What a great idea.

I know it's counterproductive to smack you down every time you post. But I can't help myself!

Don't mediocre bass guitarists just use frets?

Oh, right, I could have put all of this in comments, and that would have been really fun, because our comments section is such a joy to read.

1: we've discussed it again at least once since then. Which means: all-bass-nerdery!

I think I buy Labs's alternative hypothesis, with the slight elaboration that it's a much shorter neck, so you're aiming for a more narrowly defined area, even though the required precision is the same in both cases.

3: unfogged comments are so swipple.

That classical program was archaic. Balakirev, Borodin, et al are passing from human memory, alas. Musorgsky hangs on. The personalities of Russian music ca. 1880 were intense, and Musorgsky is my all time fave.

My first concert was Charles Lloyd, "Forest Flower". I was already 20; no concerts in Wobegon. Jack DeJohnette and Keith Jarrett were featured.

To quibble, Sifu, it's a longer neck, because the string length/scale is greater, and the range of (stopped) pitches is larger as well. But the DB neck has the curve where it joins the body at a fifth or minor sixth above the open string, which makes a nice landmark.

6: That's fine. In Chicago there aren't any under-21 concerts apart from crappy pop-punk.

(Gross exagerration, but that's really what it felt like, and was one of the main reasons I can't remember a concert from before I was 20)

Ok, longer fretboard, more of which is over the body, hence shorter neck. Sifu, you're a dick.

on the bass guitar it seems to be a lot harder to shift without visual confirmation of where I'm going

Yes, though it becomes relatively easier the longer and more frequently one plays, especially if you are always playing the same bass, holding it in the same position, keeping the strap length the same, etc. Then it becomes a case of muscle memory taking over.

Re: position shifting.

You just get used to it. At least, that's been my experience on the guitar.

I didn't learn to sight read properly on guitar until I'd been playing for nearly 15 years. When I started taking classical guitar lessons the need to look at the score was disconcerting at first but it didn't take that long. I still prefer to look, even if it's just a quick glance, when I'm playing fast chordal stuff or improvising, though.

My first rock concert was Iron Maiden. In 1986 or possibly 87. I can't remember the second because I went from going to my first gig to going to gigs every few weeks pretty much immediately.

Elvis Costello, Hollywood, 1978

Styx, Kilroy Was Here, 1983.

You may now heap entirely justified abuse on my teenage self.

Jane's Addiction. Before Lollapalooza. Because I am white.

The first sentence of 9 kind of lost me. The second sentence I can wholeheartedly agree with. My point was mostly just that it's easy to move your arm exactly two feet than exactly four inches.

Bob Dylan with Natalie Merchant. Broome County Arena. Which seems to have been February 19, 1999. With my mom.

Some weird musical/visual "happening"--an orchestra accompanied by a projected video/light show--is the first concert I remember going to. I must have been about 6 or 7 years old and to this day I can't remember ever being more bored.

Among the first concerts I ever saw without my parents were Shadowfax, The Back Doors, and Rush (on their Grace Under Pressure Tour). Nerdriffic!

re: 14

I saw them also in a little club in Edinburgh. In late 88, I think. Right around the time Nothing's Shocking came out. They were really good live, too. Although I don't think I've listened to a single one of their records in fifteen years, come to think of it.

I really wish I could think of my actual first concert. The earliest I can remember, though I'm sure it wasn't the first, is the first Intonation festival in 2005, with Death From Above 1979, Les Savy Fav, Four Tet, The Wrens, Prefuse 73, and others that weren't so memorable.

I know I had tickets but missed the Futureheads & Franz Ferdinand concert in the summer of 2004, so there probably were some earlier concerts at The Metro that I'm forgetting, but I still would've been 18 or 19 for my first one.

My first concert is linked in Comment 1, appropriately enough.

Rush, Roll the Bones. Maybe Popluxe and I can travel back in time together.

What I said last time stands.

21: oh I went to that tour, too. My second concert! My third was the first lollapalooza.

