Here's a new meme suggested by the comments on this post from yesterday. Commenters correctly guessed that I saw Iron Butterfly perform "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida." (It was 1969, at the Atlantic City Pop Festival, and they played a very long version of their big song twice.)
Picking up the cue, commenters started talking about great acts they had the privilege to see in their prime. And Volokh Conspiracy's Jim Lindgren totally won.
But it made me think of a new question: If you could travel back in time, which five music performances would you like to see? Give the artists' names, the year you want to hear them in, and -- to make it more interesting -- the song you want them to play.
UPDATE: This chart might help. (And let me just brag that I was at the June 14, 1969 and the May 15, 1970 show.) That chart suggests lots of other questions: the one show you'd most like to have seen, the most obscure show, the most ridiculous combination, the most quintessentially sixties show ...
August 10, 2005
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23 comments:
Oh no, it had to be a music meme. It couldn't be a cinema meme, when I'm on terra firma.
I saw Frank Sinatra perform when I was nothing more than a little girl (the ushers didn't even complain at my presence either, nor did the audience get snarky with my parents, "Couldn't you find a minder then?").
I don't even know when that was (1982 at a guess), but I am happy today I can make that boast on Althouse.
P.S.: I have my Top 10 Films of all Time ready to go, Ann. Just say the word!
Cheers,
Victoria
Jimi the H. Janis Joplin Jefferson Airplane Iron Butterfly and the Doors - anywhere, anytime. Right on, man!
Power to the people! Tell it like it is! That's heavy, I mean really heavy! I mean like, man, all kinds of shit will be coming down - all the heads will be there, man!
Sherman, set the wayback machine to 1958, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, England.
Artist: Buddy Holly & The Crickets
Song: Rave On
Let me be clear: Iron Butterfly was not very good. But in the days before people actually figured out how to do heavy properly, they had real idea and it was fun to see the phenomenon emerge, butterflylike.
Mozart, any time.
Bach when he did the improv thing that led to the "Musical Offering".
Beethoven's first performance of the 9th Symphony.
Bessie Smith in a bordello bar.
Beethoven, 5th Piano Concerto
Beatles, Sweden, 1963
Brian Eno & Robert Fripp, when they used to do their very odd 'tour', 1975
The Cramps, I dunno, 1982?
hmmm...maybe even Nancy Sinatra doing "Boots are made for Walking" back when it first came out...with her dancer backups, of course!
Wouldn't it have been fun to see the Beatles rooftop show in Jan, '69 from a nearby roof? You can see a few people do that in the video...
1. Sinatra 1965 in Vegas singing Luck Be A Lady.
2. Sinatra 1968 in Vegas singing September Song
3. A 1956 Alan Freed all-star spectacular with Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the rest. I know the song I wouldn't want to hear is the all-star jam.
4. Morrison at the Whiskey-a-go-go singing anything.
5. Any Elvis concert before he found uppers in the Army.
It's just a testament to my misspent high school years (just a subway ride away from St. Marks Place), but I probably hold this particular record. Just after the Fillmore East closed for good, there was a magazine with a listing of all the shows that played there. After counting down, I realized that I'd been to 91 of those shows.
But remember, when I first started going there in the spring of '68, tickets were 3,4 and 5 dollars. When it closed three years later, I think the top proce was still only 7 bucks.
PS -- That included Iron Butterfly. They were the headliners ... The warm-up act that night was the newly-formed Led Zepellin.
Those of us in Detroit had a place called the Grande Ballroom in the late 60s where I saw Procol Harem, Cream, Mary Hopkin, Joe Cocker and some others who I don't care to name. Joe Cocker, with the Grease Band, was my favorite. It was a place you went without telling your parents.
[1] Mozart as a child prodigy. [2]Bruce Springsteen, dropping into the Stone Pony before he and the E Street Band really hit the big time, but when those in Asbury Park knew they had talent. [3] Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens the day *before* the music died. [4] The Beatles in Shea Stadium. [5] Bad Company playing at the IronWorks in Columbus, Georgia on November 17, 1988--my first date [a blind one] with my husband. I would not be able to tell you the songs I want to hear...I want to hear the whole bloody concert!
Genesis with Peter Gabriel. The 1975 Lamb tour would've been great, but the sound was lousy, so I'll opt for the Selling England by the Pound Tour of 1973-4, and I'd like to see Supper's Ready.
Grateful Dead ... something from one of the Fillmores in the Spring of 1971 - probably Hard to Handle.
Allman Brothers - anything with Duane that was a bit more upbeat.
Derek and the Dominos - Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?
Dire Straits - I skipped them on my last chance to see them figuring they'd be around the next summer.
The Iron Butterfly post reminded me of the one and only Right Said Fred concert where they opened with I'm Too Sexy, covered something, and then closed with I'm Too Sexy.
Artist: The Who
Song: My Generation
Venue: Leeds University, Feb 1970
This, ladies and gentlemen, IS the majesty of rock.
