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[personal profile] rivka
Via [livejournal.com profile] serenejournal and others.

Allen Ginsberg - I know the meme is supposed to be about musical acts. I don't care. I saw Allen Ginsberg perform Howl, in a small theater. (If it adds partial justification, there were bongos.)

Ani DiFranco - many times, in grad school.

Bare Necessities - the nation's premiere English Country Dance band. If you've seen the Ken Burns documentaries on baseball or the Civil War, you've heard Bare Necessities' pianist. They played the first Baltimore Playford Ball I ever went to, for which I feel very. very privileged.

Cocteau Twins - the worst show I've seen. I can tolerate the Cocteau Twins as background music, but I was unbelievably bored at their concert. My girlfriend wanted to go. In retrospect, I was not as gracious about it as I might have been.

Dan Bern - once he opened for Ani, and once I saw him as the headliner.

Da Vinci's Notebook - I deeply regret not getting into this band until they had almost broken up. They're local to me, but I've only seen them twice. Of course, the second time I saw them there were fewer than ten people in the audience. That was fun.

The Flirtations - they played gay pride in Iowa City one year. I had never heard of them before. Afterward I went flying to the record store to buy all their albums, only to find that everyone else who had seen the show beat me to it.

Grateful Dead - my first concert ever, the summer after my junior year in high school.

Great Big Sea - the most shows, and probably my favorite band to see live. We first saw them in Iowa City, playing a small club on a weeknight. Their first U.S. album was barely out, and we thought no one else would be there - but a college up near Dubuque with a heavily Canadian student population bused in a whole crowd, all waving Newfoundland flags. That might've been the best show of theirs I've seen, actually - they were more, um, uninhibited than I've seen since. For example: they did an extended medley of '80s pop songs. And they sang It's the End of the World as We Know It.

Indigo Girls - only once, alas. I caught an outdoor show on the Swamp Ophelia tour.

Jane's Addiction - Lollapalooza '91, the first year it ever happened. Jane's Addiction was the only band performing that I really knew well, but tickets were cheap and some of my friends were going, so I went. Perry Farrell was so messed up that he had trouble hitting the right notes, but they did wrap up with a fabulous version of Summertime Rolls.

Martyn Joseph - I agreed to go to a concert without ever hearing a single one of his songs. Such is the power of [livejournal.com profile] therealjae. Fortunately, I loved it. I hope to hear him again sometime.

Melissa Ferrick - the most recent show I've seen. I will always be grateful to [livejournal.com profile] minnaleigh for introducing me to Melissa Ferrick, even though we're now in intense competition for Melissa's sexual favors. Because, my God, she's the single most sexy performer I have ever seen. And the music's good, too.

Moxy Fruvous - I think I've seen them... twice? But it should've been more. Really marvelous live performance.

Suzanne Vega - oh my gosh. My sister saw Suzanne Vega in college, and afterward asked if it was possible to be straight and yet fall in love with a woman. When I saw her in college, I already knew I wasn't straight - but I understood what had happened to my sister. She played a small club, and in between songs she drew us in with intimate little stories. What an experience.

10,000 Maniacs - I saw them before I knew I liked them, because they opened up for the Grateful Dead. I wish I'd had the chance to see them after I already knew and appreciated them.

They Might Be Giants - twice, about ten years apart. The first show was fabulous - I spent the whole night jumping up and down and singing at the top of my lungs. The second show, ten years later, was kind of meh.

Violent Femmes - Also at Lollapalooza '91. My God were they fun.

Wylde Nept - a local Iowa band performing raucous Irish and Scottish folk. We used to go and drink beer and sing ourselves hoarse. Wylde Nept is the only thing I miss about Iowa.

Young Dubliners - didn't know them before I saw them, and fell instantly in love. They played with Great Big Sea at Wolf Trap a couple of summers ago. It was so swelteringly hot that I could barely breathe, but I jumped up and danced to their songs anyway.

