— Musings —10.21.2011 01:49 PM
Top Ten list of bands I never got to see and likely never will
1. Minor Threat
2. Burning Spear
3. Marley
4. Magazine
5. Joy Division
6. Pere Ubu
7. Soundgarden
8. The Jam
9. The Slits
10. Young Marble Giants
…such are the lists I make on ten-hour bus rides back to Canada.
What’s your Top Ten list?
1. Teenage Head
2. Pearl Jam
3. Dylan
4. Queen
5. The Clash
6. Johnny Cash
7. Split Enz
8. Red Hot Chili Peppers
9. Iggy Pop
10.Dead Kennedys
Joy Division
Portishead (yeah I know, I KNOW…they *just* played Montreal)
Eva Cassidy
Soundgarden
Stevie Ray Vaughan
John Lee Hooker (although I did meet the man in person once, so that counts for something)
Sisters of Mercy
Gary Numan (still hoping)
The Stranglers
Cocteau Twins
Eva Cassidy should have been on my list too……such a talent taken far, far too young……
OK….its a rainy afternoon…..Bands I never got to see but wish I had….A rather pedestrian assortment, I admit…..and Ive included a solo artist….but I had a crush on Linda in high school…go figure….
1) Queen
2) Bob Marley….bought tickets, but show was cancelled due to his poor health…
3) AC/DC with Bon Scott
4) ABBA….was given tickets but gave em away cuz ABBA just wasnt cool…
5) Lindisfarne
6) Talking Heads
7) Guess Who
8) DOA
9) Andre Riu…..jes kidding…
10) Linda Ronstadt when she still sang rock and roll
11) Faces, Small and otherwise….
Not in any particular order…
The Pixies
Bauhaus
Be Bop Deluxe
Stone Roses
Teardrop Explodes
The Clash
Cracker
The Fall
Guadalcanal Diary
Herman Brood & His Wild Romance
I actually missed a lot of good concerts… I could probably pick another 10 pretty quick.
The Stone Roses announced they were reforming this week. Three concerts initially slated for Manchester in June, possible new album and world tour after that.
Guadalcanal Diary! Never thought I would hear someone else mention them. Amazing band, saw them a number of times. Including opening for REM back in ’86 at UBC’s War Memorial Gym.
1. The Clash
2. The Velvet Underground
3. Young David Bowie
4. Ramones
5. Black Flag (with Keith Morris)
6. The Misfits (With Glen Danzig)
7. My Bloody Valentine
8. Elevator to Hell
9. Black Sabbath
10. Stephen Harper
This list is pretty preliminary. As a young person there I have seen or still can see many of my favourite bands, so this is basically a list of my favourite bands from before I would have been old enough to see concerts, based on who I would expect to give the best performances. Makes it a little bit lame, but I’m a sucker for a top 10 list.
Young David Bowie circa Ziggy Stardust is a great pick. Also THE classic Black Sabbath lineup with Ozzy circa Paranoid.
Stardust era would be great. Anything with Mick Ronson still in the band really… And yeah Paranoid era for Sabbath for sure. Or maybe a little later just to hear some stuff from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.
The Rolling Stones
AC/DC
BTO
The Guess Who
Led Zeppelin
The Band
Stevie Ray Vaughn
ZZ Top
CCR
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
The Pogues (with Shane MacGowan as front man)
The Ramones
Pink Floyd (with Roger Waters)
Velvet Underground
Iggy and the Stooges
The Clash
Butt Hole Surfers
Guns N’ Roses (the original group, befor Axl went nuts and they all left)
Metallica (circa 1986 – not the present day sucky Metallica)
Johnny Cash (not a band, but that’s the way I roll)
Best list so far as my tastes go. Liked Young d Bowie from a diff’t poster above too.
Nirvana (could have, shortly before Kurt kicked, but didn’t want to rent a car and drive over the mountains into Calif.)
AC/DC (backing up early Van Halen, who sucked, but unfortunately Bon Scott died a couple weeks in advance and the actual band that replaced them featured some guy with big hair in a pink spandex body suit)
The Who (could have gone to Seattle for the tour after Moon died, backed up by Clash, didn’t. Will always regret.)
Captain Beefheart, San Fran. Another one I will regret.
The Last Couple Drive By Truckers Shows.
Titus Andronicus.
Please let me see tuneyards before I die. That chick is Jesus.
Jandek. I`ve heard he`s appeared in T.O. once or twice.
