the ’Zine

HMXers' First Concerts: IV

March 18 by Christine Jandreau

Filed under: Behind the Scenes / 7 comments

We wrap up our exploration of HMXers' first concerts with some very special stories. Certain concert experiences are hard to find the words to explain, but a few HMXers were able to share these with us.

• “My first concert trumps everybody. Spice Girls. 1997. 12 years old. It was an amazing show, and I yelled ‘I LOVE YOU BABY SPICE!’ in between songs. My next show was Marilyn Manson with System of a Down and Green Day. Quite the jump between genres between concert one and concert two.” – Phillip Hunt, Operations associate
• “My first live show was They Might Be Giants at Stanford, CA sometime around 1990. I think I was 10. The show itself was pretty good, but one of the opening acts was just deer-in-headlights stunning. A grizzled old country man walked on stage ominously carrying a lap steel. He sang a song, one song, about a convicted criminal who was happy for his impending permanent rest before his unceremonious hanging. But instead of rest, thanks to a comedy of errors, his body is mistaken for a carnival dummy, a medical dummy, a Halloween attraction, and various other things. For the next 200 years his body tours around the world being pulled into various Scooby-Doo-like adventures against his will. Finally his hand breaks off, people realize that the dummy is actually a human body, and his odyssey comes to an end. This song took 30 long minutes to sing. Nobody got up. Nobody left. And when he was done, nobody applauded. The performer stood up and packed his lapsteel. Everybody watched him walk off stage, not at all sure of what to make of the gift we had been given.” – Chris Canfield, Playtest coordinator
• “My mom decided that she was going to take me (12 years old) and my brother (eight years old) to see Green Day at their free concert on the Esplanade in Boston. I wasn't too thrilled, because Oasis had recently been bashing Green Day in the press and at that point in my life I would have taken a bullet for the Gallagher brothers. Any doubts I may have had were immediately laid to rest as soon as Green Day started playing. The show drew something absurd like 75,000 people and it still stands as one of the rowdiest shows I've ever attended. People were moshing before Green Day started playing, they were crowd surfing trash barrels and bikes, and the show got shut down seven songs into the set. It was short, loud and intense and it blew my sixth grade mind. Years later I met a gentleman who was stabbed at the barricades at the front of the stage for this show. We were both talking about how we were at the show, and he proudly proclaimed ‘Dude! I got stabbed at that show! I'm the reason they shut the whole thing down!’ Small world.” – HMXHenry, Associate manager, community
• “My first big show pretty much spoiled all live show experiences for me, in a good way. I showed up waaay too early and was first in line to see Primus, Seas of Cheese Tour at the Roseland Ballroom in NYC. I was 15, with long unkempt hair I didn't know what to do with except braid it into awful pigtails. I was studying photocopies of a bio text book and doing my homework, tucked under the rail front and center. Such a dork! During the show, I wailed every lyric and sent so much love towards that stage that Les Claypool noticed and sent a little love back. No, not a wink or a gesture. He reached out the whammy side of the whamola during the ‘Eleven’ drum solo right towards me! I was immediately trampled by all the huge guys and I could hear Les yelling from under a pig mask, ‘let the young girl do it!’ I reached for the whamola and cranked it so hard I nearly pulled it right out of Les’ grip! I could see Tim, the drummer, cracking up at what a goofball face I must have been making. The whole thing was projected on stage, so I made some new friends at school the next day. And a few years later, when the DVD, Bring on the Fish, came out the whole whamola jam was included and my dork face was a scene select thumbnail, for all you non-believers!” – Sherika Vitureira, Artist
• “Woodstock '94. Still one of the weirdest/best/worst shows I have ever attended. I was one of the people who kind of decided 'f*** it" and went mud sliding down hills. I saw one of Blind Melon's last performances, saw a good performance by Metallica, a terrible performance by Red Hot Chili Peppers, a Traffic reunion (yay! I guess...) and an absolutely incredible set to close out the show by Peter Gabriel. I also got really close to Tabitha Soren. Interestingly if you have the double-disc CD compilation of Woodstock '94 you can see my face on disc two.” – Sean Baptiste, Manager, community development
• “My first rock show is kind of a weird one. It was 1995. I was in sixth grade, and it was a free all-ages show at the Velvet Elvis in Seattle headlined by Mr. Meringue, who had a single on the local alternative rock radio rotation. I had the Mr. Meringue single recorded from the radio on to a cassette tape that I played over and over, and was pretty f***ing stoked for the show. It was great, although today I am left with a huge dilemma. I can’t find anything for Mr. Miringue. It's like they never existed. No MySpace fansite. Nothing comes up in a Google search. Not even a Wikipedia page. And my cassette tape is long lost. If anyone has any links to this band, I would be hugely indebted. Mostly I just want to hear that single.” – Devon Newsome, Composer / Sound designer
• “I was 14 years old. It was 1975, Summer. The Edgar Winter Group with Rick Derringer. Rock! I was a huge Edgar Winter fan and my parents let my uncle take me. He let me go down to the front of the stage and he sat in the bleachers. During the show some tall dude hoisted me up on his shoulders where I was just a couple of feet away from Dan Hartman, the bass player. I waved my hand in his face and he high-fived me. It was cool. There's no DVD footage of this, or any thumbnail, or whatever, because those didn't exist back then. The opener was a band called Frampton's Camel with some unknown guy named Peter Frampton. Yeah, like three years later he would have the biggest record in the whole wide world, but people sat down while he played. I remember him using that voice-box thing in "Do You Feel Like We Do?" and thinking that was really cool.” – Kurt Davis, Office manager
• “In 1995 my first concert experience was Parliament Funkadellic at Lupo’s in Providence, RI. George Clinton, bright dreadlocks and all, appeared on stage wearing ski goggles as a head band, dark green sweat pants and a ‘101 Dalmatians’ bed-sheet as a shirt that particularly hot July evening. This era of Parliament did not include the Mother Ship, but the guy in the diaper was there and so was the very-necessary horn section. It was an awesome (albeit way sweaty) show and I had never thought of wearing my childhood bed-sheet as a fashion-statement before that fun-filled night.” – Fish McGill, Associate producer

Do you have a crazy first concert story? Share it in the comments. Missed a part of the story? Check out Parts I, II, and III.

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Comments

sjcurran...

Saturday, June 6, 2009

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oliwer...

Fun, so ****ing fun

Saturday, May 2, 2009

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tiddles...

First concert: Clevleand, OH Nautica Stage - Meatloaf before he got skinny and decided to create another album named like the first except with the addition of "2" to its title. Great show! That dude has an unbelievable voice and chick he sang "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" was smoking. I was 14 years old and I purchased my first beer at this show. Man, that was fun!

Thursday, April 9, 2009

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Waylong53...

Avenged Sevenfold, Papa Roach, Saving Abel, and another band I won't mention. I screamed until my throat bled when A7X came out. Papa Roach played Dead Cell, it was awesome. Haha. We left when Buckcherry (the other band) came out.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

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Doesany1rememberlaughter...

Ahhh My first concert was a Tom Petty concert when I was 15. It was great! From then on I was all rock all the time! Since then I have been to a Clapton concert and a Boston/ Styx concert.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

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Karmeleaux...

Hahaha, sorry for the double post, but autofilter made me crack up so hard. Might wanna whitelist words like that.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

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Karmeleaux...

Some of these made me laugh so hard, which is impressive because the first one made me kinda depressed at first. It was amusing overall, but it implies the person that said it is only three years older than me, and I was like 'Aw dang in three years I'm not going to be working at Harmonix much less being quoted for people's amu*****t.'

Thursday, March 19, 2009