What is it with Rush? Some sort of hidden Unfogged/Canada/libertarianism confluence?

What is it with Rush?

What about the voice of Geddy Lee? How did it get so high? Does he talk like a regular guy?

(No, it's because Rush are the nerdiest prog rock band still touring and we're all a bunch of nerds.)

Page & Plant, Wembley Arena, about 95 or 96.

I stand with Warren Ellis on the question of prog: It was sick and wrong then, and it is sick and wrong now.

My sister has no problems with the bass guitar, but maybe it's an easier move from cello.

I stand with Warren Ellis on the question of prog: It was sick and wrong then, and it is sick and wrong now.

If prog is sick and wrong, then I don't want to be right. Or healthy.

27 is right.

27, 30: Oh yeah, no doubt.

Tull was also my second concert, but I don't feel the apparently requisite shame (in fact, "March the Mad Scientist," which is a nice little acoustic number, just came on). But my first concert was Born in the USA. I've really only been to a couple better. Neil Young with Crazy Horse circa. '98 comes to mind, even though the stupid frat boys got overexcited at "Rockin' in the Free World,"

27 and 30 are so, so wrong.

In other news, Luis Lopes' Humanization Quartet is really good.

33: Your agreement would fill me with shame.

I stand with Warren Ellis on the question of prog: It was sick and wrong then, and it is sick and wrong now.

Ellis listens to a lot of electronic music that certainly has progish tendencies.

A lot of old prog--much of the Canterbury stuff, about 7/10ths of entire Cuneiform catalog, whole swaths of Crimson, and nearly everything Pink Floyd ever did--leaves me stone cold, but some of it--I put Rush and Yes in that category--is still goofy fun. Also also, #25 gets it right: everyone I saw Rush with liked A) weed and B) Dungeons & Dragons.

Very little of the Cuneiform catalogue can be called "old prog"; if you exclude Univers Zero and Soft Machine, practically none.

Also also, #25 gets it right: everyone I saw Rush with liked A) weed and B) Dungeons & Dragons.

What's even sadder is that in my case only B) was true. By the time I discovered that weed was, in fact, great I was pretty well over Rush.

Hey, everybody: Should I go see James McMurtry for free, at a park, next weekend? I only know a couple songs, and like them, but singer-songwriters can be hit or miss. Does he project energy/personality onstage?

You won't believe James McMurtry's astral erection
When he comes to you by astral projection.

(Astral Projection.)

Elton John, late 70 or early 71. Extended and frenetic versions of Take Me to the Pilot and Burn Down the Mission are all that I really remember.

||

Can anyone think of nice things to cook this time of year, mostly with stuff from the supermarket (Shaw's)?

KR--are there any decent farm stands in your town? Feel free to e-mail me if you don't want to reveal your secret location. Wilson's near Arlington is way expensive.

Simple and easy with some veggies.

|>

43: soft-shelled crabs are in season! So are fiddleheads! You could cook both, and then arrange them in sort of a Land Of The Lost tableau with Lego figures!

36: nearly everything Pink Floyd ever did--leaves me stone cold

So I was/am guilty as hell on Prog (I liked most of Floyd back in the day, but only some of the early stuff still sticks for me), but had an interesting and illustrative experience on a long road trip this past weekend. My daughter was choosing music and played Patti Smith's Horses followed by Dark Side. It really was an interesting juxtaposition (probably better the other way around), but boy did it make Floyd come off as slow, boring and basically "cute".

The good news is that Sifu is no longer a big dork.

#37. You're right. Now that I've looked at the catalog again "7/10ths" is too high.

Does he project energy/personality onstage?

I haven't seen him play in at least ten years, but if "curmudgeon who doesn't much like people" counts for your as a personality, then yes. He was low-key and droll the couple of times I saw him, but I remain a big fan. Keep in mind that the crowd will probably be mostly anti-war/peace types, given that his most recent burst of publicity was for this song.

