I am of an age that allowed me to see some artists & bands live that many of you would loved to have seen and heard, but that now are just not that valued by myself:
- Jimi Hendrix at Winterland, ’68 and ’69. First time great, second time tired, like he was treading water.
- Cream at The (original location) Fillmore, ’67 and ’68. Thank God for Eric Clapton that he heard Music From Big Pink, and saw the light. ;-)
- The Nice (Keith Emerson’s pre-ELP band) at The Fillmore. Gawd do I hate Progressive "music".
- The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Country Joe & The Fish, in the Panhandle in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco during the Summer Of Love.
- the doors (lower case their doing, not mine ;-) at The Santa Clara Folk-Rock Festival in San Jose, Summer of ’68. They closed the show, Fritz (Stevie Nicks’ and Lindsey Buckingham’s local Garage band) opened. However, The Electric Flag (Mike Bloomfield and Buddy Miles’ band) were incredible!
- The Beatles at The Cow Palace in South San Francisco, Summer of ’65. Disappointing, just not that good. Of course, by that time I had been going out to see local Garage bands like The Chocolate Watchband (seen in the movie Riot On Sunset Strip), The Trolls (later Stained Glass, two albums on Capitol Records. Bassist/singer/songwriter Jim McPherson was later in Copperhead with John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service), The Syndicate Of Sound ("Hey Little Girl" hit single), The Otherside, and many, many more.
But the worst, by far, was The Rolling Stones at The Staples Center in L.A., early 2000’s. SO lame, nothing but cliche’ Rock ’n’ Roll Star posturing. Even worse---empty, vapid "entertainment"; they sounded TERRIBLE. How embarrassing.