What's the first show/concert you've been to?

Rush opening for Kiss, 1974 or 5. Civic Arena. Pittsburgh PA. Got to the show on the trolley, as we weren't old enough to drive.

 

I very much regret how little Western Classical Music I attended during my thirty years of living in London (GB). All I can recall now is a very few wonderful Mahler symphonies.

Wouldn't have watched opera though: I don't much like that classical-trained warble voice! Exception: did see a couple of Wagner operas at Covent Garden, just for the experience. It was amazing. Wondered how I could sit for so many hours.... but, love it or hate it, nobody could be bored!

Well, ok... perhaps your dad could be .

(I had a Wagner fragment as my morning alarm for a long time!)

 

I really remember all the wrong things about the opera we were dragged to. My parents did genuinely love it, but I remember my Mum's anxiety that we not cough, my father's fatigue after a long day at the office, the parking garage under the art gallery, the sets and costumes, Melbourne's upper middle class milling around in the lobby in their eighties finest clutching overpriced champagne. Everything but the music. It's a shame, but I think it gave cranky teenage me the impression that classical music was a dead art form which one only attended to dutifully as a signifier of middle class respectability.

Also, I think my parents thought that light opera would be a good introduction for us. The Merry Widow, Gilbert and Sullivan. I probably would have preferred a bit of Sturm und Drang.

 

I actually enjoyed G&S! I was playing it when my contemporaries were grooving to the Beatles. And having sex.

But I never went to a live performance.

 

My takeaway:
Beatles = Sex
show tunes = celibacy

so show tune induced celibacy is a long term affliction... good to know

 

In a different context, it might actually get one laid.

 

Saw Maynard Ferguson, Herbie Hancock, and Buddy Rich all during my senior year in HS which would have made me 17 (1974). What I consider my first real concert was Jethro Tull in 1977 at the old Milwaukee Arena, had front row seats. It was a great show and magical experience and I wasn't even high.

 

Blink-182 and My Chemical Romance with Matt and Kim 2011

I remember being in the Hollywood Bowl smoke everywhere being bombarded by MCRs light show thinking of how frustrating the group in front of me was. I did think it was a bit genius to carve a full baguette to hide a bottle of wine.

Luckily the wine & and the smoke won, only to pacify themselves by the time Blink 182 was to perform.

 

I actually despise being in the center of huge numbers of people, so am not a concert-goer, but fun fact I was at a "fake" concert many moons ago. I was an extra in the concert scenes of this music video when I lived in Florida, which was my first (and maybe last) concert experience:



(don't laught at me)