Bands you've seen before they made it big...

as in clubs or worse.

AC/DC (with Bon Scott). The Paradise, Boston 1978.

The Police. The Rat, Boston (78? 79?)

Judas Priest. The Paradise, Boston (78? 79?)

U-2. The Paradise, Boston early 80's.

The Clash. Bonds, NYC early 80's.

The Ramones. The Rat, Boston (78... I think).

Blue Angel (Cyndi Lauper, singer). UMASS Amherst (79 or 80).

Metallica. The Channel, Boston (82 or 83).

Sex Pistols. Tulsa, Oklahoma (78... long story).

REM. (some long defunct club that I can't remember the name of). Boston. Early 80's.

Alabama (yes, they made it into the big time venues). Myrtle Beach, NC. Mid 70's. Real scummy club that I just happened to be there.

Obviously, I have a very narrow (and dated), time frame.

B-)

I actually snag with them that night too!

fateful night.
:scared:

:7

"You know me, Marge. I like my beer cold, my TV loud and my
youth fa-laming."

(the lobby card is pictured in my sig line) It starred Colleen Moore in her break-through role as a flapper. :hi:

:-)

Nirvana, most notably. I was in college in the late '80s so I was just the right age and in the right place.

modest mouse, yeah yeah yeahs, white stripes, the shins... pretty much any indie band that is 'big' now.

also Tv on the Radio, who i think will be next.

to ever be *big*...;)

fronted for Zappa

Can't remember any others

Not even sure why I went, but I'm glad that I did.

Concrete Blonde, opened for X.

Fishbone.

They were extremely loud and that sucked. I left the hall and waited in the lobby til they quit.

DJs here commented that the vocals at the end of their song "Dreams" sounded like the noise someone would make after they put their hand in a deep fryer.

Very fitting.

REM and B52's at several places in Athens

huge then? Electric atmosphere? Or just the usual club action?

The Clash played 16 shows at Bonds in NYC in June, 1980. Glad you were there! The promoters oversold what was to be two or three shows (the facts are now lost in mythology). The city shut them down for fire hazard reasons. The Clash, being The Clash, decided it was only fair to play out as many shows as it took to honour all the tickets sold! 2 or 3 shows turned into 16 and they were exhausted, but ya gotta love a band with that much love for their fans!

They were the opening act for Peter Murphy back in 1989 or 1990 at First Avenue in Minneapolis. Blew him off stage. He should have just skipped the night.

Also saw Bush. The band, not the...uhhh, whatever. You know, the guy who married the No Doubt chick. They opened for some other band at 7th Street Entry (very tiny annex to First Ave.).

Also saw Green Day play some guy's basement.

Pure Prairie League 82
Elton John
Billy Joel
Foreigner
Rush
Yes
Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe

skanky-ass club in the late 70s? i don't remember. and the Police at the Paramount, Seattle. tickets-Free hardly anyone there and they were great...can't remember the year, maybe mid 70s?

My best friend and I used to hang around outside so we could hear the bands (we were in junior high and high school).

Yes, it was oh-so-skanky! :hi:

:hi:

i hung with the band people...it burned-it could have been torched-i don't know, but i took money on the door for the 'Magnetics' a band that didn't make it...never paid a cover in town in the day :evilgrin:

Do you remember the Telepaths? One of those guys ended up being a Realtor and sold my mom a house! :hi:

my best friend from high school fronted the 'Magnetics'

:hi:

And that single of theirs is very cool and very rare (the Telepaths) - did the Magnetics record anything?

i had the import and domestic versions of the album but i gave away my vinyl (to a good home) when i felt i had no room left in my tiny apartment, so i don't have it any more. Freda used to get royalty checks from time to time, so she's getting airplay somewhere, or someone covered a song of hers...

On edit-there's all sorts of shit about them on the internet:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Towers/8244/Themagnetics.html

My friends' band the Droogs recorded their first singles there in the early '70s! Very cool! Thanks for that link! :thumbsup:

n/t

Well, maybe R.E.M., Wilco as a virtually unknown Uncle Tupelo, Nirvana in a club, but they imploded so quick don't know if they made it to big shows.

