an amusement park (Lincoln Park, I think) which had acts performing every weekend. Mom's into country music, so we saw a number of country singers. The only one I remember is Jeannie C. Reilly, of "Harper Valley PTA" fame. We also saw Bobby and Cissy from the Lawrence Welk Show (one of Mom's favorite shows) and the New Three Stooges (?). I couldn't tell you which one was first.

My first real concert was the Simon and Garfunkle Reunion Tour at Dodger Stadium in 1983. I went with a bunch of high school friends, we sat on the field and I fell head over heels in crush with Art Garfunkle. Such a pure voice! I would have had a crush on Paul, too, but he was too short. Besides, he had just married Carrie Fisher, who was on the tour with them and came out on stage to throw her wedding bouquet (or one of them) to the audience, with the promise that whoever caught it would win a date with Art. Well, I knew I was too far back, but I still raised my arms, just in case. The bouquet was caught by a guy. I don't think he took them up on the promise of a date, but I could be wrong.

-- Carol (webgal@ordinarygoddess.com), June 30, 2000.


Def Leppard, Hysteria tour in-the-round, Tacoma Dome. 1987. Got socked in the jaw by some idiot pumping his fist during "Pour Some Sugar On Me." Both my hoop earrings were yanked off during the course of the show. Thank god this was before I got my ears pierced.

Red light, yellow light, green light, go / Crazy little woman in a one- man show!

-- Kim Rollins (kimrollins@yahoo.com), June 30, 2000.


Hey, I was at Dodger stadium, too, and on the field! Amazing that we didn't meet then, since there were only about ten zillion other people there as well.

The thing that I remember most was the queue--because the seating was open, everybody got there early and queued up in their cars. It was about a jillion degrees, and my car had no air conditions, not that I could have left it running for six hours or whatever to run the air. Everyone was sitting by the side of the road, panting and listening to music. It was really great.

The show itself was a revelation, hearing and seeing them live, and I remember Carrie coming out with the bouquet, but not that you won a date with Artie if you caught it.

-- Kymm Zuckert (kymmz1@yahoo.com), June 30, 2000.


Shaun Cassidy, also, because my sister and cousin were big fans. Shaun came out in overalls, disguised as a roadie, and then adjusted the microphone. My 16 year-old brother was hysterically screaming "That's him! That's him!", and when he began belting out "Da Do Ron Ron", we saw that it was, indeed, him.

I was 11. The next concert I went to after that was when I was 14, and it was Judas Priest and Great White. I was bored, and spent the entire show spitting gum onto the people sitting below us.

-- Robyn (robyn@hiwaay.net), June 30, 2000.


It was David Bowie, in Adelaide. Adelaide didn't actually have an indoor concert venue back then, so we were lucky to get anyone. I don't remember the year, but it was in his 'Thin White Duke' phase. I remember that, because I was so far back, he was more like the 'Small White Speck'.

Also saw the Bay City Rollers in Adelaide, in a nightclub/pub. But this was in '85....very, very sad.

-- jacqueline (admin@anv.com.au), July 01, 2000.


Nobody here is going to know the bands I'm talking about, but here goes...

My first concert was in eighth grade. I was twelve, and a huge fan of "Rechnitzer Rejects," who had their first -- and, I believe, only -- concert that year, at Brooklyn College, along with "Country Yossi and the Shteeble Hoppers," who I also rather liked. Both might be described as Jewish versions of Weird Al, although the Rechnitzers were wittier and funnier, while Yossi was targeted more towards children. Art Raymond was the emcee, "mentalist" Marc Salem put in an appearance between acts, and I think Yoel Sharabi got third billing, but I don't remember for certain.

At any rate, I managed to get a couple of tickets free from Radio Rechnitz (on which I was a regular caller at the time), so I got my mother to take me, and she ended up buying a couple more tickets for two of my siblings. It was pretty darn wonderful.

-- Shmuel (shmuel@nycmail.com), July 02, 2000.


First show? Excluding functions I was required to go to in school, I think my first concert was a Collective Soul show in '94 or so. Don't remember much about the show, other than hearing their random hits at the time. (In retrospect, I wasted my adolescence on math and philosophy, when I should've been experiencing as much of the Chicago music scene as possible.) The next show I went to after that was in '96, where I skipped prom to see Stereolab, which goes down as one of the two or three most enjoyable evenings I've had thus far.

-- Rob Jefferson (jeffer@techstep.org), July 02, 2000.

Oh my goodness, Culture Club, Worcester Centrum, night before Thanksgiving 1984. I went with my then-friend Julie (who put the fanatic in fan) and her friend Anne Something who drove. We got all dressed up: Julie in a gray and black kimono with a red sash, surmouted with a big black lace hat, I in a red satin toque and my dad's enormous old overcoat (Kymm, you'll remember that coat from Interlochen; worn and frayed though it is, I'm wearing it to our reunion in October). We arrived just as The Boy was getting onstage; because it was the night before Thanksgiving, the traffic was backed up for years, leading Julie to (I'm not kidding) howl and wail hysterically almost all the way there. Indeed, at the tollbooth she shrieked at the guy "We're very late!!!!" as if he was responsible of should care.

