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I guess I must be one of those here who've been around longest, and this, combined with starting to go to gigs at an early age means that I've seen fabled bands in their prime... but what I'd give to be twenty five years younger instead and still have my folks... anyway, I've headscratched and tried to put gigs in date order as best I can, but doubtless there'll be mistakes... and I'm VERY sorry I can't do paragraphs. You have been warned. Onward..... Pink Floyd - Hyde Park '70. Atom Heart Mother with orchestra. Ayers, Harper, Edgar in support. Lovely, sunny, stoned day. I was fourteen ~~~~~~ Pentangle - LSE '70/'71sh. Our English teacher, a closet head, drove a load of us down in the school minibus. Bert 'n John sitting duelling away, Danny and Terry powering it along, Jacqui singing Light Flight ~~~~~~ Mountain and Wishbone Ash, Rainbow Theatre, London '71 ~~~~~~~ King Crimson - Hyde Park '71, unleashing Islands ~~~~~~~ The Who - Kennington Oval '71 ~~~~~~~ Mahavishnu Orchestra - Crystal Palace Garden Party '72. Bottom of the bill. Johnny Mac in white, slaying the unsuspecting hippies lying on the grass in the sun. Stunning. Top of the bill: Yes, premiering Close To The Edge. Great, but not MO ~~~~~ Groundhogs - Cambridge Corn Exchange '72. Split and Thank Christ... LOUD ~~~~~ Hawkwind - Cambridge Corn Exchange '72. In Search Of Space tour. Pink Fairies in support, plus Stars feat. Syd. Album of this gig: Leave No Star Unturned, released last year. Oh the lights, oh Stacia ~~~~~ Amon Duul 2 and Magma - Cambridge Corn Exchange '72/3. A great double bill. Vander and Top were/are nutters ~~~~~ Faust and Henry Cow - Cambridge Corn Exchange '73. Faust in almost total darkness, strobes, road drills, TV's ... ~~~~~ Man - Cambridge again, '72/3. The Be Good To Yourself tour. Spunk Rock ~~~~~ Can - Friars, Aylesbury '73. The only time I saw them with Damo. Band and audience a mass of whirling hair. This gig changed music for me ~~~~~ Santana - Empire Pool, Wembley '73. The European leg of the tour that produced Lotus. Better ~~~~~ Roy Harper - Kingston Polytechic '74. Plant sitting crosslegged in adoration in the wings. Stoned, echoed perfection. My favourite Roy solo gig ~~~~~ Gong - Hyde Park '74. My favourite one of theirs. Lovely day, lights, sounds, smokes. Kevin Ayers feat Nico and Ollie in Dr. Dreamy support ~~~~~ Tangerine Dream - Cambridge Corn Exchange '74. The Phaedra tour. Lit up, lay back, closed eyes.... like hundreds of others ~~~~~ John Martyn - Kingston Poly '75. As per Roy ~~~~~ Can - Hammersmith Palais '75. The perfect match of venue and band, doing Babaluma. Karoli soooo cool in white, Hells Angels bopping stage front, me leaning over the balcony. I treasure this memory ~~~~~ Roy Harper and Trigger - Hammersmith Odeon '75. Near stage, I took a long drag between numbers. Roy saw me: "That much???? You must be addicted!!" Oh, the embarrasment. Didn't spoil a superb gig, though. What a band ~~~~~~ Floyd/ Beefheart/ Miller/Harper - Knebworth '75. The last time the original band played Echoes. My favourite festival. Full stop. ~~~~~ Tangerine Dream - Fairfield Hall, Croydon '75. Part two of Ricochet was recorded that night. A very propulsive sound compared to Cambridge, rather like the Sorcerer OST ~~~~~ Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Hammersmith Odeon '76. The night Like A Hurricane was filmed. I was five rows from the front, in front of Neil. Perfection. Slated for Archives 2 ~~~~~ Genesis - Hammersmith Odeon '76. The Trick of the Tail tour. The best that I saw them '71 - '77. Am unashamed ~~~~~ VDGG - Royal Festival Hall '76. KILLER!!!! ~~~~~ Frank Zappa - Hammersmith Odeon '76. The Zoot Allures tour. Just a quartet. I never saw him work harder ~~~~~ Millie Jackson - Hammersmith Odeon '77. Near stage, her rapping about lurve and life. Muscle Shoals band. What a voice. What a woman. Four Tops in support, iirc ~~~~~ Spirit - Rainbow Theatre '78. Squid, Ian and I will go to our graves cherishing the memory of this night. RIP Randy and Ed ~~~~~ Frank Zappa - Hammersmith Odeon '78. The Yerbouti recordings. Oh for a spare £100 so I can afford the Hammersmith '78 3CD : ( ~~~~~ Ry Cooder - Hammersmith Odeon '78 and '80. Lovely gigs, can't choose