Looks like Los Lonely Boys are going to be big - they played my daughter's birthday party once long ago.

Stone Church, NH. It is a tiny club about the size of your living room.

Opened for the Allmans in '92. I am usually not impressed by opening bands, but the big-ass harp player got my attention with his chops, and they were TIGHT.

They were old hat to me by the time they hit big in '95. I think they have declined a lot since Billy Sheehan died.

I saw him in '81 in San Marcos, TX (town south of Austin). He played Ladies Night at the Cheatham Street Warehouse so it was no cover for me and my girlfriends. It was strictly a student club, it really was a warehouse and it didn't have AC, just big fans. They only served beer and set-ups.

Oh, and I went to high school with Robert Earl Keen. I wouldn't really call him famous, but he's had a nice career going as a singer/songwriter for the last 20 years or so.

I mean Trent Reznor, when he was still doing the hairband thingie up here in Cleveland.

Probably starts in high school when I saw Fleetwood Mac at the Mt. Hood Community College Gymnasium in Gresham, OR...It was the Bob Welch version of the band, "Heroes Are Hard to Find" had just come out and it was my idea to go...It was a triple date! The show was excellent, the date not so much.. :(

Because of the college radio station I was involved with the Violent Femmes came to Corvallis a few times, the first after their classic 1st lp came out...They were stunned that people knew about them, let alone sang along with their lyrics!

Skipping forward, REM when their second lp came out...The Dream Syndicate opened and we had a great place to see all, probably the best concert I've been to in my memory...

I got to see all the Seattle and related Sub-Pop type bands up close and personal in the 80s...Mudhoney, Nirvana, L7, Mother Love Bone, The Fluid, well all of them I think...Plus my cousin ran the bar so I got to hang out and meet a lot of them...Just about everyone I met was really nice!

I remember Mudhoney's first gig in Portland, they opened for White Zombie and there was like 20 people there to see them...They weren't exactly danceable at that point so I pulled up a chair next to the stage and sat and listened to them!

That's about it, I've seen tons of bands but these stand out as far as attaining a larger popularity...

that opened for L7 back in 93 at a little hole on 16th St in SF. I got to play in a Femme Jam at the Paradise Lounge in SOMA too and 4 Non Blondes were there. Some of my best memories were playing guitar for Gash B-)

Ah...Lynn Breedlove and her chainsaw...woohoo were those the days

I still have a casette tape with an acoustic recording of Linda Perry singing What's Goin on in my friends basement

I saw L7 maybe 5 times before they kinda went south, as what happens far too often to too many bands...They were great, they rocked! Frightwig (remember them?) opened for them once, I think 7 Year Bitch did another time...
Do you remember Tragic Mulatto or the Mudwimmen?

there were so many great bands coming out of SF in the early 90's. The Bottom of the Hill club was a great spot I played with some of those GRRRRl Bands and there were a few great clubs in the mission that always had femjams on the weekends. I knew the promoter Nancy Kravitz ( basist for 4 no blondes before they were discovered she ran a club called Faster Pussycat that always featured an all grrrl line up. Excellent ! I wish the days of the grrrl garage rock band had never disappeared.

Malibu Barbie

Angel Corpis Christi (one of the nicest most talented women I've ever met)her husband played guitar for iggy

The guitar player was amazing.

Too bad like you said that so many just faded away. I can't remember the name of one particular grrl band but maybe you do. I've been wracking my brain, I think it was train (not the pop train) there was a woman that played bass and fronted the band and her sister that played drums up front in her bare feet like a lunatic, they were so damn good ! I was sure they would make it big but like so many I never heard of them again.

Oh speaking of..

Lunachicks

Red Ants

So many of those bands came out of a dirty little cafe on 14th and Guererro called Red Dora's Bearded Lady. I was the chef at Josies Juice Joint for about 4 years and that's how I got to play with those great bands and see so much fantastic talent. What great memories.