1. Dead Kennedys
2. Nirvana
3. Fugazi
4. The Clash
5. The Misfits
6. The Modern Lovers
7. The Unicorns
8. The Exploding Hearts
9. T.Rex
10. Television
Magazine is playing some dates in England next month with the classic lineup in place. (except for John McGeoch) Who knows, maybe they’ll make it across the pond.
Probably not going to do an 11 here.
1. The Who, when they still had Keith Moon.
2. The Doors
3. Janis Joplin with the Full Tilt Boogie Band
4. Jimi Hendrix
5. Led Zeppelin, with Bonzo of course
6. Nirvana
7. The Beatles, post-1966 (after they quit touring)
8. Paul Butterfield Blues Band, when they had Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield & Elvin Bishop
Oh man, I saw The Paul Butterfield band with Elvin Bishop at the New Penelope in Montreal back in 67 or 68. What a treat that was!
They were a major force in the so-called Blues Revival that took place in the 1960s. And Butterfield, though a white boy, was one of the best blues harmonica players ever. Same goes for Magic Dick who used to play with J. Geils Band.
Plus, having Bloomfield and Bishop in the same band was one of the greatest guitar duos ever in a band. That band was a bit like the early Animals, though: loaded with talent all through the lineup, but also mega-destructive personalities and epic substance abuse. Not surprisingly, they died young.
Because I never did #9 or 10,
9. Deep Purple’s lineup for the Machine Head album: Ian Gillan, Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Roger Glover and Ian Paice. In their prime, of course. A very short time at the top, but that album was a masterpiece. And like so many albums, the best known song (Smoke on the Water) was actually the weakest one.
The Dead:
Ray Charles
Johnny Cash
John Lee Hooker
Handsome Ned
Marvin Gaye
Peter Tosh
Jim Croce
Badfinger
The Band
Solomon Burke
The Living:
Bob Dylan
Boz Scaggs
Buckwheat Zydeco
Etta James
Gene Pitney
The Rolling Stones
Pretenders
The Pogues
Toots & The Maytals
The Waterboys
I know I broke the ten limit rule but this was almost impossible… And I think I’m showing my age.
Gene Pitney is alive?
BTW, another good fantasy list is not neccessarily BANDS that you would have liked to have seen, but famous concerts that you would like to have been at. E.g., Altamont (well, not in the line of fire), Woodstock (as long as I would have had access to a decent toilet, food, etc. and not eaten the brown acid). A big one for me would have been when Dylan went electric, played the Newport Folk Fest, and got booed. BTW, I would have been an infant, so all 3 of these examples are pure fantasy . . .
Doors in Miami when Morrison got arrested and may or may not have exposed himself . . .
Elvis’ Vegas comeback . . .
Monterrey Pop with flaming guitars . . .
Another great concert I wish I would have attended: The Last Waltz concert, recorded for posterity in Martin Scorsese’s film.
Dead. 1940-2006.
Ah Geez… another regret.
Stones r not alive – undead I think
Nice one.
Not going unless they play in a bar.
Excellent point. I second that.
It was said at SARS – Stock the ONLY Band that could have followed ACDC was the Stones, & they may have been creekie but they were able to follow ACDC
the only one that still matters
Paul Weller (with or without Style Council)
Actually I have more fun writing up lists like,
Books I Pretend I Have Read.
Now I even have that list subdivided into lists depending on the reasons for pretending to read them, and reasons why I haven’t. Challenge?
Django and the Hot Club of France
Oscar Peterson Trio with Ed Thigpen
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
MJQ (Modern Jazz Quartet – for you 21st Century types)
Oscar Peterson Trio with Barney Kessel
T Monk and G Mulligan
Any Charlie Mingus band – any of them
Django Rheinhart and the Hot Club of France ( I would go to see them twice)
Davis – Parker quintets
Blind Blake and The Lemon Drops
Danny Carter and his group doing ‘Indian Red’
Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians
Those are all great picks. I didn’t realize jazz was allowed.
I would add:
Count Basie’s classic swing band — with or without Sinatra singing. Especially on Atomic Basie. Most rockin’ swing album ever.
Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue lineup.
Dave Brubeck’s lineup for Take 5.
Benny Goodman’s swing band circa 1938.
Coltrane’s lineup for Blue Train.
Ella & Louis and their lineup for their first 2 albums together (which included Oscar Peterson on piano).
Lee Morgan’s lineup for The Sidewinder.
Cannonball Adderly’s lineup for Somethin’ Else (which included Miles Davis on trumpet).
I think it was summer of 1958, Newport jazz Fest was brought to the CNE. I bullied a couple of older guys (they were 18 or 19) into letting me travel to TO to take in the concert.
