musicians you've seen perform live

I've seen Jerry Jeff Walker a few times, same goes for Jimmy Buffett. My real pride in terms of musical fandom is the simple fact that I've seen John Prine no less than 20 times (I'm in my early 20s). I've seen him play so many times that I've lost track of exactly how many that is.

As for more underground, where I truly dwell, my list would go into the several hundreds. I've seen so many smaller acts that even trying to recall a small portion of them is difficult...and, well, I'm not going to post a lot of that on babble :P

As for larger concerts/festivals the only two I've been to were SARStock in Toronto and Live8 in Barrie. I'm sure that more will come and go as I age. I intend to make it out to the Winnipeg Folk Fest sooner rather than later. Plus, I really, really, really wanna get down to the States to do a good trip of hitting up small bars to catch local acts.

Yehudi Menuhin

Pinchus Zuckerman

Sharon Lois and Bram

The Studs

countless bar bands which amounted to nothing, ( most deserved it)

Canadian Opera Company et al

National Ballet (et al was there too)

There'd be more, but I'll have to ponder a bit longer

Joni Mitchell, veda hille, indigo girls, kinnie starr, dar williams, ani, cyndi lauper, Angelique Kidjo, Kristin Andreassen, michie mee, Laurence Jalbert and teenage head.

Wouldn't it be interesting if we listed some of those regional bands that are amazing and might not be known elsewhere?

We used to go to the Yale, and the Commadore a lot, and then there were also the Summer Super Sundays, and other multi band venues..that just do not happen anymore.

Robert Planet was by far the most absolute bestest ever.....

Odetta

Christy Moore

Billy Bragg

B.B. King

Peggy Seeger and Ewan Maccoll

John Cephas and Phil Wiggins

Utah Phillips

Queen Ida and the Bon Temps Zydeco Band

Steve Earle

Taj Mahal

Ganga Giri

Leon Rosselson

Tommy Sands

Jerry Jeff Walker

Carolina Chocolate Drops

Makem and Clancy

Hoyt Axton

(I keep remembering more as the day goes on).

Peter Gabriel (the worst sound I've experienced at a major concert)

Maria Muldaur

Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Jerry Jeff Walker

...am I getting boring yet?

Yeppers, boom boom and just like differing countries and their cultural differences, we too have the same, only under one huge umbrella.

The Yale is a great, strictly R&B.

The Commodore, is the best dance place ever, in part because of the bouncey floor...it is the "Fabulous Commodore Ballroom".

Temple Gardens was close for such a smaller city.

Where I now remember I saw Rick and the Ravens.

Too bad Moose Jawians were so short sighted and tore it down and turned it into a spa.

Rich and Gloria Hobson were portrayed in the CBC series Nothing to Good for a Cowboy, from the book  The Rancher Takes a Wife. Gloria was fabulous, and am thankful Rich was dead by the time I met her.

OMG LTJ, I forgot all about  A Foot in Coldwater....your list reads pretty close to mine. ;)

And yes Bad Company did open for Edgar Winter

remind wrote:

OMG LTJ, I forgot all about  A Foot in Coldwater....your list reads pretty close to mine. ;) 

I know - so much so that I copied yours to save much typing...

The last show I saw was Jeff Mangum who some may know as the former lead singer of Neutral Milk Hotel, which disabanded over 10 years ago. Mangum has never played since. I love that band with a passion and Mangum played a one night only show in New York City about a month ago. Best concert experience of my life.

Other bands I've seen:

-TV on the Radio

-Radiohead (3 times)

-The Hold Steady (at least 5 times)

-U2

-The Rolling Stones (at that SARS concert)

-Neil Young (twice)

-Pavement

-Sonic Youth (twice)

-Jay-Z

-The Antlers

-The Magnetic Fields

-Sigur Ros (3 times)

-Stereolab

-The Strokes (right before their first album was released and nobody,myself included, had ever heard of them)

-The National

that's all I can think of right now. I sometimes wish I was back in Toronto (or even better: NYC) where bands I like come far more often than my little town in Virginia...even though my town IS an indie rock mecca of sorts (which forgives it for also giving the world the Dave Matthews Band)...

