Hard News: Friday Music: The First Time
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Sacha, in reply to
early WWOOF
Unwilling Workers, prehaps
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
here’s a salute to the golden age of hard rock.
Very nice indeed, though I'm a tad disappointed that the TV's not plugged in. My understanding, based entirely on hearsay, was that you got enough extension leads to allow for the drop, so the working TV gave a great rainbow splash on impact with the pool below.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Very nice indeed, though I'm a tad disappointed that the TV's not plugged in. My understanding, based entirely on hearsay, was that you got enough extension leads to allow for the drop, so the working TV gave a great rainbow splash on impact with the pool below.
There would have been a slight problem...
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
and so did Blam Blam Blam.
This shot is at Canterbury Uni and it might be the same tour. It says 1981/2 on the back and I’m thinking it’s either The Screaming Blam-matic Roadshow or the Marsha tour.
Edit: although looking at it, it ain't February so ...
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Henry Barnard, in reply to
prehaps
Definitely prehaps but I was willing :)
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Good Lord... first international concert? Slade at Te Rapa, Hamilton on a hot day in January 1973, when I was 16. Don't think I've intentionally listened to the group since :)
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Regunned tubes...
I’m a tad disappointed that the TV’s not plugged in....
shades of Hunter S Thompson's FALILV Samoan lawyer in a bathtub scene...
I do remember though, that an imploding TV tube though a PA sounds pretty damn loud - during Toy Love's Tuesday residency at The Civic in sydney, we had built up a scrappy backdrop of old televison sets (an ode to the joys of inner city, inorganic rubbish collection days) some working and badly tuned - one of which which Chris rammed the mike stand base through, as a rousing finale for one memorable version of Frogs!
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The first "gig" would have been some itinerant band passing through the Coromandel in the 1970s, and thus up to the Colville Town Hall. I doubt I wanted to be there, and have blocked it out. The only one I remember enjoying was Red Mole, but does that count as a "gig"? I thought they were more Cabaret?
And then there was the horror of Sweetwaters 1980 (could'a sworn it was earlier than that, but anyway). I liked watching the circus children practice, but I spent most of the time feeling cold and bored and hungry and penniless. I could not tell you a single band that was there. Looking at the listing on the Kiwi Concert Archive, I feel cheated for not having been able to appreciate what was on offer.
But on to happier times, and the gigs I chose to attend. It's easy to remember these because there are so few of them.
I wanted to go to Madness in London in 1981 (my mother was going), but it was R18 and I was 10. So...
First International Gig: Eurythmics, Athletic Park, Wellington, 28 Jan 1987. I wore a black skirt so short my friends called it a cummerbund. And black shoes borrowed from my cousin because they insisted (valuable advice) that I could not wear white shoes with a black skirt. I enjoyed the concert (enjoying live music was a novel experience), and remember Annie Lennox stopping the show till some anti-social lout was thrown out.
After that, Crowded House in Palmerston North, July 1987. A very dull Mockers concert at Massey in 1988 (far too much like all those childhood gigs I would rather not have gone to), and... no, in fact, I don't remember the other two in 1992 (Powerstation) and 1993 (Mt Smart Stadium). I think after that I figured out live music and I weren't really made for each other, and I was better off doing things I enjoyed more, which is a very long list.
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First proper concert was Split Enz, Enz With a Bang Tour, Napier Municipal Theatre, November 27, 1984. I think the support act were Coconut Rough, but they didn't play Sierra Leone, so no-one knew who they were. Wow, 29 years ago this week! I was 13 at the time. Me and a mate went and I bought a tour T-Shirt that I wore until it fell apart in about 1987...
I had planned on going to see Dire Straits the previous year in Wellington with my parents, which would have been 28 March 1983, but high winds in the capital led to the show being postponed by a day and we had to drive back to HB as we hadn't arranged to stay the night. Dire Straits were my first international live act in 1986. This time we went to Auckland though...
I also remember a festival at the showgrounds in Hastings in about 1987 - RockMania?? Headlined by Peking Man, Hello Sailor, Soul on Ice, Ardijah maybe. Was my first exposure to Flying Nun as Sneaky Feelings and Verlaines played to mostly ambivalence. The daytime scene didn't really suit either band, though now I wish I'd paid more attention.
I reckon the first proper live show I ever saw was the NZSO (or part of it at least), led by Gary Brain, at the school hall at Havelock North Primary, probably 1981. I remember the Star Wars theme and Teddy Bears' Picnic, but time and tide play tricks on the memory..