What was the name of your band ???

however I had pretentions (I learned bass and I do have some tapes with some friends who were actually in bands but things never went anywhere)...My sister is the musician in our family! My specialty is more graphics and art, here is a site that is my little contribution to rock and roll...
http://www.gigposters.com/designers.php?designer=16594
I was a college dj and always liked garage rock the best, especially bands with female singers or what-not, starting with groups like the Pandoras, the early Bangles, Blood on the Saddle, Addie Brik, the Pink Section, Wilma (Georgy Girl?), to name a few just off the top of my head...
My cousins ran a bar and art gallery in the late 80s/early 90s in Portland and I got to see dozens of bands in a small venue and that was a great time!
And yes the Lunachicks...I saw them several times, they got a lot better as time wore on and I still listen to their cds!
Of course I live in the NW and I went to see Bikini Kill, the Frumpies, once I saw Huggy Bear, this was later and they had the excitement that was lacking in so many bands I had seen for a few years!
Of course I love Sleater-Kinney, except for them and a few others I think rock and roll is dying, but of course I have aged and do not follow the genre nearly as much as I used to...
The last band I really loved live was the Gits, Mia Zapata was a truly talented singer, when she was murdered I lost my taste for the whole thing...I was sickened and disgusted with it all, my heart for it was gone and now it's mainly just nostalgia for me...
However, the Avengers are playing here tomorrow night and I am very tempted into seeing them! If not just to see if any of the punkers I used to see while clubbing 10-15 years ago are still around and what they look like now!

I handed in my guitar for the canvas and paper myself. There was something about being 35 and trying to be a rocker chick that made me feel goofy and over the hill. But I loved it while it lasted and I got to be around all of those talented women and that was a memory I will always cherish.

Some of those bands you mention I recall quite well. And I love Portland. I took some road trips from SF with some friends to see shows up there and knew a few gals in the artist community too. I always thought Portland would be a great place to live. And Eugene, Oregon is a beautiful state and those two cities are so progressive. I remember the signs in shop windows that had the ordinance against hate crime that asked customers not to engage in any bigoted language in their establishment. Loved it.

I had some tattoo work done up there by a woman who was very good. It was so long ago now I can't recall her name but they lived in the Gay neighborhood. She was covered. There was a restuarant called Dots that was great. I guess it's still there. It was a place where all of the garage rockers and tattoo artists I knew hung out.

Sleater-Kinney was kinda the next generation of the L7 genre and they are great aren't they ? Bikini Kill really liked them as well.

White Trash Debutantes, now there is a blast from the past and I think they used to open shows for alot of the bands you've mentioned.

The last time I saw Patty Smith at the Warfield she just wasn't the same. They're herstory now I always thought it would make a great book to write about that genre and generation of grrrl rocker garage bands. I too have a special love of garage rock.

Thanks for the chat it's been a walk down memory lane

:) :hi:

don't meet as many here as I would like... :hi: I was a drummer for many years in all female and then 3 women, 1 guy bands. I played a lot of other instruments, too. My first band was called Toxic Shock and the band I was in the longest was called Bone of Contention. I am taking drum lessons now since I have been out of the loop since I became a mom. I really miss playing.

we were an all female band before that started. Well, we did play when it started, but we were a bit older. Good to know there were places that showed those bands respect. I really like L-7! What a great thing to have seen all those bands in clubs.

Phoenix in the late eighties and early nineties, when they were still playing as the "Del Montes" at Chuy's and Long Wong's on Mill Ave.

They sucked less back then.

Pcat

On edit: Ben Fold Five before the first album was released.

on the tour supporting October, at the Rainbow Music Hall in Denver. $5.00, held about 1,000.

Stevie Ray Vaughan, same place, about the time Bowie's Let's Dance came out. Also $5.00

Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul on what I think was their only tour; Miami Steve Van Zandt, with the Asbury Jukes horn section, and the guy who had played bass in the Plasmatics. Also at the Rainbow, also $5.00

that was such a great place to see up and coming bands, though many I saw there didn't end up being really big.

for the record, I always have, and always will hate Cheap Trick.

around 1973-74.