I'm pretty sure I have heard more live music than recorded music.  Average about once a week over 30 years.

Not so many big concerts though.

High points?

Pete Seeger, even if all(?!) he did was get Massey Hall scat singing along (part of the FFA concert).

Billy Bragg, Leon Rosselson, Peggy Seeger, Short Turn, Stan Rogers, Ken Bloom, Utah Phillips, Nancy White, the Whitelys, Les Balfa Freres, Gamble Rogers, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, Jackie Washington, Taj Mahal, Peter Schickele, Anna Russell, Ladysmith Black Mombazo, The Friends of Fiddlers Green, Eileen MCGann, The McGarrigles, Wade Hemsworth, Ed McCurdy, Ali Akbar Khan, Artisan, Ian Bell, JIIG, Professor Piano and the Canadian Aces with the Honolulu Heartbreakers.

There's more but my memory is getting foggy on names.

CTRL F + Prine turns up only myself

You're all missing out on a treasure!

Boom Boom wrote:

I also saw the band that later became Electric Light Orchestra, but can't remember their name.

The Move?

Kulu Kulu Garden at the Biltmore. Awesome show with 4 other Japanese bands.

Like others, I went to lots of concerts and festivals in the "old days", including:

Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz festival - 1972, 1973 - Highlights - Charlie Mingus, John Lee Hooker, Ray Charles, Dr. John)

Festival Express - 1971 - Highlights - Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, Buddy Guy, The Band

Mariposa Folk Festival - 2 or 3 times on Toronto Island

Rock Hill Festival

A festival in Madoc, Ontario with local Ontario bands that was more or less broken up by bikers. 

Beggars Banquets (3 full day festivals in Toronto) - Highlights - Edgar Winter, Beach Boys, Sha Na Na

The Monkees

Lighthouse (many times)

Crowbar (many times)

RUSH (highschool auditorium - they went to our school)

Seal

Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon, 1972 and their last concert in T.O. about 20 years ago)

Paul McCartney & Wings

The Who

Johnny Winter

Alice Cooper

Jefferson Starship in Berkeley

Mountain

CSNY

Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels (El Mocambo)

The Amboy Dukes

Black Sabbath

Would have loved to have had Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, David Bowie, Bob Marley, The Cream, U2 and Michael Jackson on the list but alas. 

Multiple classical musicians though Jeunesse Musicale.

Toronto

Trooper

Crash Test Dummies

Moxy Fruvous

Barenaked Ladies

Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman

Bruce Cockburn

The Rankins

NB Symphony Orchestra with Sally Dibblee

Bourbon Tabernacle Choir

Rick McGhie

James Keeleghan

The Shaggy Dogs ( now Heckman and Downes)

The Leslie Spit Trio

Julia Propellor

Philip Thomson

David Myles

Brent Mason

Frances Helyar

Hot Toddy

Carew, Brees and Wilson

The Pardonbeggars

And many bands in university bars which I can't remember. Memory loss might be related to what was consumed in those locations.

You guys make me jealous.  UB40? The English Beat?  The Mothers of Invention?  I saw Dweezil Zappa last year.  I went to see the Saskatoon Symphony about a year before that.  In 1997 I saw Dave Brubeck and Diana Krall, as well as the Saskatoon Klezmer Band opening for Finjan, a concert I MCd.  I've seen the Robin Nolan Trio quite a few times.  They used to play Manouche jazz, which I really liked, but have since splayed all over the place.

Hmm, I've seen Les Negresses Vertes, Ar Re Yaouank and Tri Yann (X2) in and around Nantes,  where I also saw a string trio busking in the streets.

I heard Clifton Joseph doing his dub poetry at Black-a-Rama in Winnipeg,  where I saw Teenage Head and the Boomtown Rats in '81.