between them... but the first had Chaka Khan on vox. Sigh. She.Was. So. Fit. ~~~~~ Taj Mahal - Putney Half Moon '80. Spectacularily sweet. Him wearing a big straw hat, playing a banjo on a stage in the corner 6" high. I still love his '70's records ~~~~~ Jackson Browne - Hammersmith Odeon '80. He'd narrowly escaped being killed in a crash the night before. Played his heart out. David Lindley ~~~~~ Bruce Springsteen - Wembley Arena '81. His conquering return. Three hours. I can't fault it. ~~~~~ Gregory Isaacs - The Venue, London Victoria '82. The Night Nurse tour. Sly and Robbie and the most exultational audience I've ever seen ~~~~~ David Bowie - Milton Keynes Bowl '83. Alomar and Slick together on tour for the only time. The live concert from the Station To Station CD box ground into the dust. What a sound ~~~~~ ZZTop - Hammersmith Odeon '83. The Eliminator tour. I didn't know about radio mics and thought they were miming at first. Er, no. Lovely 'n loud. Fek, it's thirty years ago..~~~~~ Al Green - Hammersmith Odeon '87. The tour he went secular again. Me in second row. He got off stage, and sang Take Me To The River from less than three feet from my face. It does not get better ~~~~~ Van Morrison and The Chieftains - Riverside Studios, Hammersmith '88. The Irish Heartbeat tour. An intimate, magical gig, me twenty feet away. People talk about him sometimes going to some other place when singing, him getting 'on'. It's true. I forgive him his grumpiness. Audience floated home ~~~~~ Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares - RFH '89/90ish. I bought a ticket for an old flame. She blew me out on the day. I still went. Second row, mournful face, empty seat next to me. A gorgeous singer's eyes and mine kept meeting. In the second half of the concert all the choir suddenly turned and looked at me at the start of a sweet song I didn't understand and kept looking. I blushed hugely. At the end I just nodded. I have been sung to by Les Mystere Des Voix Bulgares. I take it as an honour ~~~~~ Bob Dylan -Hammersmith Odeon '91 - The Oh Mercy tour. I'd heard the record was good, thought I'd go to see him for the first time in years. Great gig. A Bobhead told me spare guestlist tickets were being sold half hour before showtime. The next night I went back. He was right. A few rows from front. Almost totally different setlist, still great. I was addicted, and went back and back, sitting in the sleb seats. One night was his 50th birthday. Jerry Hall slid into the seat next to me. In the encore Ron Wood came on stage and started methodically pelting him with a big bunch of gladdies one by one till he cracked up and went off. On the eighthish night I left afterwards and found my van and livelihood had been stolen. That stopped that. They were top gigs though. Bob at his best. Box ticked. Haven't seen him since, and don't need to ~~~~~ Velvet Underground - Wembley Arena '93. Their second gig after reforming. They still liked each other. Things got sour later.... but not that night ~~~~~ Richard Thompson - Sheffield Memorial Hall 2002. My favourite solo RT gig ~~~~~ Arthur Lee and Love - Sheffield Hallam Uni '03 and Leadmill '04. Standing below Arthurs mic stand and the trumpet starting to play in AloneAgainOr... If I'd died then, fair enough ~~~~~ Low - Leeds City Varieties and Manchester Academy 3 '08. Leeds was great. Then in November they came over and played a few gigs showcasing their Christmas EP. At A3 support band Ida joined them on stage. What a sound. GY!BE outclassed. I have seen SuperLow. They haven't topped it for me since. The gig is/was on Archive.org. ~~~~~ Neil Young - Manchester Apollo '08. Maybe I won't see him again. So be it. Ambulance Blues from a few feet away. Can't top that ~~~~~ Leonard Cohen - Manchester GMEX '09. He does laugh. Three hours. Can't top that either so I decided I wouldn't see him again. Memory bottled ~~~~~ The Necks - Opera North, Leeds '11. One number. Changed my musical horizon like Can '73 ~~~~~~ The Necks - Band on the Wall Manchester '12. Wonderful. Leeds no fluke ~~~~~~ Richard Thompson Electric Trio - Sheffield City Hall '13. The best guitar I've ever heard. Right, me up to date. A long strange trip.. hope there's more
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