We sat in the grandstand ( I wore my new fake snakeskin tie – thinner than rope – jeez I looked sharp) and the announcer told us that because of the weather the previous night, the previous night’s concert would happen after the regular concert. So, till early hours, we got two concerts.
Brubeck and his quartet premiered some of their time/rhythm experiments. They played Blue Rond a la Turk. They finished, they looked at us, the entire audience seemed stunned into silence for several seconds, then slowly the applause and cheering rolled throught the stands.
(Maybe jazz isn’t allowed…I thought that the rule was that WK starts the ball rolling, and then we chip in to try to make sense of the thread.)
That’s a great story. I’ve seen Dave Brubeck twice now in the last 10 yrs or so, both times at the Vancouver Jazz Fest. Of course, now the guy is ancient (when he walks across the stage he looks like Montgomery Burns from the Simpsons), but there’s a thing with those old musicians sometimes where, once they start playing they might as well be 35. He’s still impressive and a unique virtuoso jazz pianist, but I envy you for being able to see him in his prime, when he was playing with Paul Desmond etc.
– The Beatles (my dad had tickets & asked if I wanted to go, I replied ” no, I like em but you won’t hear the music for the screaming Girls” -OKAY I was 9)
– Frank Zapa & the Mothers of invention (I was in conviction hall, but they never played, & I did not get my what was it? $18 back)
– Clash ( the year I spent in Europe I kept missing them & Plastic Bertrand seemed to be EVERYWHERE)
– DEVO (we drove to Cleveland to see ’em & missed em saw Per Ubu instead)
– Bob Dylan with the Band (Everybody must get stoned)
– The Electric Storm ( I don’t know if they ever toured)
– Procol Harum ( How cool would that have been to be in the club they debuted in with the Stones, Beatles, Donavan, Marianne Faithful, & Twiggy in the audience ? Holy Austin Powers!)
– Nirvana ( apparently they were playing in clubs not far from where my brother lived & we were too old & too un-cool to know)
– INXS (they are Australian after all)
– Run DMC
Honourable mention:
– Robert Charlebois
– Beau Dimanche
– Mocedades
– Serge Gainsbourg
– King Crimson
– They Might Be Giants
– The Mouldy Peaches
– Primus
– Genisus (with Peter Gabriel)
– Gnarles Barkely
I’m gonna use both halves of my brain for this one…wish me luck:
Hank Williams and the Drifting Cowboys
The Plasmatics
Mother Love Bone
AC/DC with Bon Scott as lead singer
Roy Orbison
Dead Kennedys
The Carpenters
Uncle Tupelo
The Runaways (hubba, hubba!)
and finally…The Replacements (sigh).
Off to Youtube now with my rye and coke to see if I can’t rustle up an epic concert with all of the above!
Thanx for the inspiration, Warren!
I saw Wendy O & the plasmatics in NYC, in 78 or 79 it was a blur of amazing weirdness
Jethro Tull (had to pick between them and Led Zeppelin, Zep won out, in ’73)
Saga
Stones
Depeche Mode
Yes (90210 era)
Deep Purple (Machine Head time)
Alice Cooper
Doobie Brothers
Fleetwood Mac
Jefferson Starship
…and a whole bunch more…but that Zep concert, in the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, July ’73, was just awesome! Robert Plant and the guys played for 2 and a half hours solid, and I got a decent seat for $7.50. Of course, that wasn’t the only concert I’ve been to, but that one was the most memorable.
Any of you guys ever get a chance to see George Thorogood?
Jethro Tull! I lived to see that band for a while in the 70’s we saw them in TeaHo several times, & drove somewhere (Pittsburgh?) to see them once. Back in the High Boots & Geoffrey Hammond-Hammond days. Almost went to see them at Casino WIndsor last year but it was Casino WIndsor.
I’ve seen Thorogood at least 3 times. He’s a good showman and a real crowd pleaser. He also attracts a very male, notably substance abusing crowd (very drunk and it smells like the inside of a bong the whole time). To me, it only adds to his rakish charm . . .
Substance-abusing to be sure, and not a bad vibe to be felt. I saw him in Edmonton in ’81. Wotta party!!
The Fall (not impossible, but distance makes it very unlikely)
Robert Wyatt
John Cunningham
Can
The Delgados
Smog/Bill Callahan
The High Llamas
Scott Walker
The Feelies
The Go-Betweens
Tommy Dorsey
Bill Haley and the Comets
ABBA
Billy Joel
Benny Goodman quartet
Chet Baker
Dave Brubeck
John Coltrane
The Manhatten Transfer
Bill Evans
Little Richard
BO Diddely
Duke Ellington
Jerry Lee Lewis
Around 1954-55 on a NATO gunnery and bombing school at RCAF Macdonald, jsut a few miles north of Portage La Prairie! We kids playing some sport or other on the school ground when the big bus rolled by! On its side “Duke Ellington and his Band of Renown!’ (“hey, I heard of them!”) Rolling in to play for all those young pilot trainees from Europe and Canada!