Opening acts:

Fleetwood Mac (Buckingham/Nicks version) opening for Jefferson Starship, before their first album together hit big.

The Eagles opening for the Allman Brothers, around 1974, after their first album.

Saw Robert Cray twice as opening act in small blues clubs.

Adrian Belew when he first joined Frank Zappa's band

back in the early 70s.

my uncle brought the talking heads to play at the University-Wisconsin Milwaukee literally like a month before they hit it huge

I was VERY young but remember it!

Mr Crow's Garden (Black Crowes), Ryan Adams,...

I spent way too much time in bars

at the Collage in Tampa. Well, OK, they never really made it "big."
Think the BF had the Holding Co at a party.

in a shithole bar in columbus about 8 years ago or so.

i bought their album directly from meg because i thought she was cute and i'd talked to her before the show a bit

...when I hear that phrase, I cannot help but think of Bernie's Distillery.

Was it Newport Music Hall? That place is a shithole and has some good bands in there before their time. All black on the outside...kinda looks like a theatre marquee...

Like Bogart's in Cinti or the Metro in Chicago.

But they often have (or had, in the early 90s) deals where a few small bands get together.

And I don't think anyone would doubt that the place is shitty ;)

And it is way shitty.

But the Distillery has radiator pipes leaking hot water all over the patrons. It is a firetrap (or, it would be, if the radiators weren't always leaking hot water -- even in August). It smells like urine. After seeing a show there, one knows WHY it smells like urine. :scared:

But it's been awhile. My little sis is an OSU student, and she spends a lot of time there (or at least she used to).

and I saw Bad Religion, with opening act Green Day, in 1992 or so. Fell asleep during Green Day's set, tough.

At the Electric Banana in Pittsburgh, back in 1988. I thought they were great. This was back when Robby Takac was the frontman, before the suits decided that Rzeznik would sell more records.

Santana
Creedence Clearwater Revival
It's a Beautiful Day

Those three, anyway--notably, all in one evening on the same bill. Winterland, San Francisco, 1968!

:smoke:

Playing dances in small towns in North Texas in the late '60s. He had a tip jar on the stage and people would call requests to him as they glided by on the dance floor.

Well I guess Pavement never made it that big but the Mouse is on thier way.

a few blocks from the famous Tower Theater. You used to be able to see a concert for .99. I saw everyone I could, went to a show just about every weekend from the time I was 13 and I still have all of my ticket stubs in a scrap book. I was born in 62



Some of my favs:

Patty Smith 1978 This was my favorite of all time

Blue Oyster Cult

Tom Petti nobody heard of him when he appeared

David Bowie he was really wild then

Bruce Springsteen

A weird band called Hawkwind

ZZ Top

Black Sabbath

J Giles Band

Peter Frampton

Pat Benetar

Rush

King Crimson

Emerson Lake and Palmer

Nazareth

Allman Brothers

Aerosmith ( I actually snuck in the backdoor where the cables were running in from the sound truck outback and watched them rehearse, that was really cool)



There were so many I wish I could remember them all for you and I don't have my scrapbook at hand. Maybe there is another DU'er out there that grew up in my area and was lucky like I was to live by the Tower Theater and see all of those incredible bands who could remember some of the ones I missed.

Last time I saw them live I paid 50 cents admission to La Serna High School around 1975 or 76

in 1967...I hired them for a college homecoming weekend before they became famous...they just had demo tapes at the time...Tom Rush was a real sweetie, the Spoonfull were a bunch of assholes but their show was great! :hi:

Saw him on my first concert ever, when he was accompanying Eberhard Schöner, bringing the first laser show to my hometown. Must have been 1976.

...the Police setting up their lights and sound with no help from roadies. At the time, I thought, from all the blonde hair and black togs, that they were some new uber-fascist thrash metal band. I didn't stick around for the show. Oy!

opeing for the eagles and then tom petty opening for j giels.

