Bob's Chat - The Ones I Missed
As I mentioned in a recent chat I got to see some mighty fine performers in Australia in the 1970s.
However, I also managed to miss a few good ones:
Deep Purple played in Perth on May 6, 1971, at the Beatty Park Aquatic Center, as part of their debut Australian tour with Free and Manfred Mann. Back in 1971 I was a serious blues aficionado with very little interest in rock/pop music. I had certainly heard Manfred Mann's 60s hits on the radio but had never even heard of Deep Purple or Free, so I gave that concert a miss. A couple of years later I got to hear some Deep Purple, in particular songs like "Highway Star" and "Lazy". Ritchie Blackmore quickly became one of my top favorite guitar players and I kicked myself for missing that chance to see the classic Deep Purple Mk II lineup.
The following year in 1972 Cat Stevens played his first Perth concert at the WACA Ground. I actually quite liked Cat Stevens but not enough to go see his concert, so that one got a miss too. A day or two after that Perth concert I ran into a friend who was there. He told me supporting Cat Stevens was some old cowboy singer wearing a cowboy hat and playing acoustic guitar and harmonica in a rack. This turned out to be none other than Ramblin' Jack Elliot. I had no idea Ramblin' Jack was on that show. I had missed a chance to see one of the legends of country/folk & folk/blues, who had played and traveled with Woody Guthrie and other early legends of Americana music.
By February 1975 I was a penniless art student struggling to get by on a meager allowance plus a part-time job loading bread vans at a bakery a couple of nights a week. Rick Wakeman was in Perth with his "Journey to the Center of the Earth" show, and a few days later Ike & Tina Turner were playing. I couldn't afford both shows and a couple of friends were raving on about Rick Wakeman and convinced me to see that concert with them. So I passed on Ike & Tina. Well disappointment struck again, I was bored stiff at the Wakeman show, and kicking myself after some fellow art students who attended the Ike & Tina concert told me what I had missed. Like the solid blues set they did, including "I Smell Trouble" and "Dust My Broom" with Ike wringing the daylights out of his Fender Stratocaster. And to make matters worse it was one of the final chances to see Ike & Tina perform together, the following year they were all over.
And a few months later I missed yet another one when Lou Reed played the Perth Concert Hall on July 11, 1975. I had heard of Lou Reed but had never listened to any of his albums, so that one I gave a miss too. Much like Deep Purple it wasn't until a couple of years later that I heard some Lou Reed and realized I had stuffed up again. In particular, to see and hear Lou Reed performing "Heroin" live is something I would loved to have experienced.
Despite the concerts you missed, you has lucky for all the incredible artists you were able to see. Fantastic. Where I live, don't have many opportunities to see those artists on live. I've seen a few, to be honest. One of the ones I did get to see was Ike Turner, although he was already quite old, and of course, he wasn't with Tina anymore. Of those you mentioned, the only one I regret not having seen live is Cat Stevens.
ReplyDeleteHi Francisco, yes I am certainly happy that in my life I did get to see great artists perform live. For a long time Perth (where I was living in the 50s & 60s & 70s) missed out on most of the big acts that toured Australia as it was easier and cheaper for them just to tour around the eastern states of Australia. But in the 1970s that changed and we in the west did get alot. Anyway, I'm glad you got to see Ike Turner live, he was a mighty fine guitar player and a very important figure in blues/R&B, sad that today he's only remembered by much of the world for his unpleasant traits.
Deleteunderstand completely the missed concerts. Little over a year ago had a chance to see Kristofferson at Steelstacks (Bethlehem Pennsylvania). Tickets advertised at $300 a piece (for me & my wife I would've paid $600. But then they added on Entertainment Tax, Seating Tax, Bethlehem City Tax, Luxury Tax, State Tax, Etc. The final cost was about $800 a ticket ($1600 for me & my wife). I passed on buying tickets at that price... year later he died. wish I would've gone. An old Hockey Coach of the Philadelphia Flyers (Fred Shero) once said, "Three things come not back in life. (1) the spoken word, (2) the sped arrow, and (3) the missed opportunity.
ReplyDeleteToo true moze, when I look back at my life I now see quite a few missed opportunities. I agree entirely with you regarding the cost of many concerts these days. I wouldn't pay several hundred bucks to see anyone. Most of my concerts were back in the 70s and prices were fair. I saw the Rolling Stones in 1965 and from memory it cost 2 shillings and 6 pence for a seat at the matinee show (the Stones did 2 shows a day back then, the cheaper matinee show and a bit more expensive evening show)
DeleteThanks for another interesting set of reminiscences. The reference to Lou Reed in particular stood out for me, as he's an artist I've actually managed to see twice.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I now live in California, I grew up in the Greater London area and had been a music fan (with some pretty far-ranging tastes) from quite an early age. In 1974, just a couple of months before I turned 14, I decided I wanted to go to see Lou Reed at the Rainbow Theater. My interest in him, as well as in the Velvet Underground, had been piqued by his fairly recent hit with "Walk On the Wild Side." Unfortunately, not even one of my friends cared about the artist enough to have the slightest interest in going with me. So I ended up taking the train by myself, and then after the show (when I discovered it was too late at night for any public transportation options to be available) I sheepishly had to give my mother a call and ask her to drive all the way over there to bring me back.
The concert itself was very good! To begin with, the opening act was Ducks Deluxe, and I can remember to this day how much I liked their "Fireball" when I first heard them perform it there. In any case, this was basically Lou Reed's "Rock 'n' Roll Animal" tour, so the musicians playing with him were fantastic, and the selections included lots of those epic-sounding renditions of earlier songs that Lou was then focusing on. I will note that for about the first half of the show, he hardly acknowledged the audience at all. In fact, the only thing he actually said was when a fan called out, "Play something from 'Berlin,' and Lou replied "No!" Later on, though, he started loosening up (joking around and so on between songs), and I ended up enjoying the whole experience thoroughly.
Something like 30 years later, in Los Angeles, I attended another, this time very different kind of performance by Lou Reed. It was a spoken-word event in support of his recently-released "The Raven," based on the work of Edgar Allen Poe. After Lou's reading/recitation, there was a Q-and-A session, and I remember that, whereas Lou seemed (perhaps characteristically) aloof or reserved when interacting with the older members of the audience, he became surprisingly receptive, even enthusiastic when responding to queries from the kids that were there.
By the way, I'm another one who wouldn't pay several hundred bucks to see a show these days. There's plenty of other ways to put that kind of money to use!
Thanks for your most interesting post Crab Devil. If you saw Lou's Rock & Roll Animal Tour then that had Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter on guitars. Those 2 guys were nothing short of fantastic, their dual guitar attack on Heroin live in Paris is sheer dynamite playing, up there with Eric & Duane in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteYes, I very much agree about Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter. In those days, I really didn't know who they were or who they might have played with in addition to Lou Reed. So, in retrospect, it strikes me as ironic that they were in fact on several other recordings that have always been among my favorites, even though it took me years, indeed decades to realize it was actually them. For example, I really enjoyed the albums that Alice Cooper put out in the early seventies, but I had no idea that BOTH Wagner and Hunter were featured on some of those tracks as session musicians. And (as a pretty big fan of blues and rockabilly) I was absolutely knocked out by the guitar playing when I first heard Aerosmith's studio version of "The Train Kept A-Rolling," i.e., from the album "Get Your Wings." It took me about another 45 years to find out that the guitar parts in question had been played not by the band's own guitarist, Joe Perry, but instead -- and once again --by none other than Dick Wagner AND Steve Hunter.
DeleteYep those are very underrated players, I think they're both gone now.
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