Can anyone think of nice things to cook this time of year, mostly with stuff from the supermarket (Shaw's)?

Do you eat meat?

What about the voice of Geddy Lee? How did it get so high? Does he talk like a regular guy?

Probably. I knew someone who could sing very much like Geddy Lee, and it was a cultivated skill. He spoke like regular people, you see, and could sing, and normally did, in other ways.

That said, I don't enjoy Rush.

About the prog rock, or Prog, in general, Populuxe and I have had this conversation before. Stalemate. There's no objective way to work through an assessment like "leaves me cold."

Why Labs would want to disown an early liking for Genesis and Tull escapes me.

I still like Jethro Tull! And The Doors!

Probably. I knew someone who could sing very much like Geddy Lee, and it was a cultivated skill.

The questions were answered in the original song, parsimon.

I still like Jethro Tull, but thankfully not the Doors.

"progressive rock" is really quite diverse, and I find it implausible that anyone could really, with knowledge, make the judgment that it leaves them cold. But then, I'm prepared to consider Battles and the Dirty Projectors prog, and not only for polemical purposes.

49: Yes, I eat meat. I don't know what the prices on steak are right now. It's just too easy for me to think, "hamburger, boiled potato and broccoli." I want a little more variety.

would want to disown an early liking for Genesis

Note that Labs isn't disowning a liking for early Genesis. I think we can all agree that "Invisible Touch" doesn't have a lot to recommend it.

Refreshingly, Tull and the Doors are very white, but not at all White.

Tull crowds are actually a funny blend - a few D&Ders, a third serious fans, and the remainder classic rock fans, young or old, who mostly want to hear their ~4 radio hits.

Whatever else you do, BG, be sure to have Dwayne Sodahberk's album Fjärilsfaru playing during the meal.

This is a great summer dish, easier to make than it looks but still totally impressive to the uninitiated. I use dried cranberries instead of dried cherries.

Tiane de legumes is easy. Eggplant, tomatoes (sundried OK), chickpea, onion, basil, salt, pepper, thyme. Bake 40 min. Wide variations in ingredients.

Or southern-style collards-- add bacon and red pepper.

My dirty musical secrets are The Doors and Fleetwood Mac. No connection between them except that they're both pretty LA-ish.

I don't regard Zep, Sly Stone, or Hendrix as dirty secrets.

Most of these groups had really horrible lyrics at times, though.

It's just too easy for me to think, "hamburger, boiled potato and broccoli." I want a little more variety.

Put redskin potatoes on a skewer, boil them, then grill them. Toss with vinegar, then dress as you will. So that makes for a nice potato salad that's quite different.

Another nice grilled carb source is pizza* - just brush with olive oil and some herbs (even dried). This is especially good with fish - butterflied sardines on the grill are wonderful (you can buy ~6" long sardines frozen in a bag; 2-3 per person).

Asparagus is excellent grilled. You can stretch it by tossing it hot with dressing (a citrus vinaigrette), then putting it on a bed of greens with blue cheese and oranges.

You may be able to get skirt steak relatively cheaply (~$7/lb, a bit more grass-fed) - it's fatty and beefy and excellent for the grill - treat it like flank steak, with rubs or spicy marinades.

* Make your own dough, or buy some raw dough from a pizza place or an Italian market

What about that pasta dish with ham (or pancetta), green peas, and a light cream sauce? There are a couple more ingredients in the canonical version of that dish, but I can't remember what they are. Onions, probably. Asparagus tips? Little chopped up red peppers? God, okay, that's what I'm having for dinner. It'll be a pink sauce, though. Mmm, green peas.

Side dish: salad. Maybe a tomato salad with little chopped up olives? Nah, too much hassle.

When I go out to the West Coast, Ogged, Ben and I are totally having a Tull meetup.

57: I hear that Obama likes that dish.

