Alembic Guitars Club
Connecting => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: smokinbear on March 21, 2012, 11:41:14 AM
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Just saw it today here in the paper, Van Halen and Kool and the Gang. Are you kiddin me???? Plus from what i gather Kool and the Gang are the opening act!!! PLLLLLEEEEAAAASSSSEEEE!!!!!! ID go and just walk out after Kool, No Michael Anthony, No VH imho. Shame who ever put this one together.......End rant sorry. What has become of the concert industry???
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http://www.torontosun.com/2012/03/14/opening-for-van-halen-kool-with-bell
I had to check that out.... Strange mix of sounds but I guess someone knows what they are doing.
I wonder if they have a Jam together at the end of the night.... :-)
When I first went to see Bob Marley & the wailers, the opening band was a big funk band with loads of brass and EWF sounding music and clothes.
And of course there was the famous mismatch with Hendrix touring with the Monkees.
Jazzyvee
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I once saw Waylon Jennings open for the New Riders, in NYC. You might think two country rock acts would go well together, but the NRPS fans booed Waylon off the stage. He flipped everybody off on the way out, and the fans deserved it for being rude.
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I saw the Kool & The Gang/VH show at Madison Square Garden (March 1). We only caught the last two songs from Kool & The Gang (Get Down On It, and Celebration). This wasn't by design - it was an unfortunate reality based on getting to our dinner resevations late. The audience seemed to be into Kool & The Gang which really did surprise me. They sounded great.
Van Halen sounded good but not great. They were completely uninspiring to watch on stage. They were sorely missing Michael Anthony for both his stage presence and vocals.
Hendrix opening for the Monkees has got to be the all time biggest WTF? tour pairing.
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The Who opening for Herman's Hermits has to be right up there too.
Bill, tgo
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Hendrix opening for The Monkees?
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Early-mid 70's,Billy Joel opening for Cheech & Chong @
The Vancouver Gardens.
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I saw Brownsville Station open for Johnny Winter. Yikes!!! Smokin in the Boys room.......
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I saw Brownsville Station open for KISS in 1976. I still have the ticket stub, it was $6 for good seats! Mott The Hoople was also on the bill.
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Not exactly a worst opening act, but I always got a kick out of the pairing of The Bus Boys and The Waitresses.
Then, of course, there was the Moist / Hole gig.....
Rich
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How about when the Christian band Stryper opened for Motley Crue, it was billed as the Heaven & Hell Tour!
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Two mentions of Brownsville Station in one thread! WOW! One of my all time favourite bands but no-one over here has ever heard of them. Best song ever - 'My Friend Jack' is my ring tone. Shame about Cub :-(
back on topic, i was at the 1987 Monsters of Rock in castle donnington. Most of the line up was real thrash metal; WASP, Metallica, Cinderella, Anthrax and DIO. For some reason the promoters thought it would be a good idea to have Bon Jovi headlining (they were riding high on the success of slippery when wet). I've never seen so many bottles of p*ss flying towards the stage.
More recently, Alice cooper had Joan Jett and Motorhead as support in Glasgow. By the time Motorhead left the stage I could barely hear!
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Not a supporting role, I know, but I must say that Lou Reed with Metallica wasn't a brilliant match IMHO. Glynn
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Unless K&G do 'Beat It' with VH doing the solo!!!
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The worst pairing for me was a guy in the row behind us and whatever he was ingesting that made him retch half way through a Triumph show (Molly Hatchet opened - excellent pairing!). Otherwise, I've lucky from the sound of things.
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When Tuxedo Moon opened and Crime headlined at Mabuhay Gardens in 1978. That was a travesty. Crime didn't deserve to be in the same city as Tuxedo Moon.
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Didn't Sha Na Na play before Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock? To me that is pretty strange.
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My 8th grade girlfriend gave me tickets to see Sha-Na-Na in Chicago in 1973, and Robin Trower was the middle act before their headlining.