I saw Peter Tosh (X2), Jimmy Cliff and Steel Pulse. 

David Lindley, Dread Zeppelin, Deja Voodoo, The Dik Van Dykes, Jerry Jerry and his Sons of Rhythm Orchestra, The Gruesomes (x3), the Jazz Butcher Conspiracy, Chixdiggit, The Forbidden Dimension. 

The Selecter.

Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper.  Elvis is Everywhere!

When the Saskatoon Opera Company performed Carmen a few years back, I saw my distant cousin, Julie Nesrallah, sing the title role.

B.B King, Big Dave Maclean, Ellen McIlwaine, and a concert with J.J. Cale opening for Robert Cray.  I had worked a graveyard shift on a drilling rig  in Alberta the night before and driven to Saskatoon that day.  I kept falling asleep throughout the two acts. 

I saw a couple of guys who played with Muddy Waters, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith and Calvin Jones, playing in an outfit known as The Legendary Blues Band. I hung around with them between sets at Buds on Broadway and was a wee bit disappointed to hear them talk about making music as a job.  They talked like clock-watchers in a factory, just counting down how many tunes they had to play before quitting time.

In '78 I saw Herman's Hermits at the A-Four.  One snag is that Peter Noone wasn't with them at the time.  Does McLean and McLean count as a musical group?  If not, well F--- ya.

Back when I was on the farm I saw The Canadian Brass and Valdy at the Anne Portnuff Theatre in Yorkton.  Hmmm, Yorkton.  At the Ex I saw Trooper (which was my first rock concert), as well as groups like Toronto and others of that ilk which I disremember.

I saw Al Hirt at Buffalo Days in Regina in '68. 

One I can't believe I forgot, because he's truly unforgettable: Jonathan Richman, a half-dozen times, both with and without various incarnations of the Modern Lovers.

When my daughter was six months old, my wife and I packed her up and went for a picnic at the Lilac Dell near Cootes Paradise, Royal Botanical Gardens, Hamilton. It was a glorious sunny day, but because it was a Monday hardly anyone was around at 11:30 a.m. We walked into a secluded grove of lilacs and met Yo-Yo Ma, who was playing one of the Bach unaccompanied suites for cello. He had a film crew with him and was seated on a trolley that ran along a semi-circular track as he sawed away in time to a recorded background. We sat with the butterfly wrangler, who had a large aluminum photography case packed with coolant slabs. Every once in a while he would lift out a few of the sluggish butterflies, warm them up, then set them loose to flutter winsomely about Mr Ma. We stayed for half an hour, and were amazed by the cellist's stamina. He rewarded my daughter with a wink as we left. I've told her this story till she's sick of it.

Standout concerts I've heard not mentioned here so far:

The Kinks at Massey Hall (far and away the best live show ever); George Thorogood; Van Cliburn; Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen; the great Richard Knechtel; John Sebastian; Leon Redbone; John Cougar Mellencamp (most ear-splitting show ever); George Harrison at MLG; Jacksoul (RIP Haydain); Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir; the Rheostatics; Canned Heat (a travesty, really, since only Fito de la Parra, the second drummer for the group was an "original", but it just felt so good when they launched into Work Together); Magic Slim and the Teardrops: two sets of tedium followed by one of incandescent fury and brilliance; Tamarack; Robert Cray; Ray Davies solo at the Music Hall on the Danforth; Spirit of the West; County Vaudeville, as close as we'll get in these degenerate days to Flanders and Swann;Washington, Whitely, and Scarlett; a deathly pale balding Englishman with a National guitar named Bob Greenwood who sounds nothing like Robert Johnson but made my spine tingle when he sang his songs: the power came over him; wait, maybe the best live show was Vladimir Horowitz at Massey Hall.

Quote:

When you saw the Monkees, was Jimi Hendrix still their opening act?

Unfortunately no. That would have been something. I think he did open for them in Toronto at another venue.