1978. Jimmy Carter is in the White House. New England gets hit with "the blizzard of '78". Boston's year only gets worse when Bucky Dent's home run crushes the Red Sox, and the Yankees go on to win the World Series for the second year in a row. Garfield is a brand new comic strip. Lee Iacocca is fired from Ford. Muhammad Ali beats Leon Spinks.
And I saw these five concerts...
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Emerson, Lake, & Palmer Jadwin Gym, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ February 7, 1978 |
As for the show itself, I don't recall much other than I think ELP was already playing by the time we got inside. And that it was loud. And dark. And I'm pretty sure we never found anything resembling our seats.
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Meat Loaf Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ May 13, 1978 Meat Loaf was enormously popular in 1978, riding the Bat out of Hell wave. This concert was immense fun, and is a serious contender for my top 10 list. The show was high energy from start to finish, and Meat Loaf didn't leave anything behind. I remember watching him taking hits from an oxygen tank on the side of the stage between songs! |
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The Rolling Stones J.F.K. Stadium, Philadelphia, PA June 17, 1978 It doesn't get much better than this on the pure fun scale. Summer after graduating high school and an outdoor Rolling Stones concert. Didn't we watch some guy scale (or attempt to scale) the outside of the stadium that day? Fun in the pre-show parking lot. Note the noon start time on the ticket stub! I have no idea what time the show really started. Nor, sadly, do I really recall anything else about the concert - other than that guy climbing the outside of the stadium before the show. |
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Yes The Checkerdome, St. Louis, MO September 28, 1978 Note the shift to the mid-west along with my move to attending college at Washington University in St. Louis. This was just 4 or so weeks after I arrived in St. Louis. I wonder who I went to this show with? |
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Jethro Tull The Checkerdome, St. Louis, MO October 19, 1978 I was still really into Tull at this point, although that was about to change in a big way. But you will have to wait until 1979 to learn how and why... |
5 comments:
I was at that Emerson Lake & Palmer show. I was 7. My parents say I got high from 2nd hand smoke
I was also at the ELP and Stones shows (JFK Stadium). The ELP show was postponed that night because of the snowstorm and was played on the 11th instead. I remember I was freaking from the snow ( I was working that day) afraid they would just cancel, but they just postponed and played a few days later.
I was at the Stones JFK show, and I don't remember much either.
I was at the ELP show. I thought it was great that I could see a show like that so close to home. I was 15 years old at the time and overwhelmed by the experience :-)
I was at the ELP and Stones concerts. What I remember about the ELP show were the two walls of enormous speakers on either side of the band. The sound was phenomenal, especially for an old gym, especially when Greg Lake played the acoustic. What an incredibly talented trio they were. The Stones show was a glorious fiasco. The concert began at noon with the first opening act, reggae star Peter Tosh. At that time, Mick had sang back-up on Tosh's then-hit single, "Don't Look Back," including a surprise appearance when Tosh was the musical guest on SNL. The second opening act was Foreigner, who played a predictable set. It had been raining all day, so the crowd was getting really restless by the time the Stones finally hit the stage. They were amazing, but then suddenly, with no warning (and no encore), the concert was over. The roadies had to race to clear everything off the stage because fans began hurling bottles at the band's gear in protest. All in all, still an awesome experience. Thanks for this great post, got some happy memories stirred up.
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