Concert Meme

Here I start the catching-up phase of my blogging summer. I'll start with a meme. They're easy, and they appeal to my self-involved side. There's opportunities for bragging-rights for this one. It's a meme that has you naming the bands you have seen in concert. The asterix show how many people who've done the meme before you have seen the same band or performer. This branch will have to end with me unless someone considers themselves tagged. Any who read this--you're it.

Dar Williams*** — Dar’s my second cousin. We saw her in Charlottesville with my parents and she did a shout-out to my dad. She said she always imagined her southern cousins running around barefoot all the time. Pretty accurate.

Sting ***—three times with the Police and once solo.

David Bowie* – Saw Bowie twice on the Serious Moonlight Tour and the next tour which was Scary Spiders or something. Serious Moonlight was great.

The Grateful Dead* –about 15 times before the real en, and several times in their post-Garcia incarnations.

Queen* – First concert ever. Pretty amazing from what I remember.

R.E.M.** – 6 times maybe? Backstage twice, once on the day after my high-school graduation.

Wilco—saw them at Bonnaroo in 2004. I was amazed at their live act.

The Rolling Stones—in 1992. Mick was about 70 then, right? He still worked the crowd like a master. One of my top five shows of all time.

Taj Mahal—once in downtown Winston where the drunk frat-boys didn’t get it at all, and another time at Bonnaroo while standing in the longest ATM line on the planet.

Bob Dylan—several times. Usually people think his shows suck. I don’t know why, but I always enjoy them because he doesn’t care that most people think his shows suck. Best time in Durham standing within arms length of the guy who wrote all those songs.

Wynton Marsalis—I saw Wynton in the auditorium of Guilford College. His band was an hour late, he only played for an hour, he did no encore, and still it was the best 25 bucks I’ve ever spent (50 if you count my girlfriend). The high-note he hit during the New Orleans dirge was worth $23.50 by itself. Saw him again at WSSU. Branford strolled on the stage about halfway through to help finish the set. Unbelievable.

David Byrne—I never had a chance to see Talking Heads but Byrne came to my burg several years ago and put on this amazing creepy show with Talking Heads and solo stuff and a lot of artistic sets. All at a club that looked like a place you’d hold a barn-dance.

Phish—I think I saw this band about three times. The first time was good, but the other times I kind of lost interest sometime during the 29th guitar solo.

Dave Mathews—not the DMB but Dave Mathews with Tim Reynolds and Trey Anastasio. Trey spent the whole concert trying to upstage everyone and Dave looked like he was trying to keep the peace. When Trey started playing the drums during Reynolds’ guitar solo all magic was ruined for me.

Doc Watson—I’ve seen Doc Watson about four times. He always puts on a good show, and he’s in his 80s!

The Radiators—I love the Radiators. I saw them in Eugene and at Bonnaroo 2004. It was on Sunday and we were feeling very worse-for-the-wear. The band revitalized us and we continued on with our revelry.

NRBQ—I saw them in Connecticut in 1991. I didn’t really appreciate them at the time, but now I love them. They always do amazing things with their guitars.

Cracker--I got a little over-excited, i.e. inebriated, at this show and burst into their dressing room before the encore to convince with them to do an encore which they were planning to do anyway. Dave Lowry wanted to know where my girlfriend was--he was kind of a jerk.

Concert wish list, post-mortem: Frank Zappa, Muddy Waters, Thelonious Monk, The Clash. I would have liked to have been at the Beatle’s rooftop concert.

Concert wish-list: REM, again, The Pretenders during their heyday, Talking Heads, Bruce Springsteen and many more that aren't coming to mind right now.