Date: 2005-01-17 02:24 pm (UTC)
ext_2918: (musicgecko)
From: [identity profile] therealjae.livejournal.com
You know, I don't think I could even begin to do this one.

-J

Date: 2005-01-17 02:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rivka.livejournal.com
It doesn't have to be exhaustive! The meme is only to list 20.

Date: 2005-01-17 03:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tammylc.livejournal.com
And here I am wondering if I can list 20...

Date: 2005-01-17 03:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rivka.livejournal.com
I knew [livejournal.com profile] therealjae was having the opposite problem. But yeah, at first I wondered if I could list 20. I don't go to a lot of live shows.

Date: 2005-01-18 03:54 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hobbitbabe.livejournal.com
I couldn't think of 20.

Date: 2005-01-17 07:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] edschweppe.livejournal.com
It doesn't have to be exhaustive! The meme is only to list 20.
It's coming up with witty comments for each one that's so exhausting. Or something like that.

(I was kind of pleasantly surprised that I could do this one, myself. There's some small advantage to being an Ould Phart, I guess.)

Date: 2005-01-17 03:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wiredferret.livejournal.com
I'm pretty sure I couldn't.

Although Baz's first concert was Weird Al.

My first concert was probably Petra.

Date: 2005-01-17 05:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] patgreene.livejournal.com
I couldn't do this one, either.

However I did see GBS last year at the Fillmore in San Francisco. It was great. And I saw the Indigo Girls at Emory University in 1984 (or was it '85)? There were maybe a hundred people in the audience, and they did songs between presentations by the college theater troupe of one act Sam Shepard plays. I told a friend from New York that they were great and he sniffed, "No, too derivative. They'll never go anywhere." Hee hee.

Date: 2005-01-17 06:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] anotheranon.livejournal.com
What about acts that were part of the same show (opening act + main attraction)?

Date: 2005-01-17 10:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rivka.livejournal.com
I've listed them separately here (like 10,000 Maniacs opening for the Grateful Dead). On the other hand, I haven't listed every opening act I've ever seen - just the most memorable ones.

Date: 2005-01-17 09:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] telerib.livejournal.com
They have Playford Balls? In Baltimore, even?

Moe and I know some/a few of Playford's dances from the SCA. That sounds like it would be fun! Is 17th century dress required?

Date: 2005-01-17 10:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rivka.livejournal.com
Baltimore's Playford Ball is held every October. DC has the Washington Spring Ball (http://ceimd.com/fsgw/springball.php3) every May. A lot of the same people (including us, at least until I got all rotund and unbalanced) go to both.

17th century dress is not required, although probably a third of ball attendees will wear period or close-to-period ensembles. (I have a lovely 17th-century gown made for me by [livejournal.com profile] wcg.) The rest generally wear formal or dressy modern clothes.

For that matter, they have Playford (English Country) dancing every Wednesday (http://www.fsgw.org/english.php) in Glen Echo, MD. At the weekly dances, each dance is taught and walked through before it's danced, so it's quite easy to pick up if you have any experience at all. I know a lot of the people who dance at Glen Echo - it's a nice crowd. At the weekly dances, almost all the women wear skirts but otherwise dress is quite casual. (For example, a full skirt with a T-shirt would not be out of line.)

I highly recommend giving it a try!

Date: 2005-01-18 03:16 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kcobweb.livejournal.com
I can't do this one either - I've been to so few live concerts in my life! I just made a list to see - it's rather short.

But the lsit reminded me of my best concert story - which was when I first moved to Boston, and my roommate and I went to Great Woods to see the Cranberries. Another friend was going with us, and we thought she had her car with her in town, and it turned out she didn't. So - that morning, we suddenly realized we had no way to get to a concert 30-40 miles away. We were too young to easily rent a car. BUT! At the time we lived one block away from a U-Haul rental place, so we ended up there - they do not care about your age, just whether you have a driver's license and a credit card. We rented a U-Haul van, and drove that to the concert. It was more expensive than a car would have been, but our only alternative at that point. We got so many strange looks pulling into the parking lot at the concert! :)

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