Gigs Ive seen thru the years

Some great gigs here.

Nice. I'm just down the road from you in Hornchurch. The only "name" bands I've seen locally were at Fairkytes - Wishbone Ash, Judy Tzuke and Hue and Cry - and at the annual bash in Harrow Lodge Park, I've seen The Beat, The Hollies, The Searchers, Paul Young and Toyah there. Never been to the Roundhouse.

That's all so far.

I saw BS in Hollywood, with Nazareth and one other band, and I'm not sure which one it was ... and that show was the worst BS thing I have ever heard ... they were out of it, out of tune, too loud, and the music had the subtlety of a pile driver in your ears ... I doubt it was about the music as much as it was about all the groupies (boys mostly) at the front of the stage ready to kiss anything! It was actually boring, and sick, and I left before they did 4 songs. 

Saw The Moody Blues at the "Forum" (LA) with the worst sound system ever designed by mankind, and the mellotron not agreeing with the sound turning around as they were sort of in the middle of the crowd (off to one side) and the music appear to be bouncing left and right in that place ... the Forum, in those days, was not known for "acoustics" at all and it showed ... it hurt the band more than it helped ... even the singing was echoing around the place!

I didn't get to see FZ ... and should have tried harder, but I was too busy into IMPORTS and the stuff out of Europe from 1974 on, and FZ took a center stage specially after OS came out and everyone all of a sudden was a FZ fan! ... the sheer hippocrisy was incredible, but the FM radio listenership loved the great "hits" that the album had! I had been with FZ's music since 1968 and loved a lot of it, not to mention that so much of it was satirical about the LA area and many of its this and that, which was also being done by The Firesign Theater as comedy (get their early double album!!!) ... which was fun to listen to.

Other than that, I will never get a chance to see Vangelis, Mike Oldfield, or Ryuichi Sakamoto ... all of which would make me cry before I left the show ... the sheer beauty and happiness they have brought me, and others I'm sure, is not likely to be duplicated any time soon.

I did see TD several times ... let's see ... Santa Monica Civic (1st tour), Greek Theater with Lazerium and the trees on fire (see the album picture!), show around the time of Tangram in LA, one show in Portland in 1988 I think it was (the ones with all the white sheets above them as clouds of "dope" as I heard one of them say at one time!

I would have liked to see AD2, Ange, Banco ... for example ... but it wasn't to be ... I miss them terribly but am glad to see that they can still manage to make good music, specially Banco ... and folks here can not listen to TRANSIBERIANO more than 5 minutes! Yeah I would miss that magical voice, but Vittorio's band these days is not any less impressive ... in some ways they are more impressive!

I steered clear of Bowie, Zeppelin, Queen and Elton because in Southern California it became hip to see them, not for the music, but the hip factor ... which really bored me. I did see PF 4 times and then Roger here twice, and was at that show in LA where 714 people got busted before they ever got inside the building, and then during THE WALL, at least 200 people were taken off their seats DURING THE f**kING SHOW because of doping ... and really, it ruined the show, but added another element to it that made "the trial" more valuable and important to the whole thing! I'm not sure that most WALL fans even can relate to that ... but there it was right in front of us .... in plain living color ... and I was mad ... these coppers and narcs would never make themselves shown at a Grateful Dead concert would they?

I'm sad enough to have kept most of my ticket stubs, so I have -

Genesis - Hammy Odeon June 11th 1976

Yes - Wembley Oct 27th 1977

Rush - Hammy Odeon Feb 19th 1978

Be Bop Deluxe - Hammy Odeon Feb 25th 1978

Yes - Wembley 3rd Oct 1978 (the version of Don't Kill The Whale on Yesshows comes from this gig)

Rush - Hammy Odeon May 4th 1979

Peter Gabriel - ditto March 12th 1980

Rush - ditto June 8th 1980

Yes - ditto Dec 16th 1980

Marillion - Milton Keynes 28th June 1986 (Jethro Tull also on the bill I think)

ABWH - Wembley 28th Oct 1989

Yes - ditto 28th June 1991

Yes - Royal Albert Hall 20th Feb 2000

Greg Lake - Dartford 12th November 2005

Pendragon - Mean Fiddler 16 June 2006

Anderson & Wakeman - Southend 24 Oct 2006

Spocks Beard - Mean Fiddler 13 May 2007

Rush - Wembley 9th Oct 2007

Pendragon/Magenta - The Peel 8th Nov 2008(?)

ELP, Opeth, Steve Hackett, Uriah Heep, Wishbone Ash at High Voltage 2011 (?)

Roger Waters - Wembley, 14 Sep 2013

Yes - Southend 30 Apr 2014

Kate Bush - Hammy Odeon Sep 2014

The Enid - Cadogan Hall 2 Apr 2016

Susanne Sundfor - Union Chapel Oct 2 2017

Lifesigns - Borderline, not sure and also The Lexington

Susanne Sundfor -Barbican not sure

Soft Machine - Borderline 16 Nov 2018

Rick Wakeman - Union Chapel 17 Dec 2019

and various Tinyfish gigs

Not many prog artists on my list but I´ve seen quite a few (mostly metal related) artists through the years:

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/UMUR/artists-i_ve-seen-live/