I think this list would change every day, but for today's it would be
1) Elvis Presley, just before recording his first record (1954?), any song (runner-up: to be present during the "million dollar quartet" at Sun)
2) The Clash, 1977, any song (runner up: the Sex Pistols performance on the Thames during the Queen's Silver Jubilee)
3) A Harlem great from the 30s or 40s--Louis Jordan is today's pick; any song
4) James Brown at the Apollo in 1962, any song
5) Husker Du, 1985 or 1986, any song (didn't see them live until 1987, unfortunately)
First on the list has to be the first public performance of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Paris, France, 29th of May, 1913. Rioting, scandal, and no doubt amazing conversations with a guest list of the likes of Cocteau, Nijinksy, Picasso, and Duchamp (give me time to learn French and Russian fluently before heading back then though).
Second on the list would be seeing Farnielli in his prime. Purported to be the greatest of the Castrati (a movie a few years back was made about him). His first public performance in Venice in 1728 (let's add Italian to the list of languages) would be a good choice of time and venue. My reason for this is because it would be a unique experience, impossible to duplicate (and given how his vocal range was obtained, barbaric).
Third, Cheap Trick at Budokan, just cause that album rocks! 1976 Tokyo would be fun to see too (and again give me the time to become fluent in Japanese before sending me back.
Fourth, Lena Horne, any intergrated venue (the smaller the better) at any point in the 30s (that voice, that face, I wouldn't travel back to the Cotton Club, or venues of that ilk, for all the tea in China)
And Fifthly allow me a counterfactual time and place. The 1994 Lollapalooza tour (at the Aztec Bowl in San Diego) with an intact Nirvana (and alive Kurt Cobain). They had signed on to co-headline with The Smashing Pumpkins shortly before Kurt blew his brains out (and, no, he wasn't too pure for this world). I was at the actual concert (without Nirvana, but still had Pumpkins and Chili Peppers) and his spectre hung over the festivities. The eeriest moment being when 'All Apologies' played over the PA between sets and it seemed like everyone was singing along (SFU brought that back up for me recently, now it seems as if I imagined the whole thing, and it is possible it was a different Nirvana song, but memories are slippery that way).
Soooo many worthies left off this list, but what are you going to do (and since this comment string started with a Sinatra boast I saw him at the Desert Inn, Vegas, on Valentine's Day, with my honey, but it was in 1990, and he was in decline, but he was still Sinatra).
Can I add Ravi Shankar to my list??
1) Miles Davis, c. 1959, anything off Kind of Blue.
2) Charlie Parker, Royal Roost, 1948...anything, anything at all.
3) Ella Fitzgerald, the famous concert in Berlin where she blew the lyrics to "Mack the Knife" (immortalized on vinyl and now on CD).
4) Frank Sinatra and the Count Basie Orchestra at the Sands, 1966, Fly Me to the Moon.
5) John Coltrane, any live performance of A Love Supreme, 1965, the whole thing.
1) Jimi Hendrix
2) Stevie Ray Vaugh
3) Lollapalooza, with Pearl Jam and Nirvana
4) U2 at Red Rocks, the infamous Sunday Bloody Sunday video
5) sorry, can't think of a 5th, I've seen too many good concerts.
CraigC: You're right, though there is something about the origin of heavy metal that I'm trying to get at. Hendrix was never called "heavy metal." On Iron Butterfly's historical role re h.m., here's Wikipedia:
The word "heavy" (meaning serious or profound) had entered beatnik/counterculture slang some time earlier, and references to "heavy music"—typically slower, more amplified variations of standard pop fare—were already common; indeed, Iron Butterfly first started playing Los Angeles in 1967, their name explained on an album cover, "Iron- symbolic of something heavy as in sound, Butterfly- light, appealing and versatile...an object that can be used freely in the imagination" Iron Butterfly's 1968 debut album was entitled Heavy.
The linked article is good on the time line of the development of the style. The Kinks have a special honor to be noted too. But the earliest actual metal genre things on the radio sound plodding and awful compared to later metal, and "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida" is the prime example of this.
I'd definitely use this time travel power to go back to a point before the group was successful. I wouldn't go to any big concerts of the sort that would be on some "Live" album -- not counting the live albums made off of some fan's cassette recorder. I'd like to see the Velvet Underground with Nico before the first album came out. And like Bill, I'd want to see the first time the Kinks played "You Really Got Me." I'd like to see one of the Beatles shows in Hamburg in 1960. I'd like to see The Who at the same phase (but after Keith Moon joined). And I'll give my last slot to Bob Dylan, in New York, before any recordings.
Any performance, any time?
-Marian Anderson, Easter, 1939, at the Lincoln Memorial
-don't know the place, but Rolling Stones, doing Gimme Shelter, with Merry Clayton doing that awesome backup vocal
-Elvis at the Louisiana Hayride
-I saw Melissa E. during that same 1995 tour, five rows back, and it was incredible. I don't buy her cds, but she's a great live performer.
-why oh why didn't I get to see the Clash, the Ramones, or Patti Smith when it mattered?
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