(I put 2 lines between paras since ther may be an issue with just one break)
Things seem a little slow around here, so I thought I'd throw out this question that probably gets asked on every fan board there is, so why not here too? Maybe it already has and I just didn't know. What was your first concert? I ask because I was going through some old albums over the weekend, and one of them touched off a very pleasant memory.
Ooops, I just realized, I'm forcing everyone that responds to reveal their age! Probably won't get so many responses eh? Aw what the heck...I'll kick it off anyway.
In 1968 there was a new band on the radio playing a song called "Born to Be Wild". The band was Steppenwolf and they seemed to have just exploded on the scene. They played it all the time on the radio. Up until that point, I was listening to the Monkees and The Beatles. The problem was, my older brother also liked those bands and I wanted to like something different, so as not to be too much like him of course. "Born to Be Wild" was perfect for this endeavor and Steppenwolf soon became my new fav band. I was eight years old.
One day, my Dad came home from work and had a brown bag with something in it he said was for me. It was a Steppenwolf album! Holy cow, how cool was that! Thanks Dad! It was their first one I believe, called just "Steppenwolf" and I wore that thing out on my portable turntable. You remember those, they had like a 12 lb. needle that pretty much ate through an album within a month? It didn't matter though, I still played it even after it sounded like crap.
The following summer (69) Steppenwolf actually toured through my little town! I couldn't believe it! I lived in Athens, Oh (home of Ohio University) and the university had just built a brand new arena (Convocation Center). It was perfect for concerts. I begged my mom for days to let me go and she just kept saying "I'll think about it." Finally one day she said "Oh, allright, but your brother has to go with you." I said great! He was 11. (What the hell was she thinking??)
Anyhow, mom drove us to the concert in her land yacht '64 Buick Lesabre and dropped us off at the door. She said she'd be back in 2 hours to pick us up. Dad had gotten us seats in the nosebleed section, but that was just fine by us. We were parentless in a sea of hippies and we were about to actually see Steppenwolf live! Woohoo! Yeah, life was good.
Well, the show was awesome as I recall, but of course I also really hadn't developed any taste yet for what was actually good, so it might have sucked - I was none the wiser. It was incredible to be in that atmosphere, I felt like I'd been liberated. From what, I don't know exactly. But, we were having a ball. Shortly after the show got started, there was an almost overpowering aroma in the air that I couldn't identify. I turned to my brother and he was looking at me with a quizzical expression and I said What's that smell? He said, "I don't know, maybe some kind of insense." I recall that we both agreed that it wasn't unpleasant, just strange. We got used to it after a few minutes though.
The funniest part of the show though, for us, was at a point where John Kay said that they had to take a brief break so the drummer could use the restroom. I can't remember if it was while he was gone or after he came back (or even if he ever left) but, they played a song that John said they had written about him since it happened frequently. They called it "Fifty Foot Penis", because they wished he had one that he could just leave in the urinal during their shows. We laughed our asses off. At nine years old, you don't get to hear that word all that much. I've never heard the song since and have never been able to find even any record of it. Too bad, I'd love to hear it again.
The show was a great memory for me, and I suppose it's what really kickstarted my appreciation of music. I'm still very fond of those old Steppenwolf tunes when they come on the radio from time to time. For the record, my favorite for some reason was "Corina, Corina". Of course I liked them all. I lost that first album somewhere along the line, but came across "Steppenwolf Live" the other day, which dad also brought home for me a couple years later. My parents were, and still are, way cool.
Whose next?
Marc
Where's Mick been anyway?