I saw them open for Bad Religion in Philadelphia about a year before Dookie came out. They played a rocking version of "Eye of the Tiger".

Six other brand new college freshman females and I were at a restaurant in Rochester, NY, fall of '72. They came up and tried to get us to go with them to their gig. We didn't believe they were a real band, and one of my friends said to them, "Hum something you play." I'll never forget it, it still cracks me up. We checked later to find out if they were for real or not (we didn't go with them). One of them was an asshole, but another told him to leave us alone when we were skeptical.

'90 or '91 at Bogarts in Cincinnati.

Dave Matthews Band :puke: opening for Phish in Birmingham, AL in October 1994.

So i knew him before there even WAS a Smashing Pumpkins. Does that count?
The Professor

In January 1999 at the Y Club in Chelmsford.

They were unsigned, there were only 14 people watching and they were excellent. I'm glad to see that they've made it big.

Ticket cost $5.50. Still one of the best shows I've EVER seen. :thumbsup:

at a bar in Allston called (if I remember correctly) Molly's, which had a soft spot for Deadhead bands. They hadn't made a record yet, and I think they were selling the tape called Junta. Place was packed, however, so there were already a bunch of insiders. My car almost got towed.

Which reminds me, I also saw the Cars at the Rathskellar. They'd signed their major label deal but hadn't started recording yet. I actually disliked them intensely. They made my skin crawl.

they were lead in band to "ten years after" at hollywood fla. sportatorium. stole the show. 1972 audience was enthralled by lead guitar player, an unknown peter frampton.

Dave Matthews in the early 90s;

Robert Randolph several times - he will get big, mark my words

moe.

Living Color

late 70s/early 80s. He was pretty popular because he was a local boy. Sometimes, he would show up at this pub called the Deer Park and play. So even though he had had a few "hits" it was cool to see him play in such a small place. I don't think the place really even had a "stage" it was so small, just a cleared out area where the band set up their equipment.

Wall of Voodoo (GREAT live band, they had so much more to offer than "Mexican Radio" would have led you to believe), Meat Puppets, Cowboy Junkies, Killing Joke, Black Uhuru, the Cramps, the Sundays.

Of course, you could argue whether some of these guys ever really "made it big." But, I saw them in bars where I was playing in San Diego, so these were some dinky divey venues. All of these performers went on to play much bigger and nicer places.

The INXS show was funny. It was pissing down rain, and that generally frightens people in San Diego so much that they just stay home. I was in one of the warm-up bands playing the Spirit that night, and I swear, it was all musicians playing for musicians and buying each other rounds. Had to give INXS credit, they played like they were in a sold-out arena.

saw Camper Van Beethoven open for REM in 1985 (K.C.)

Counting Crows when they were opening for Cracker (Blue Note/Columbia, MO)

a band that never made it "real big" is Possum Dixon. Hands down, best live show I've ever seen.

Wasn't a dive, but it's a bar... with no seats... horrid acoustics. Wasn't even full. This was after Undertow was released, but before they blew up.

about that same period. I think they were getting bigger by then. Not my thing. All I remember is that we played early and they played last and we had to sit around in Cleveland all day ( that was ok), and watch people throw beer bottles and start fires as the night wore on ( that was not.)

In-store appearance at a Borders on the "Maybe You Should Drive" tour. Saw them later that night in a theater that holds no more than 1,000 people.

if you consider them big. they use to pLay in harvard square many years ago (right outside my oLd work).

well I guess they weren't that big then or now, so I guess my list is more of bands that I wish had been famous, as well.

There were two clubs in Pgh where all the up and coming bands played

Screaming Trees
The Romantics
10,00 Maniacs
REM
The Replacements boy were they loaded
Dead Milkmen
Beat Happening.. should have been famous :)
Tool we played with them on a college bill once
The Afghan Wigs.. at another gig
woman from Rusted Root
The Cramps
The Mekons
Mission of Burma


bands I missed when they were new and could have kicked myself:

The Police, The Pretenders