Friday OT #1 - Long Live Rock
- Thread starter Angie
- Start date
Some artists just seem better when they're just going for it and not having any reason or knowing of what they're even doing, if that makes sense.
It's one of multiple reasons I can't stand new/bro country. It's all gimmick and just feels like karaoke and singalongs with some hack up front who's trying hard to 'look' the part.
I was working at Hilton when they were there in '91 and a story I heard at the time was that they had vehicle trouble when coming to Ames for their first show in '84 and a couple of little old ladies stopped and gave them a ride so they invited the ladies to the show that night on the band. Every time they came back to Ames ('87, '91) they made sure those ladies were invited to the show and tickets were waiting for them.
I have never been able to verify the veracity of this story.
That's all it is in reality. It's the lowest form of music. It's nothing but recycled phrases. Girl, tight jeans, Cold beer, the good stuff, dirt/gravel road, truck, tail gate, river/lake, small town, boots, etc. Rinse, shuffle, and repeat.
My mom took me to my first concert at Vet's Auditorium in probably 1977. Ricky Skaggs opened, then Hank Williams Jr., followed by Merle Haggard. Pretty solid country lineup looking back.
As an example of how times change, the concert was sponsored by Marlboro, and they gave away free packs of cigarettes at the door. Smokiest place I can remember from my childhood.
As an example of how times change, the concert was sponsored by Marlboro, and they gave away free packs of cigarettes at the door. Smokiest place I can remember from my childhood.
Yeah it was amazing how prolific tobacco sponsorships and advertising were. It must have been a series of huge blows to the tobacco industry when TV ads and later most sponsorship deals and billboards were banned.
I remember it seeming really weird in the early 2000s when the Winston Cup was no more since that was all I had ever known it to be (since '71).
First major, non local band thing, was guns and roses opening for Aerosmith at Hilton.
I worked at Hilton and Stephens. The same organization that ran The Iowa State Center for the university at the time also put on the stadium shows.
I worked the concession stand for the first 2/3rds of the Aerosmith show and then got to watch the rest standing inside the doors. My best friend was so mad that I got paid to go to that concert.
I googled. Looks like it might have been April 1975 with Thin Lizzy and Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet band
http://www.tourdatesearch.com/tourdates/artist/609/bachman-turner-overdrive?p=10
Just saw them last year because tickets were free with the Ticketmaster settlement vouchers. I'm happy to report they only played The Way once at the end. All 50 people would have left if they played it first. haha.
1971 and I was supposed to see BJ Thomas at C.Y. Stephens during my freshman orientation. We got there and were told that Thomas was a no-show because of a family emergency. We learned several years later that the family emergency was his dependency problems. So instead of BJ Thomas, we got some kid no one had ever heard of whose only song of note at that time was sung by someone else -- Peter, Paul and Mary -- called Leaving on a Jet Plane. So I saw John Denver really before he was famous. Not only did we hear John Denver, but they refunded my money.
Later that same year or early the following year, I forget which we saw Rare Earth open for Bread in Hilton. Seemed like an odd combination as Bread was the more popular band at the time, but Rare Earth was the better band. Rare Earth got us all jumping with it's classic blues/rock style and then Bread put us all to sleep with it's sappy pop love ballads. I really got the tickets for Rare Earth and only stayed for Bread because my married sister and her husband footed the bill and were sitting right next to me and she was a big Bread fan.