63: Obama has no excess body fat, so he can't be hitting the pork tenderloin too heavily.

butterflied sardines on the grill are wonderful

This is not true. I went to La fête de la Sardine in Brétagne, where the sardines were guaranteed to be as good and fresh as they possibly could, and after half a bowl of sardine soup and half a grilled sardine, I had proved to my satisfaction that sardines are unspeakably foul and that I needed to throw up. I didn't throw up, but I should have.

Chilled soup, salad niçoise, crusty bread, white wine; pretend it's summer.

The only grill available is a Foreman--doesn't really work for proper grilling.

Sardines are good, haters.

Salads with lentilles du puy are also good.

This album. The first track's a killer. Kning Disk does good work! I bet this is quite good as well.

64: Pork tenderloin is extremely lean.

65: De gustibus. I'll not deny that they're on the fishy side, but O so good.

67: Oh. Actually, the sardines would still work, as would the asparagus.

Skirt steak can also be broiled. We marinate strips of skirt steak in a smothering of diced onions, the juice of a lime or two, olive oil, salt and pepper, and then thwack it on the broiler until medium-rare.

Serve with dilled basmati rice and cucumber-yoghurt salad.

Pepper-crusted flank steak with red onions marinated in lime juice and tabasco - good the first night, and awesome for sandwiches.

How about some actually good fish? Get a fillet of whatever looks freshest, dice up some likely-looking vegetables, season with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roll up into an aluminium butterfly. Bake or grill for a while, serve with rice. Oo, saffron rice!

Good fish is spendy.

72 is good. I had some WF salmon w/ sundried tomato marinade that was pretty good. There's some Jasmine rice available already. Foreman grills are actually good for cooking fish that way.

I'm finding having pita bread and hummus around the house is making me happy these days. Also tabouli, into which you can chop and throw almost anything.

Tilipia isn't the flavorishiest fish, but what with all the vegetables (red peppers are good here), it could work well. It's cheap and not overfished, is its real interest.

52: I see.

55: Note that Labs isn't disowning a liking for early Genesis. I think we can all agree that "Invisible Touch" doesn't have a lot to recommend it.

Oh, true. I didn't pay attention to that, and was actually wondering about FL's age. Have I mentioned here before that one of my first "Kids these days!" moments was hearing my younger brother express astonishment that Phil Collins was in a band before ... uh, Phil Collins? Yah. Yah, he was.

Dirty musical secrets? I am ashamed of nothing, nothing! Not even the Partridge Family (hey, I was, like, 8 years old)! You will not make me ashamed to like Peter Gabriel!

That classical program was archaic. Balakirev, Borodin, et al are passing from human memory, alas. Musorgsky hangs on. The personalities of Russian music ca. 1880 were intense, and Musorgsky is my all time fave.

I've finally got a copy of Rimsky-Korsakov's My Musical Life, which some people think is one of the worst-written significant books ever, and others, i.e. Albert Jay Nock, thought admirably written. I'll have to see.

I confess a soft spot for Bob Seger, but I consider that a personal peccadillo, and wouldn't try to convince anybody. And entirely memory: I've no impulse to listen again.

which some people think is one of the worst-written significant books ever

These people have probably not read Lucinde.

Here's a recipe I got off the internet recently that's become a huge favorite. I use the frozen striper from TJs, which I think is on the "not overfished" list. It's just amazingly easy and good.

Coconut fish

Serves 4

Ingredients
1 onion, finely chopped
1 cup celery, finely chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
250ml (9fl oz) coconut milk
2 heaped tablespoons live natural yoghurt
½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cumin
2-3 saffron strands
1/2 tsp salt
4 large tilapia or striper fillets or 8 smaller ones
4 tablespoons chopped parsley or cilantro (optional)

Method
Gently sauté the onion and celery in the oil until softened but not brown. Mix in the coconut milk, yoghurt, nutmeg, cumin, saffron and salt. Add the fish fillets, covering them with the coconut mixture.

Cover and simmer until the fish is cooked - about 10 minutes. Sprinkle with parley or cilantro if desired. Serve over rice.

