Mose Varty-Seppanen wrote:Give me a break. I like that little "like" adage Americanism. My ears were ringing for 2 days. Happy? Happy now?

Of course not! You got bad ears! I'll be happy when you tell me it went away and you're all OK now.

My first concert was U2. My first club show was Naked Raygun about two years later.

I took my two boys to the Touch and Go last year. I wanted to make sure their first concert wasn't the Justin Timberlake Comeback in 2016. Besides eating popcorn I don't think they really enjoyed it, but I like to think they'll thank me someday.

Jane's Addiction and Lush at the Portland Civic Center, Portland ME, October 1990. I had seen Lush videos on Postmodern MTV and 120 Minutes and recognized the two females' brightly colored hair. That was about all I could see, and that one of them was hugely pregnant. Jane's Addiction were pretty good to my ears then (I loathe them now); I "moshed" a little. A review of the concert that appeared in the local paper the following day referred to their hit song "Been Caught Stealing" as "Walk Through the Door."

1984. I live in a tiny North Carolina town that doesn't even have a stoplight but does have a Baptist university. Somehow they manage to book the man burning up the 1983 pop charts, the Caribbean phenom himself...

Billy fucking Ocean.

My first concert ever was Billy Ocean! The shame. The horror. But when you're 12 or 13 and you live somewhere just outside Bumfuck, you'll take what you can get.

Aerosmith, which I had won tickets for (plus a "meet and greet" with the Joe Perry), probably '89-'90-ish. I was eleven and my dad went along for the ride.

Then in 1991 the Turkish national football team landed in my hometown for a training camp and the Ex and friends dropped by for an evening of beautiful noise and Kurdish protest music, which was basically my introduction to punk. I remember things went tense fairly quickly that night, until the cops chimed in and called quits on the whole affair which, of course, added to the ultra-coolness in a big way.

Green Day supported by the Riverdales (i think they were Ben Weasel's band that sounded pretty much just like screeching weasel) at Brixton Academy.

I was 12 and I went with my dad. I remember Billy-Jo Fuckface changing guitar to a cheap one for the last song so he could smash it up and feeling very cheated. And thus, at this tender age, the Rock 'n' Roll mystique was ruined for me.

Good job too.

Greg Allman Band at Bumbershoot in Seattle, right around the time that MTV pushed "I'm No Angel." I think I was 13. It bored the hell out of me.

I saw a bunch of other shows after that, including Mother Love Bone a year or two later. In hindsight, MLB were a lame, lame band, but they pushed my interests in a radically different direction. Also saw Soundgarden at Bumbershoot a year or two after that, and they ruled.

First punk show that I can remember: Beat Happening, The Fastbacks, and Mecca Normal at the OK Hotel. I was 16 and went with some friends of mine, one of whom was Bret Lunsford's cousin. She (Khalea) now plays under the moniker The Blow.

my first show: the Cars with Peter Dayton band opening. Boston Garden, 1981 I think. I was in high school. Peter Dayton is now a painter/artist of some reknown. The show really sucked, the sound was horrible, the Cars just stood there and played.

For a couple of years after that, I thought the smell of pot was the smell that loud music made, or the smell that amplifiers made when they were played loud.

The next show was the Cars again at the Garden the next year. Then I gave up on arena shows. Next show after that was the Pretenders (with Suicide) at the Orpheum Theater. That was a fucking awesome show.

the$inmusicisallmine wrote:For a couple of years after that, I thought the smell of pot was the smell that loud music made, or the smell that amplifiers made when they were played loud.

In heaven, if it existed, I think this is exactly what loud music would sound like...

If I'm in the room, it usually does.