Oh, and the concert was memorable, too.

/Robert

-- Robert (rbdimmick@earthlink.net), July 02, 2000.


I think it was Adam Ant, at a little club in Houston my brother snuck me into. A year later ('82?) I saw him in a bigger arena, with INXS as the opening band.

Also in the early '80s I saw Sammy Hagar, the B52s, U2, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds.

-- deb (deb@io.com), July 02, 2000.


My first concert was Heart in 1976. I was 18, they were local kids whose first album was huge, and everyone I knew either wanted to be Anne and Nancy, or was in love with them. I seriously blocked out this memory until quite recently, I don't know why. Probably because I was so ashamed of the clothes I wore in the 70's. I still like Heart.

-- Lucy Huntzinger (huntzinger@mindspring.com), July 03, 2000.

Kymm, I remember you! You were the tall gal about 700 people to my left, right? I was the short, geeky looking brunette with glasses. Ohmig-d!

-- Carol (webgal@ordinarygoddess.com), July 03, 2000.

My first: Def Leppard, Krokus and Billy Squier. All in one night. I have no pride.

-- Nance (nance@geeksandgargoyles.com), July 03, 2000.

Not counting symphonies, I'd have to say it was either Battlefield Band at the Great American Music Hall, or Oak, Ash & Thorn at Industrial Freight and Salvage. Only one rock-esque concert, Cat Stevens at Davies Symphony Hall in SF, and he looked and sounded bored, bored, bored. Came onstage, played his stuff, left. We left halfway through because he sounded better on the tapes we were listening to in the car on the way there. Saw the EDLOS at GAMH & IFS, then The Bobs at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis.

-- Colin (ethilrist@prodigy.net), July 03, 2000.

My first concert was in 1987, Duran Duran, at Market Square Arena. Which is now gone. My second was Melissa Etheridge, at a little club that is now gone. You see, I can't go to concerts. I just end up closing down the venues.

-- Saundra (headspace@anywherebeyond.com), July 03, 2000.

Only Canadians on the list will get this one!

When I was about 11, living in a hick town in Nova Scotia, the Crowbar concert was the big, big ticket. Murray McLaughlin opened!

I looooooved Crowbar. My mom had the album and I could must have memorized every note. Bet I could still sing the lyrics, if I heard 'em.

And how hick a town was it? They played in the high school auditorium. Whooo!

-- Cameron (cameron@cimtegration.com), July 03, 2000.


"could must have"?

Dang, it must be bedtime. O mighty Kymm, feel free to edit out that l'il stupido, if you're feeling magnaminous....



-- Cameron (cameron@cimtegration.com), July 03, 2000.


When I was 13 years old, I loathed Shaun Cassidy. I was on the receiving end of so many lame name puns thanks to that damn song ...

My first concert was at Kingswood Music Theatre at Canada's Wonderland, just north of Toronto in June 1985. I saw The Smiths there. James was supposed to be the opening act, but they cancelled. Instead we had some no-name singer by the name of Billy Bragg opening for The Smiths.

There was approx. a dozen of us, who all hung out together every night at Gord's Place in St. Catharines, that squeezed into a couple of cars and made it the best overall day of that wild year. We arrived at the amusement park when the gates opened and spent the day on the coasters and other rides.

-- Ron Collings (dragon@crescentschool.org), July 04, 2000.


Gee Cameron, I thought that was just a Canadanism, like "usta could" is an American Southernism!

-- Kymm (kymmz1@yahoo.com), July 04, 2000.

Cameron will know this band, My first concert was April Wine, they toured back and forth across Canada for years, I must have seen them a dozen times.

-- Daniel (truth60@yahoo.com), July 04, 2000.

My first local, home-grown concert was Robin Thompson (anybody remember Candy Apple Red?) in the early 80s.

After that, I graduated to Miami Sound Machine at King's Dominion in the late 80s. Man, I loved Miami Sound Machine. I went to King's Dominion two years in a row just to see them.

My first actual stadium concert was at Wolftrap in 1994. It was the Irish folk festival, so there was a whole slew of bands.

-- Catherine (catcoicrit@earthlink.net), July 05, 2000.


I totally loved Shaun Cassidy. I use to carry around a little red looseleaf book "My Shauns" I use to call it. Every picture I could cut out, I glued into that little book. Sigh! I just listened to his stuff on Napster (can you howl?) and I was transported back 20+ years... My first concert was Fleetwood Mac in 1987. I wish it was Shaun in 1978.

-- Liz (reece12@yahoo.com), November 09, 2000.

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