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King Crimson played before (and in the daylight??) at the Horde festival w/ Blues Traveler and Lenny Kravitz following up (Blues Traveler was pretty awesome).
I think only about 40 people were there to see Crimson.
Stephen
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Jerry Lee Lewis,
Ron and The Daytonas,
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Gene Autry, The Singing Cowboy (with his horse).
Mid- 1960's, Ozark Empire Fair, Springfield, Missouri.
Jon
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I've seen some pretty strange pairings in my day, Poco opening for Yes, and I did see The Who as the middle act for Herman's Hermits, The Blues Magoos were the opening act. Talk about freaking out a bunch of pre-pubescent girls!!! Vanilla Fudge opening for Cream but one of the weirdist was The Beach Boys opening for The Grateful Dead. That one was quiet a culture clash.
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Brownsville Station, Mott the Hoople, and Kiss? Man, this would have been my dream all-star concert from my junior high days! I grew up in Iowa, so we could see Kiss a couple of times a year, Brownsville Station when they had an album out. Never got to see Mott the Hoople, although I did see Ian Hunter after I moved to California (sadly, not the same). I am going to go spin Mott the Hoople Live now!
Worst pairing? Around 1979, when I was at college, the student government somehow managed to sponsor a show where UFO opened for The Atlanta Rhythm Section. Two great tastes that really don't go together. Somebody must have fancied themselves as a junior Bill Graham. After many years of hearing almost nothing but dull thud at Veteran's Auditorium in Des Moines, I was fairly shocked to hear some amazingly pristine PA at Maples Pavillion at Stanford for ARS. If you remember back that far, you'll remember that the bassist was a very big guy that played a Rickenbacker. The vocals and guitars at that show sounded very studio, but I remember that the bass was really clearly defined too, and that the big guy played a lot more than I expected.
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The Dictators, Burton Cummings and Alice Cooper, in that order, for Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare show in Terre Haute, Indiana..
Uriah Heep (with Wetton) opening for KISS..
John
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One of my partners in my office went to that Kool/VHshow here in Toronto - a diehard VH fan. Described it as bizarre .
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In 1974 I saw The Elvin Bishop band warm up for Frank Zappa and The Mothers.
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This is a little off subject, but still a strange pairing.....I saw the Experience Hendrix Tour last night, & Bootsy Collins did a pseudo funk version of Purple Haze! It was cool seeing Bootsy for the 1st time & his famed star bass, but I was thinking that Jimi was probably rolling over in his grave with all the disco pops being played on his anthem! Don't get me wrong, I love funk & although I'm not a slapper, I still appreciate the technique & those who can do it. I just didn't feel like it fit the iconic song at all.
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Megadeth opening for Metallica in '93, Mustaine almost paid with his life!
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Rockpile aka nick lowe and dave edmunds opening for van morrison at the palladium in NY.
Van played 35 minutes- threw the mic down and walked off stage.
i also saw rockpile open for blondie at wollman rink in Ny's central park (remember that place bill?) and once again they out played blondie
rockpile was a great band for 3 minute songs.
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197(?): Mike Quattro Jam Band (all-instrumental duo - the eponymous prog keyboardist & a drummer) opening for Muddy Waters.
1981: The OdD (new-wave - pronounced the Odd, not the ODed) opening for Vanessa Davis Band (jump blues)
1980: Humble Pie as the 3rd act between Kansas City, Missouri (a band, not the city), Angelz (never heard a band that pluralized with a z that I liked) and headliner Mahogany Rush - you can't imagine how I wished HP was 1st, so I could have missed the rest!
Peter
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1979ish - Summerfest, Milwaukee - Dixie Dregs (w/Andy West)opening for Marshall Tucker.
Somewhat similar genres - but the DD's musicianship totally whooped Tuckers. I think all I could handle was 2& 1/2 Tuckers songs and then had to leave. . .
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I believe my wife saw the Tubes open for the Mahavishnu Orchestra in SF in the mid-70s. Both great bands but they didn't exactly share an audience.
