Your First Concert Experience

[Phrozen Sands]

I have never been to a concert. I’ve seen some local musicians and bands, but for this thread, that doesn’t count.

How about y’all?

[carnation]

I went to tons of concerts for the big 60s and 70s groups because my cousin told us that we could get in free by ushering at the Houston Coliseum. I don't remember who the first one was--Beatles? Paul Revere and the Raiders? Stones?

[Cookiez17]

My first concert was at 3 months old. El gran combo de Puerto Rico. I also went to many concerts at celebrate Brooklyn for years (and still go.)

The first one I actually fully appreciated was a card with mega death and Motörhead as the headliners. Was 14.

[Shellfish]

I'm not going to say what my first one was, since that's a security question, so I'll talk about the second one. It was a multiact festival, POP 82, which I went to for the main act, Squeeze. The other bands were Split Enz, Third World, and the Bush Tetras, and the openers were one I'd never heard of before, Duran Duran.

[Cheerio]

RUSH. EXTREMELY LOUD EXPERIENCE. ALL THE KLEENEX FROM MY POCKETS BECAME STUFFED INTO MY EARS. IT WAS STILL TOO LOUD.

Afterward, we did our patriotic duty and bought unofficial, cheap RUSH t-shirts from the back of someone's old light blue van. The shirts immediately, and always after, smelled like old tires because their cheap printing ink seemed to be embedded into actual ground-up, old rubber tires. No nice silk-screened official group pic on an official tour shirt unless you paid double inside the arena!

[moe.ron]

My first concert I went with friends:

Clash of Titans Tour, 1991 Madison Square Garden.:
Anthrax, Slayer, and Megadeth, with a new, then-unknown band as the opening act: Alice in Chains

That show was the first time Bring the Noise with Public Enemy got played—way before the music video dropped. Chuck D and Flavor Flav showed up and the crowd went wild.

The floor was seated for about a minute before it became a giant mosh pit.

My 15 years old self was not ready.

[Xidelt]

New Kids On The Block, 1990. It was at the Orange Dome in Syracuse. A neighbor who was a music journalist got the tickets for my friend and me. He said they were "great seats." They were not. The seats were on the side of the arena almost parallel to the stage. Luckily, we were able to trade tickets with a large family who got separated when they ordered the tickets. The new tickets were floor seats, maybe 20 rows back from the stage. I had a blast! My friend and I also felt super grownup because her dad dropped us off at the arena and met us after the concert to drive us back home.

[*winter*]

lol XiDelt, same! Us and everyone who was a preteen in that era

We had bad seats, but I was like 11 and just excited to be in the same building as Jordan Knight.

[AGDee]

I wasn't allowed to go to concerts when I was in high school- until I turned 18. That summer I saw John Denver and Hall & Oates in concert.

[honeychile]

Steppenwolf!

[aephi alum]

Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center.

My parents were very into classical music, and didn't want me exposed to rock and roll. (Didn't work so well. I had a boom box.) Once they felt I was old enough to sit still during dinner and the concert, they started bringing me along.

I still love classical, and I sing (one of my chorales sings Handel's Messiah every Christmastime), but my playlist leans more toward alternative and metal.

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by carnation

I went to tons of concerts for the big 60s and 70s groups because my cousin told us that we could get in free by ushering at the Houston Coliseum. I don't remember who the first one was--Beatles? Paul Revere and the Raiders? Stones?

You saw The Beatles in concert?!?!?! How I wish I had!
Although I have seen both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr a few times.

[carnation]

We walked a few blocks to the Houston airport to watch them come in the middle of the night. There were all these trucks tearing around on the tarmac, probably to keep the girls from knowing where the Beatles were (and getting attacked).

So we were off by ourselves, a few hundred feet from everyone else, and suddenly, 2 trucks drove up next to us. Someone set a board between the 2 trucks several feet over our heads and 4 guys ran from one truck into another. We could see their silhouettes in the dark, we could see 4 very agile guys with longish hair. We will always believe it was them.

[Kevin]

Man.. lots of them. I can't really remember what exactly my first was, but I believe it must have been the Vienna Boys Choir when they performed in OKC. My father took me and said that he didn't think they'd ever perform in Oklahoma.

And I guess they were more of a big deal in the 1980s than they are right now.

I don't have any stories about rock bands or pop acts. I took my daughter to a Lindsey Stirling Concert at the Zoo Ampitheater in OKC a couple years ago, and that would have been my first pop concert.

Otherwise, growing up, one of my good friend's moms played in the OKC Philharmonic and we really didn't appreciate it at the time, but we went to rehearsals and concerts and kind of had the run of the civic center.

I've been to probably hundreds of rock concerts, but I was performing in all of them (fiddle player). I used to have regular gigs at different bars in the OKC area back during college. These days I perform with various community and professional groups. I'm playing in the pit for the Nutcracker this weekend. Tech rehearsal tonight.

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by carnation

We walked a few blocks to the Houston airport to watch them come in the middle of the night. There were all these trucks tearing around on the tarmac, probably to keep the girls from knowing where the Beatles were (and getting attacked).

So we were off by ourselves, a few hundred feet from everyone else, and suddenly, 2 trucks drove up next to us. Someone set a board between the 2 trucks several feet over our heads and 4 guys ran from one truck into another. We could see their silhouettes in the dark, we could see 4 very agile guys with longish hair. We will always believe it was them.

I am in awe!