76: The best thing about tilapia (aside from the fact that it's sustainable, and inexpensive, and comes in individually-frozen filets that thaw in the time it takes to get the other ingredients out) is how great is is pan-fried. Butter + olive oil + med-high heat = moist fish with a crusty edge. Top with pico de gallo, if possible, and be happy.

If you have a tasty side dish, you can even skip the pico and just do herb + citrus on the fish. Ooh - or go escabeche, with vinegar. True escabeche is more poached, I think, but I've had it done basically as a piquant dressing for the fish.

My last rock concert is also my secret shame: Aerosmith, Hollywood Bowl. Sat next to Hillary Duff. Realized I was way to old for rock concerts. (NB, I more recently saw Clapton at Staples Center. Since no one in the house was under 40, (well, 35) I feel no such discomfort).

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.

64: 63: Obama has no excess body fat, so he can't be hitting the pork tenderloin too heavily.

It's all about the argula, apo.

God I love tilapia. Love it, like eat it every night forever.

My first was either G. Love and Special Sauce @ First Avenue (during the tour for their self-titled album) or Beastie Boys @ the Target Center (during their Ill Communication tour). I think it was the former but am not sure and am too lazy to look it up. I think both were early-mid 95.

I won tickets to the G. Love show on the radio (Rev 105, I believe) and my parents said that I could only go if my dad came along. I thought it was lame at the time, but he was cool about it and stayed upstairs in the bar while I hung out by the stage. It was definitely a transformative experience for my 8th grade self.

And I don't talk music much anymore.

Would Ronnie Earl and Ana Popovic be guilty pleasures? Catfish Keith or Fiona Boyes?

re: 82

Clapton has been dire since about 1966, unfortunately. But he was, once, pretty good.

I've never been too crazy about Clapton, but my musician son hates him with an incredible intensity. The very model of the sappy boomer.

She Who Must Be Obeyed won the tickets by calling in to the radio station. Definately nosebleed section, but front row as promised. A little frightening, in a Vertigo sort of way.

My Prog guilty pleasure these days is a Pandora station which I seeded off of "One of These Days", "Maggot Brain", Curved Air, "Court of the Crimson King" and a few others that I forget at the moment. May a thousand Mellotrons sound!

(Have some extra time this weekend? make a Mellotron out of Walkmans!)

88.89:Plenty of reasons to hate Clapton. Cream to Delaney & Bonnie, for two.

Peter Green was more authentic, because he copied & stole with reverence. Beck always more interesting. Currently listening to the folkies, Jansch Renbourn Thompson in his FP days. Thompson all over the place incidentally, lived off session work before he started writing songs, and back up on dozens of obscure English folk and singer-songwriter discs.

I liked Cream but Leila is the awfullest thing I've ever heard. It reminds me of the coming down period from some kind of drug experience, going on and on and on and on and on when you're really tired but can't sleep.

Leila is the awfullest thing I've ever heard.

Pattie Boyd has much to answer for.

I think Clapton was born bored.

Watched Backbeat all the way through last night. Beatles in Hamburg, highly recommended for an actor most Americans have never heard of. Ian Hart is genius as young Lennon.

In the late 1960s, Clapton became a close friend of Harrison, writing and recording music together. It was reported at this time that Clapton fell in love with Boyd. Clapton also fell in love with Boyd's 17-year-old sister, Paula, who moved in with him. Paula left Clapton when she heard "Layla", because the song confirmed that Clapton had been using her as a substitute for her sister

Jagger, Lennon, all of them were after her. Un-fucking-believable.

Sure, it was hormones, but it's amazing how wrong a decade's hormones can be. Boyd was ordinary looking at best by the standards of the last 30 years.