Although it can be rough going for the opening act, I kind of like that Bill Graham put together those crazy combinations back in the day. I suppose from the promoter's viewpoint they were selling the same show to two different audiences (hey, twice the ticket sales!) But in the end I bet there were a handful of people who would not have otherwise heard of the other act and might have been enlightened.
Yeah I know, it was probably ONLY about sales ... but I'm trying to find the positive angle! Tickets were cheeper back then too.
Jimmy J
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At the bumpershoot festival several years back
Iggy Pop opened for an Elvis Costello acoustic set.
Iggy was fun, lively , and the music kept us warm through the rain...as soon as Costello started playing everyone stopped moving and it got cold and dreary,
We left after a couple tunes.
(note to self: don't play slow acoustic sets in the cold rain .)
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Jimmy, don't be such a cynic! If you read Graham's autobiography (a GREAT read, Imho), you learn that Graham was deliberatly atempting to expose his hippie audiences to other types of music. Times have changed from those halcyon days when it wasn't always just about the money.
Bill, tgo
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If you read Graham's autobiography (a GREAT read, Imho),
I concur, a superb book. Just reading about his childhood gave me the chills.
Graeme
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I worked for Bill Graham back in 1977 -81 in various capacities .
I was sad for a long time after his accident.
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John Thomas Griffins an acoustic balladeer opening for The Mighty Mighty Bosstones a Ska band
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That is cool to hear about Graham, seems he was in it for the right reasons.
I'll look for that book.
Jimmy J
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Oooops, double post. Haven't done one of these in a while. I must be slipping in my old age!
Bill, tgo
(Message edited by lbpesq on March 25, 2012)
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Don't get me wrong, Graham was definitely thinking about money too. He was no saint. But money wasn't the only consideration. He was driven to provide his audiences with a good time and memorable experience, and refused to cut corners in that regard, even if it cost a little more. And Graeme is right on about Bill's early years. His childhood escape from the Nazis is fascinating. What he had painted on Winterland after it closed as an homage to the Grateful Dead can be paraphrased to apply to Bill too:
He wasn't the best at what he did,
He was the only one who did what he did.
Bill, tgo
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Jimmy.
It's Bill Graham presents: My life inside rock and roll
If you haven't read it by September let me know ;-)
Graeme
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p.s. It's 20:35 here. Just looking out of my window there's a fantastic conjunction of the crescent moon, jupiter and venus. Hopefully It'll still look as good when it's nighttime in LA.
Graeme
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Okay - Doug Henning (yes, the magician) openning for Canadian horn-rock outfit Lighthouse. Now that was strange.
R.
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On the other hand what are the BEST opening acts that you have seen for the band you really went to see. For me it was a triple header...Santana opening for the Allman Brothers, who played right before the Dead.
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That's an easy one. The Band opening for the Dead at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City on 8/1/73 - Jerry's 31st birthday. Twelve days later I moved to California.
Second place: the Dead opening for The Who at Oakland Coliseum, back in '76 I believe.
Bill, tgo
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Strangest would be Sha Na Na opening for Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention at North Central College in the early 70's.
The best would have to be Bela Fleck and the Flecktones opening for Return to Forever, 2008, in Philadelphia.
Keith
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Best? I dunno; Lonnie Brooks opening for the afore-mentioned Vanessa Davis Band? VDB co-billed with Roomful of Blues or (different gig) the Nighthawks? VDB opening for the Neville Bros? New Grass Revival opening for John Hartford? Mick Scott, Jim Post, Mike Jordan, Tom Dundee & Bob Gibson on one bill? Koko Taylor opening for Big Twist & the Mellow Fellows? (Only act I saw with the Dead was John Fogerty, and everyone concerned was off that night).
Peter
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I've been following this thread and have been struck by how much I can no longer remember of the shows that I saw when I was younger. But Peter's mention of the Nighthawks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwjEKi0B5g8) coaxed a memory. I saw the Nighthawks open for George Thorogood; and the Nighthawks, in my view at the time, stole the show, with Jimmy Thackery's guitar playing leading the way.
