I saw the James Gang open for Led Zeppelin in Syracuse in about 1970 or 71. That was not their first US tour; in fact, I'd seen them a couple years before that at the Laurel Pop Festival in Laurel, MD. 

Starting around 2006, I started keeping a spreadsheet of every concert I went to. Interesting to look back on this stuff.... 

Some shows are lust especially memorable. Many years ago, I began to write very brief notes about the show on the ticket stub 

I wish I had written it down and saved it.  I saved all the ticket stubs and t-shirts.  I used to write down the playlists but I didn’t keep it.  Now there are web sites with a lot of the concert information including playlists.  I do remember my 1st show.  Montrose with Sammy Hagar opened for Black Sabbath on their Technical Ecstasy tour.  Ozzy came out for the encore with a laser cannon pointed at the audience.  I fainted and when I got up I was hooked for life.  

@bassbuyer - early Montrose was amazing; one of the first shows I saw when I moved to San Francisco was Montrose at Winterland; I'd never heard of them; their first album had just come out, but holy cow they blew me away. I remain convinced that if Ronnie and Sammy hadn't had ego issues with each other, that band could have been the American Led Zeppelin. 

I've saved a lot of my ticket stubs over the last 40+ years so I have physical souvenirs of the concerts---what kills me is to see the ticket prices back then. I've also been journaling for a long time. I also have Playbills from Broadway shows I've seen.

I've been long aware of missing much from those years, growing up in a crazy time and place does that to you. Still, I can remember many peak experiences at the many concerts I attended over the years. Living in an area with multiple universities and close to the big city provided easy access to a wide diversity of live music. Great times!

Larsman - Montrose did sound great. It wasn’t until years later that I realized Sammy was the singer that night.  A great band pairing that ended too soon. 

I remember because Jimmy Paige looked me right in the eye during their 1977 The Song Remains the Same tour.  Second row, Capital Center, Landover, MD.

Same goes for Pink Floyd crashing their plane behind the stage at their Dark Side of the Moon concert in 1975.

   I saw Montrose open for Slade at the Rainbow Ballroom in Fresno. Bill Church the bass player had family here. His sister was a year ahead of me in high school. They essentially played their first album and nothing more. Sammy only sang, no guitar. They didn’t play the opening for Space Station #5, and lacked the slide entry on Bad Motor Scooter. It didn’t take long for them to evolve and get past the primitive show they first put on. The only thing that grew faster than the bands popularity was Sammy’s ego. By the time they were a headliner his dressing room was separate from the rest of the band. He has what is now known as LSD or Lead Singers Disease, it’s progressive and sometimes fatal. I think that show was in 1973, but I didn’t take notes. My brother hangs out with Bill’s younger brother Bob as they both play drums. It’s always interesting to see opening acts like Van Halen go onto great success , but that’s another story. But what’s for sure is time marches on and I don’t run anymore. Cheers , Mike B. 

@fastfreight - in 1975, Pink Floyd were touring on 'Wish You Were Here', and premiering new material that would come out as 'Animals'. I was there and got some great photos, too. 

I have difficulty remembering my clean and sober days in detail (approx. 1975-1982).

I recall the concerts, but confuse the venues.

However, I did see a lot of live acts from late 1977 thru the mid 80's as I could walk to a performance pretty much any night of the week.

DeKay

I can recall which shows I particularly enjoyed but not much else. Off the top of my head, in no particular order:

Richard Thompson, El Rayo X, early nineties.

SRV '89 or '90 -- In Step tour

Los Lobos, Arlo Guthrie, David Murray, Jorma K., mid to late eighties

Oregon, Bonnie Raitt, P. Metheny, Paul Winter, J. L. Ponty, Cleo Lane, Les McCann, EmmyLou Harris, late seventies.

G. Dead ’73, ’77

Freddie King, Elvin Bishop, S. Stills ’73 - ’74.

R. Ford, mid ’90’s

Dave Holland Quintet, Vincent Herring, Billie Harper, gateway, Bobby Watson, Mark Turner, Kenny Werner, late ’90’s - early ’00’s.

61:

I was Googling old local concerts and somehow I found a link on Instagram which then led to the passing of someone I’ve known casually/locally since 1977.

Many Hollywood, CA locals and visitors of such (here from the 70’s on) know who he is.

He owned/rented a house down our street to an elderly lady (older than me anyway), so I ran into him occasionally when he was checking up on her - often bringing groceries.

He was the proprietor of Danny’s Dog’s (aka OKI Dog) located @ Santa Monica & Gardner in Hollywood.

Danny’s Dogs was a major hangout for Punks, Rockers, New Wavers and none of the previous in the 70’s.

My wife asked me just the other day if I had seen Jimmy lately and I replied not for quite some time, but I suspected the the lady/renter down the street may have passed as the house was being cleaned up and refurbished.

https://www.fukuimortuary.com/obituary/sakae-sueyoshi

DeKay

A friend of mine came up with a good name for an old folks hippie care facility - Ten Years After Rest Home.