Watched Backbeat all the way through last night

Heh. Sheryl Lee was the star of the movie that I was the O of OPM. Lost my shirt.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114005/

93: Thanks JE, you resolved a month-long "tip of the tongue" experience for me. I heard the tail end of what I recognized as a long run out to classic rock chestnut, but could not place it. Bugged me inordinately in a "within calling distance of Alzheimers" kind of way and my total lack of pitch, tone and rhythm prohibited my reproducing it for the musical* to solve. But it was indeed Layla.

*The best I could do was to say it was slow march-like guitar and piano with a little guitar fillip at the very end, kind of a cross between Love Lies Bleeding/Funeral for a Friend, 2nd half of Can't You hear Me Knocking and American Pie (if American Pie had a long instrumental runout). Shockingly these clues did not help anyone identify the song.

By "on and on and on and on and on" I meant "on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on". I regret the error.

I'm sure that there's a double-sided Layla album out there somewhere, but the radio version is bad enough.

95: "We're gonna be too big for Hamburg! Too big for Liverpool! Too big for our own bloody good!"

X with The Replacements opening. Best. Show. Ever. I should never have gone to another concert. Except for that one Rocket from the Crypt show. That was good, too.

Ari wins in 101.

I actually like the instrumental portion of Layla because of "good fellows".

I might like that two-lead-guitar sound in a completely different piece. In order for a piece to be really, really, unbearably awful, there has to be something about it making it hard to ignore or forget.

Harrison "kept asking, 'Where's Pattie? But no one seemed to know. He was about to leave when he spotted me in the garden with Eric."

"George came over and demanded, 'What's going on?' To my horror, Eric said, 'I have to tell you, man, that I'm in love with your wife.'

"I wanted to die. George was furious. He turned to me and said: 'Well, are you going with him or coming with me?' "

She went home with Harrison, but Clapton kept pursuing her.

At one point, Clapton, drunk on brandy, arrived at their house, and Harrison decided to have a duel for Boyd's love.

"George handed him a guitar and an amp - as an 18th-century gentleman might have handed his rival a sword - and for two hours, without a word, they dueled."

"At the end, nothing was said but the general feeling was that Eric had won. He hadn't allowed himself to get riled or go in for instrumental gymnastics as George had. Even when he was drunk, his guitar-playing was unbeatable."

87: I like Ana Popovich.

102: I brought Exene roses. She give me a kiss in return. Billy Zoom (what a weird, racist dickhead he's turned out to be) gave me a pick. And D.J. Bonebrake gave me his sticks. I think John Doe was pissed that Exene had kissed me, because he didn't give me a thing -- other than a dirty look. Also, The Replacements performed Battle Hymn of the Republic seated as their encore. Ah, sweet, sweet youth, I miss you.

The Replacements: The band supported R.E.M. on an eight-date tour later that summer, deciding that they should alienate the audience as much as possible. It was not a successful tour....

Whatever that means.

I saw The Replacements open for R.E.M. And yes, it sucked. I also have a dim memory of seeing R.E.M.(?) play with some iteration of the Clash. Is that even possible? I think surely not. Sometimes, like when I can't remember it, I don't miss my youth at all.

I saw The Minutemen open for R.E.M. It did not suck.

65: Bretagne. I have noticed recently a few other mistakes in the comments. Is w-lfs-n getting tan for the summer?

Sardines, either fresh or canned, from Brittany are excellent. You just need to know what you are getting into.

My God! JM neither eats sardines nor drinks beer. I say stone her.

109: Was that when R.E.M. was touring in support of Murmur or Reckoning? If so, it's possible that I saw them on that tour as well. I know that I've seen The Minutemen twice. And I know that once they opened for someone biggish (at the time). But that's all I can remember. Detect a pattern?

I also have a dim memory of seeing R.E.M.(?) play with some iteration of the Clash. Is that even possible? I think surely not.

I can envision two possibilities

A) circa 1980 to 1982, The Clash is touring America, and when they stop in Athens, GA, R.E.M. is the local opening act. This would require you to have been in or near Athens, GA at the time.

B) circa late 1990s, Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros may have been the opening act for R.E.M.