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Oh, and here's a much more recent high quality video of Jimmy's band playing live in the studio (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT28NpDlypE) at our local public radio station just down the mountain in Spindale, NC. Great tone, great playing.
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Sometimes the worst opening act distinction has nothing to do with the music, per se.
I witnessed the late Scatman Crothers open for Return to Forever at a small club called the Troubadour in LA. The year was probably 1974 ? 75 and Al Di Meola had just replaced Bill Connors on guitar and Al had to read some of the material from charts (and he looked like he was about 15 years old with a beard!).
With all due respect to him, we hardcore fusion fans had to suffer through the Scatman's antiquated vaudeville act -- complete with ukulele -- while impatiently waiting to hear RTF?s hyper-velocity unison lines, Stanley?s blazing chops and his glorious Alembic.
I'm almost reluctant to mention this, but it's absolutely true and culturally relevant. The Scatman ended his set with a song that had the disturbing refrain ?Walk on, N?s, walk on? (as in the derogatory N word historically applied to black people) and it seems like he repeated this phrase a thousand times in the course of the song. It was disturbing and seemed so incongruous (with Scatman being black, himself). The bottom line: he and his act were definitely out of their element with this particular crowd.
I was sitting behind a number of other black males in the front row with their big Afro?s silhouetted against the stage lights. It was easy to tell none were bobbing to the beat and I imagined the looks of disbelief and disapproval on their faces mirrored my own. The juxtaposition of Scatman?s homage to a painful throwback era versus the forward-thinking aspects of the fusion movement (and Stanley?s electric bass playing that was in the process of helping to revolutionize attitudes towards that instrument) had most of us wondering ? absent a perverse joke ? how on earth these two musical acts could have possibly been booked together.
Epilogue: After having our minds thoroughly blown by Stanley and the other members of RTF, and as we're staggering out of the club in a daze, we all slowly filed past the Scatman sitting forlornly at the now-darkened bar, virtually ignored as he nursed a drink. As my friend and I drew abreast of him his own frustration with the gig boiled over and he suddenly blurted out, Chick Corea, Chick Corea. That's all I hear. How about me, dammit?
An anonymous voice responded, Shut up, you old Uncle Tom!. Ah, those were the days?.
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Jimmy J
I should have read the entire thread before adding my 2 cents. Otherwise I would have mentioned I was at that show where The Tubes opened for Mahavishnu Orchestra at Winterland. This was with Narada Michael Walden on drums, Jean-Luc Ponty on violin and Ralphe Armstrong on bass.
I'd never heard of the Tubes and at one point during a song, racks of bread loaves were carted onto the stage and the lead singer started frisbee-ing slices of bread into the crowd! This must have been the first time they'd tried that, cuz' for the rest of the show, balled-up bread chunks bombarded the stage and were thrown MUCH harder back at the band. At one point a wad hit the singer smack in the face and he reflexively gave the crowd the finger, leading to a renewed barrage.
None of this was really my cup of tea, but Narada's ethereal cymbal work leading up to some of the most explosive power drumming ever on Eternity's Breath was well worth the price of admission.
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I love where this thread has gone, thanks to all who posted. I did see the Joe Cocker/Stevie Ray Vaughn pairing before he died and that was awesome!!!
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I love where this thread has gone, thanks to all who posted. I did see the Joe Cocker/Stevie Ray Vaughn pairing before he died and that was awesome!!!
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I would have looooved to see Stanley Clarke as Dick Hallorann in The Shining...