Personally, I still like "Old and in the Way"

OOOPS...guess I proved @larsman 's point!

@fastfreight -  Indeed - another thing that helps me is that I was a concert photographer during the 70's and I know (most of the) dates of the gigs I photographed. 

I got to see the Dead, twice, and remember one of them 

Not much detailed memory but here’s a few I think of time to time...

Kansas late 70s....twice

Heart w/ John Cougar, late 70s

Doobie Brothers "What Where Once Vices" tour

Rush w/Blue Oyster Cult, early 90s

think I saw ZZ Top open for Ted Nugent late 70s

several later shows

Think I'm a little younger then some here. 

For me "The Red Hot Chili Peppers" was a big band to see live in the early 90's.

They played a small venue in Rode Island around 91, they had 2 opening bands with them. First was Smashing Pumpkins (before Siamese Dream came out) fallowed up with Pearl Jam (before 10 came out). Think tickets were like $25

It was almost a 4hr show, I remember being beside myself the entire time. On the following Monday went to 3 different record stores to get Smashing Pumpkins and Peal Jams records. Only to be told, they have no idea who those bands are, there are no records to sell. 

The second life changing event for me was Lalapalooza also think it was 1991, saw almost every band I loved, including Nine Inch Nails, Butthole Surfers, and Jane's addiction. That was an incredible day, no other festival has come close. 

Anyone checkout Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit shows over the years?  I went to a few when I lived in NorCal.  Some of the best shows I’ve seen with great collaborations.  I remember Neil and Bruce doing Down by the River.  Great stuff.  

I rely on memory, which is increasingly unreliable.  I find that I now bore people with long rambling and increasingly inaccurate histories of my early concert going experiences.  At least back in the day I would have bored them with accurate recall.

  I’m always amazed when someone likeBrett Kavanaugh or Pete Hegseth can produce a piece of evidence from their teen aged years to refute an accusation.  If I had saved my day planner from that era my mother would have undoubtedly tossed it at some point.

One of the reasons I started this thread was because I am incredibly jealous of some of the concert that some people have attended.  But then again, someone had to have seen The Police at CBGBs.  I admire the efforts some have made to remember the shows they attended.  My reliance on memory is faulty, but I know I smoked weed with George Clinton at the Apollo.  Whether or not Buddy Guy came into the men's room while soloing as I peed at the urinal is less clear.  But I do recall his roadie had the longest guitar cable I've ever seen.  It was somewhere on the northside of Chicago.

It really pisses me off that I can't get paper stubs to most concerts these days. I love to look at them now & then, mainly to recall where that concert was. We rarely bet big names in our small town but I swore one night, with company visiting from out of town, that we saw Jackson Browne here.  Nobody believed me, a trip  to the stubs drawer and I proved I have not yet lost my mind.

Hello @larsman ​​​​@onhwy61 !  So this 1975 Pink Floyd Concert kept rattling around in my head.  I keep remembering the plane crashing at the end of Dark Side of the Moon behind the stage.  It came from all the way across the arena up high!  Check out this set list: 

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/pink-floyd/1975/capital-centre-landover-md-4bd7031a.html

Jun101975

Pink Floyd Setlistat Capital Centre, Landover, MD, USA 

 Edit setlist Show all edit options

Tour: Wish You Were Here Tour statistics Add setlist

Setlist

share setlist  

1. Sheep

   (Early version, known as "Raving and Drooling")

2. Dogs

   (Early version, known as "You Gotta Be Crazy")

3. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)

4. Have a Cigar

5. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI-IX)

6. "The Dark Side of the Moon"

7. Speak to Me

8. Breathe (In the Air)

9. On the Run

10. Time

11. Breathe (Reprise)

12. The Great Gig in the Sky

13. Money

14. Us and Them

15. Any Colour You Like

16. Brain Damage

17. Eclipse

18. Encore:

19. Echoes

 Some Animals and Some Wish You Were Here for sure!

And the entire Dark Side of the Moon Album!

:) Ken

@fastfreight - awesome! Thanks for the correction; I didn't think they were still doing all of 'Dark Side', but they did have 2 sets....  I did see them at Merriweather Post on the 'Dark Side' tour... 

My very first concert (I was thirteen) was on Friday August 16th 1974, at the Capital Centre in Landover Maryland. It was a happy accident, as one of family friends had a cancellation.

If memory serves me correctly The Souther/Hillman/Fury band opened up, second was Little Feat, and the headliner was Three Dog Night (though I could have the first two bands backwards). Went with an older friend and her boyfriend, his sister and brother.....they were all huge Three Dog Night fans.

I remember really really really liking Souther/Hillman/Fury, and absolutely having my face blown off by Little Feat; and actually Three Dog Night was excellent too. To this day Little Feat Waiting for Columbus is my favorite album of all time, it brings back memories of that night.

Souther/Hillman/Fury also led me to bands like Poco, Manassas, Buffalo Springfield, and CSN&Y in all of their iterations. Funny how a twist of fate can change your life. I have spent the last decade trying to find a concert poster of that night