However, I can find no evidence for either of these things happening.

The Clash stopped existing in 1986, and I can't imagine that they would have toured with R.E.M. when both bands were big (1983 to 1986), since they had little in common. And Joe Strummer didn't do much in the decade after the 1986 breakup of the Clash.

And I can't imagine Big Audio Dynamite opening for R.E.M., either. bbut, you know, you never know.

Was that when R.E.M. was touring in support of Murmur or Reckoning?

One of the last shows of the Fables of the Reconstruction tour, actually. Just before D. Boon died.

the very first concert was maybe this
this
i forget, we, 8-9-10 and up y/os, the whole classes together, used to go to the movies, plays and other events as it was like a part of the cultural program at school

on the bass guitar it seems to be a lot harder to shift without visual confirmation of where I'm going

on the upright you are much more vertical, with the strings parallel to your body, and much closer to your trunk. So your arm is in closer and not out in space so much, is my guess as to why shifting is easier. on a guitar I can't shift much without looking, even though its smaller. its crazy the actual physical shifts you make on the upright. ever play ein heldenleben? you shift several feet in a millisecond. but upright is gross! I was a suckered into orchestra.

as for concerts: gary wright (oo-ooh dreamweaver...), with manfred man opening, and I bungled a date with someone pretty! she blew in my ear, and I did not understand. considering my sparse sexual history, man, I'd like to kick my naive ass for that early miss.

This page lists all the opening acts for REM:

http://www.remchronicle.com/supporting-rem-shows.php?su=85

I saw REM open for the police. They were not that iimpressive.

Thanks, 118.

The only act listed there as opening for REM more than once, that I could possibly imagine someone's memory turning into The Clash, would be Billy Bragg.

Or...Robyn Hitchcock?

Nope, the concert was definitely The Clash (I only threw out the Straight to Hell t-shirt last year, doof that I am). And they were headlining. Now I just have to figure out who opened. It was in Cleveland, probably 1984, '85, or '86. I'll call a friend who was there. He'll remember.

Uh-oh, that era was the historical high point for bands that were billed as sounding exactly like R.E.M. An understandable mistake.

But which one would have opened for The Clash? My guess is...the Swimming Pool Q's. But that's my guess for everything.

Nope, the concert was definitely The Clash (I only threw out the Straight to Hell t-shirt last year, doof that I am). And they were headlining. Now I just have to figure out who opened. It was in Cleveland, probably 1984, '85, or '86. I'll call a friend who was there. He'll remember.

Was this it?

http://homepage.mac.com/blackmarketclash/Bands/Clash/recordings/1984/84-05-11%20Cleveland/84-05-11%20Cleveland.html
http://homepage.mac.com/blackmarketclash/Bands/Clash/recordings/1984/84-05-11%20Cleveland/Plain-Dealer.jpg

I saw this show:
http://homepage.mac.com/blackmarketclash/Bands/Clash/recordings/1984/84-04-08%20Washington/84-04-08%20Washington.html

re: 89

[guitar geekery]

Clapton and Santana are the two guitarists that most other guitarists love to hate, I think.

Both of them are i) not technically that great* [despite 'guitar hero' status] and ii) have complacently shown zero inclination towards musical innovation or moving on from a brief period of being moderately OK sometime back in the 60s.

* there's a couple of tracks on the 1965 Beano album where Clapton does a great aggressive-blues thing (in emulation of Freddie King), and that's about it for him, ever. Specifically this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmh0AcrKczc

Neither of them are much cop compared to some of their peers who were much more extravagantly talented. The 1960s Brit-blues guitarist's guitarist being, obviously, Jeff Beck. Who kept moving on and remains pretty great. And also, bravely, stuck with the Nigel Tufnel look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsfL6ATX1i4&feature=related

My wife played the piano part of Layla as guests arrived at our wedding reception.

Can't remember my first real concert. Maybe Yes. Pretty much already over that sound by the time I saw them.