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Rob Hosking, in reply to
Edit: although looking at it, it ain’t February so …
Looks too green for February.
That touches on something I meant to mention re: Sweetwaters - final weekend of January, lower Waikato basin, baking, broiling heat, and there is Graham Brazier in black leather trousers, fronting the Legionnaires.
Just about got heatstroke just looking at the guy. Bizarre.
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I lived in the country with unmusical, Merv Smith loving parents so never got to any gigs until I was 20, with one exception - a member of the Bulldogs Allstar Goodtime Band taught at my school, so they put on a show when I was about 11, in 1972 or thereabouts.
But I really went for it with my first paid for gig - 1981 Sweetwaters with Roxy Music (I would have gone in 1980 except my geography was so shakey I thought it was somewhere near Gisborne, which I deemed too far to drive).
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Hmmm - too far back to remember with clarity to be honest...
First 'festival' - Ngaruawahia
First 'concert' - probably Bo Diddley or Chuck Berry (or both together?)
First 'Free' probably Butler at a riverside concert
First Horticultural Hall 'gig' with The Head Band and Human Instinct and Ticket was pretty early as well (if they were all on the same bill?)
I had to do the PA/lights for "Certain Sounds' whenever they came to Cashmere High, while I was there, and all the assemblies and school dances - so uninvolved punterdom was a blurry concept from early on... -
First free school concert: Craig Scott and Angela Ayers. Hmm. I can vaguely recall my 11-year-old self liking Angela a lot but thinking Craig was boring.
First paid gig: Robert Plant, Mt Smart, on The Principle of Moments tour, with the Pink Flamingoes as support. During the PF slot, people set fire to the fence to get in without paying.
Best ever gig: Like Matthew H, I have to go for Violent Femmes 1990, except I saw them at the ANU student union in Canberra. Packed out venue, all totally into the band (the Femmes were big JJJ faves and very popular in Oz). I drove 6 h from the little town in country NSW where I was living at the time just to see them, and they didn't disappoint. My A0-size '1990 Debacle Tour' poster still hangs on the wall of my study to this day. Not quite sure how they managed to go so fast downhill after that.
The support was also excellent - Sydney's The Clouds, including NZ's Trish Young on bass.
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First concert - Bob Marley at Western Springs 1976 or 77, jumped the fence as we always did back then. Fleetwood Mac soon after.
Just took our son to his first gig at the Powerstation - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club- he loved it. He kept saying he would be heading down into the mosh pit but stayed beside us, when I asked why he replied " Looks a little weathered down there Mum", made me laugh.
Best concerts ever - all 3 Pixies gigs- Powerstation, Vector (bad venue) and then Christchurch, can never have too much Pixies. -
Russell Brown, in reply to
I lived in the country with unmusical, Merv Smith loving parents so never got to any gigs until I was 20, with one exception – a member of the Bulldogs Allstar Goodtime Band taught at my school, so they put on a show when I was about 11, in 1972 or thereabouts.
Awesome. And I presume they played 'Miss September'. In which case, they performed a song about pornography to a class of 11 year-olds.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
A Who's Who of Kazoos
Bulldogs Allstar Goodtime Band ... Awesome.
and back before shredding there was
The Temple City Kazoo Orchestra... -
Then various orientation tours – what year was it that the lemon heads headlined?
1993. Though at Otago I thought Muttonbirds were better. They had just released Nature the year before and smashed it on stage.
My first real concert was Elton John at Mt Smart in 1992 - Dad loves him.
But after 1993 orientation my first great gig experience was Faith No More at Sammy's in Dunedin. From a time when largeish bands used to actually come to more than two places in NZ. Borrowed my flatmates drivers licence to get in - he was a 27 year old Iranian with different colour hair and eyes. Luckily I wasn't ID'd having just turned 18.
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Of new music: thoughtful son in London sent me a CD of Public Service Broadcasting (the British group, that is). An interesting venture--inserts of 1940/50s news audio and old films (eg Night train), over driving instrumentals?
Anyone else heard/heard of them? -
Rich Lock, in reply to
Anyone else heard/heard of them?
Yes, they're excellent. They blew up here last year. They've been touring the shit out of the UK and some of Europe. They might make it further afield next year.
Here's one with a kiwi flavour:
Although personally I prefer 'signal 30'
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Mo MO, in reply to
OMG I was also at the Gary Glitter concert in Napier, I remember vividly standing on the piano at the front of the stage and him giving me a red rose which got attacked by all the other frenzied girls so all I ended up with was a stalk lol. Now that's a memory from the past. I never forgot that concert because I was so young and it was my first one.
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