They played in the rec hall, a huge renovated-into-a-gym hangar.
Next morning, Mother handed me a bunch of drink napkins, each with the autograph of one of the band members.
In the 1960’s I got to see Ellington and band of renown a few times.
I sometimes wonder how time will treat his compositions and his overall contribution to 20th Century music.
(I wonder what happened to those napkins.)
Bill Evans…nifty pick.
James Brown and His Band of Renown!
Ray Charles
The Kinks
Sly and The Family Stone
The Boxtops
Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels
The Holy Modal Rounders
Little Feat
The Duke Ellington Orchestra
Tom Waits
I’ll go with 5 living and 5 dead.
Five I’ll Never See
1 – The Beatles (yeah, I know, cliche)
2 – Manic Street Preachers (with Richey)
3 – Joy Division
4 – Nirvana (I know, another cliche)
5 – Big Star
Five Still Possible in Theory
1 – The Kinks
2 – The La’s
3 – The Jam
4 – The Smiths
5 – Galaxie 500
The Rat Pack
Elvis
The Committements
Nazareth
The Monkees
The Partrige Family
Leonard Cohen
Bob Seger
The Smothers Brothers
The Knack
In no particular order;
The Rolling Stones
The Who
REM
AC/DC
Madness
The Specials
Jimmy Buffett
Weddings, Parties Anything
HooDoo Gurus
Stompin Tom Connor
and five I’m really glad I did get out to see;
BoDeans
Pogues – the tour with Joe Strummer
Alice Cooper – at an oldies festival in Madawaska
Forgotten Rebels – in a parking lot in Chalk River
Johnny Cash – three times
1. Led Zeppelin (#1 on my list by a LONG shot)
2. Soundgarden
3. Alice In Chains (when Layne Staley was still coherent)
4. Simon and Garfunkel (they were supposed to tour last year, and I had tix, but they cancelled)
5. Journey (sorry, I know it’s corny 80s stuff, but Steve Perry sure could sing)
6. Johnny Cash
7. Jimi Hendrix
8. Bob Marley
9. Pretenders
10. Dire Straits
No top 10 for but a band I love who I would have loved to have seen……..XTC
There’s another band I forgot to mention–in fact, I’ve never heard of them until last week, but they sound like a real hoot.
The WhatCheer Brigade.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/watch-joey-quit/article2204808/
Original Guns N’ Roses
Original Allman Brothers
Nirvana
Clash
Little Feat
The Band
Talking Heads
Crosby Stills Nash & Young *did see Young though
Bob Marley
Janis Joplin
I would add to this that I went last night to an AMAZING concert in Rochester last night with the Fiance and Papa (who did see Peter Tosh but not Marley c.1972 at Camp Fortune) It was Tedeschi Trucks band. Derek Trucks is current Allman Brothers guitarist, and likely the greatest living side guitar player along with his also uber-talented wife Susan Tedeschi who is the closest thing to Janis Joplin I have ever seen. Truly. Amazing. Download their live stuff from you tube. Their band is rounded out by a bunch of very talented musicians.
Finally – to those who said they’d like to see original Black Sabbath with Ozzy….my Mom did. The opening act? Alice Cooper. Oh, yeah, she was 13. It’s embarassing when your parents “outcool” you.
Original Allman Bros. — cool pick. There was only a brief time that that lineup was together before members started dying. That Live at Fillmore East album is definitely among the top live albums ever. I owe my older brother a debt for introducing me to it when I was a kid.
Oh and Tedeschi Trucks Band plays Toronto this TUES at Danforth Music Hall
https://www.tedeschitrucksband.com/event/2011/10/25/toronto-on
Too late in the day for a full top ten, but here are some night thoughts:
The Rolling Stones, Roxy Music in 83 (no money at time, but did see Bryan Ferry play solo twice later in the decade), Magazine (but did interview Devoto by phone), The Ramones (plenty of opportunities, but alas other priorities at the time), The Pixies, Prince, Burt Bacharach/Elvis Costello (almost bought a ticket from a scalper while walking past gig on the South Bank. c 1998)….ah the memories, did have a date of sorts with an ex-girlfriend of Eric Clapton once…a different list, some other time, some other place.