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Ah, the Troubadour. I once saw Tom Waits open for Martin Mull and his Fabulous Furniture there. Halfway through his set, Waits reached into his inside coat pocket, pulled out a half full beer, took a swig, looked at the audience and calmly said came with the coat. Later, Mull played slide with a vibrator, then turned it on, played Purple Haze, and said so that's how Jimi did it
Bill, tgo
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Someone mentioned The Mahavishnu Orchestra and I completely forgot about them playing here in Houston in a converted movie theater. The opening act was Tufano & Giammarese. Now, like me at the time, I had no idea who these guys were and when they came out with 2 acoustic guitars and did a slow version of The Beatles I'm a Loser I thought that I misread the marquee and it was the Guy Lombardo Orchestra they were opening for. Turns out these two guys were former members of The Buckinghams and were premiering their acoustic duo act. Not bad stuff but way, way out of their element for the crowd.
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Hey Chuck, nice to see another Alembic player from Houston!
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Dave:
The Nighthawks! NOW we are talking! I used to live in Newark, Delaware which was George Thorogood's home town...and the Nighthawks were HUGE there back in the day! Thorogood, among others, held them in high esteem. To say that the Nighthawks blew jammin' George away is no insult, because in all of my years I don't believe I have ever seen a better blues/rock bar band than the Nighthawks.
Cool story: I saw the Nighthawks probably 10 times in Delaware and Maryland over a 4 year span. Never met anybody in the band or said a word to them, but I was always right up front. Fast forward a few years...I was living in Atlanta, and when the Nighthawks came to town I was there, right up front as usual. In a (rare) break between songs Jimmy Thackery pointed at me and said what are you doing here, and they launched into their cover of James Brown's Please Please Please, which was a song that I always used to yell for. How he remembered me, 800 miles, several years and probably 500 gigs later, is beyond me!
Sorry for the brief thread hijack
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Great story Steve!
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It wasn't the worst opening act, because I loved both acts (they were on the same label at the time - Little David Records), but in the mid 70s I saw Kenny Rankin opening for George Carlin at UW, Platteville. Kenny was touring Silver Morning and I think George was touring Occupation: Foole.
Mike
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I would imagine Kenny G opening for Motohead would be pretty awesome as a mismatch.
Jazzyvee
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I am sure Kenny G opened for a Level 42 concert years ago that I went to - shows how memorable he was! Rather boring I think. Glynn
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i don't know if this really counts, but a few years ago i saw the Dead (sans jerry... i'm a little too young to have been able to see him) in either Charlotte or Atlanta play an encore with Sammy Hagar. made absolutely no sense to me, but not much did given my state of mind at the time. hilarious, none the less.
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wow, that's a bizarre pairing,
In 1980 we sold our new years eve Sammy Hagar tickets, bought some inebrients..and watched the space needle lights throb to the local rock station... no regrets : )
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I saw Michael Boltot open for Kenny G at the Iowa State Fair.
It may be the only concert I walked out on.
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I thought Michale Bolton and Kenny G were the same person. Has anyone ever seen them in the same room at the same time? hehehehe
Bill, tgo
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Micheal boltion has been on all the UK chat shows this past week plugging a new album (of oldies). He's had his hair cut (in 1998 apparently but I don't pay THAT much attention) and now looks like a really old Richard Chamberlain.
One things for sure reading all the posts, we've all seen some acts we maybe wouldn't have considered buying tickets for. I wonder how many we've come away liking ?
When I was younger, seeing headline acts at Newcastle City hall (like thin lizzy, Yes, Mahogany Rush and so on), we never used to go to to the auditorium to see the support bands, preferring to spend the time in the bar. I sometimes wonder how many gems I missed. I do recall seeing Chris Rea supporting Lindisfarne on their Christmas show one time and thought he was pretty good at the time. Unfortunately for him, Ray Laidlaw (lidisfarne's drummer) got up into the rigging above the stage and poured a bucket of water over Chris.
Graeme
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It hasn't been mentioned above and I wasn't there but, on a BBC4 prog rock documentary last week, it was revealed that King Crimson opened for The Rolling Stones at their legendary Hyde Park gig shortly after Brian Jones' death. That must have seemed a bit odd for the Stones fans.
Graeme