The journey begins here but it could have started differently. My first concert experience was supposed to have been Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bebop Deluxe at The Paladium theatre in New York City but yours truly skipped a day at Saint Francis Prep high school in Queens, got caught and got grounded delaying my introduction to live music until Queen and Thin Lizzy played Madison Square Garden on a Saturday night in February, 1977; I had just turned seventeen and a lifetime passion for the live music experience was ignited.

The lights went down at the packed arena, a seen wailed and two red emergency lights rotated on eithe side of the stage while Thin Lizzy broke into “Jailbreak”. Summer of 1976 was the summer of Frampton Comes Alive and Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town”. It was a golden age for rock and roll with so much great music from the 1960’s in the can and so many mythic recordings yet to come. There was no internet of course so album covers gave you the glimpse into the mystique of a band and the young fans proudly extolled their favorite bands on boom box radios as part of their identity. “The Boys are Back in Town” could have been about almost any neighborhood; the story was an anthem that could belong to anyone and everyone. Thin Lizzy was a great rock and roll act to open for the legendary Queen.

Queen opened with the hard rocker “Tie Your Mother Down” and it kicked ass. We sat mid level slightly left center and were mesmerized. The show was a perfect combination of sight and sound with a then state of the art light show which made “Now I’m Here” an illusion with Freddie Mercury appearing as if by magic beneath alternating spotlights on the MSG stage. Queen was a great live act with many familiar songs but the best was yet to come; Led Zeppelin was to take over New York City in June and I managed assay for one of the toughest tickets this city had seen to that point.

Killer Queen

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GQ

In 1978, Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” album was a humongous hit and his energetic acrobatic stage shows had become the stuff of legend but, unfortunately for me, before I finally had the opportunity to see Mr. Loaf live in concert, he had broken his leg and the show was postponed from April to the rescheduled May date. The Good Rats opened the concert at Saint John’s University in Queens; the band was one of the acts with a strong local following in a white hot Long Island club scene that included Twisted Sister, Zebra and a host of really good bands clawing for record contracts, radio airplay and the adulation of butgeoning rock and rollers. It was a great time to grow up in Queens, and Long Island, and The Good Rats were pretty popular elder statesmen of the circuit. Pepe Marchello was the front man who famously used a baseball bat as a prop during his performances and they did have at least one local radio hit “Taking It To Detroit”.

The headliner Meat Loaf took the St. John’s University stage, which I think was in their basketball arena, in a wheelchair. Now this could not be good; we all came to see the Meat Man sing while doing his tumblesaults and he was stuck in a wheelchair where he spent the entire show bringing the energy level way down. It was not until the encore he dramatically staggered out of the chair like a latter day Frankenstein monster and played out the night’s festivities; a wheelchair could not hold our hero down. It was a memorable night partly for what the show did not produce, but it was entertaining nonetheless.

Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad (I guess)

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GQ

Pink Floyd’s highly anticipated double album “The Wall” turned out to be a defining moment and one of the iconic artistic musical projects in rock and roll history. Unbelievably the US leg of “The Wall” tour consisted of five nights at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island and sseven nights in Los Angelos.; that is it. In the Nassau Coliseum parking lot before my first of two nights I was lucky enough to attend, we met a pair of guys who took the railroad from Canada without tickets to see Pink Floyd in the flesh. We had our tickets to the hopefully sold out show, but someone we knew made a connection with a ticket taker at the Coliseum entrance who agreed to let us in for fifty bucks a piece. We sold our pair of tickets to our new Canadian friends for $100 each, a lot of money for a concert in 1980, who also agreed to sneak our beers into the venue in their backpacks. We entered the Coliseum and immediately sought out the Canadians to retrieve the beers. We located them and the beers sitting in what had been our seats, and somehow ended up staying in the empty seats next to them for the show all night.

No one knew what to expect and the anticipation was palpable. It all seems somewhat common place now but the quadrophonic sound, props, animation projected on a white wall being constructed before our eyes was amazing. Any thoughts of “greatest hits” being played after “The Wall” album was performed in its entirety were blown to bits when the wall came down leaving the stage in rubble. Superlatives do not do the event justice; it was extraordinary, unforgettable and never truly equaled over time. One of the great concerts of all time that “Rust Never Sleeps” and other rock performances of the time to new heights not seen before. Duplicated, replicated but never surpassed, Pink Floyd climbed to the top of the arena rock mountain and cemented their legendary status for all time.

This is Not a Drill

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GQ

Before one of a series of concerts performed in December, 2007 by Neil Young at the United Palace Theatre, formerly Reverend Ike’s church, in New York City, the crowd was kept outside while the New York City Fire Department conducted an investigation at that location. One story circulating outside was that James Dolan was ticked off at Neil Young because he was not playing at one of Dolan’s Madison Square Garden venues and that he contacted his friends at the RCFD to report insufficient emergency exits for the event. The crowd waited patiently outside while showtime approached and at some point the NYFD gave it’s ok and the doors were opened. Afterward a story circulated that Donald Trump was a huge Neil Young fan who was also going to the concert, and that Trump called his then buddy Mayor Michael Bloomberg to call off the fire department so that the show could go off as scheduled. Fake news? I do not know for sure but it is an interesting story in these times in any event.

Campaigner

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GQ

The Dr Pepper Summer Concert Series in Central Park was a cheap haven for rock music of all kinds that was inexpensive and a subway ride away from Queens where we lived. Orchestra seats were $4.50, balcony $2.50 and if you could not get a ticket or just did not care to pay, you could hang out on the rocks beyond the outer fence and hear the show just fine. We would go to anything and everything , finding ourselves in the vicinity of the park two or three times a week usually. It was the equivalent to today’s sheds where some of the same acts still roam but cheaper and most acts in their creative prime. I know I attended the Devo concert somehow, someway but I have no particular recollection of this particular show. Devo famously helped Neil Young coin the phrase “Rust Never Sleeps” and appeared in Young’s eclectic film masterpiece “Human Highway.”. Devo’s Mark Mothersbough further went on to create music for the Rugrats cartoons launching a whole new generation into de-evolution.

I Can’t Get Me No Satisfaction

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GQ

I have to say that I was shocked by the sold out crowd at the Madison Square Garden show last night for Hall & Oates, Squeeze and KT Tunstall. I would have bet that the venue would have been a third unsold with cheap tickets on the secondary market but I was wrong. I missed KT’’s very early and brief half hour set that ended at 730 PM and as quick as she left the stage Squeeze came on playing hit after hit in rapid succession to the delight of a very happy Friday night crowd. There was bad dancing in the seats everywhere but no one seemed to mind as the audience reveled in seeing a tight, really good line up playing the staples of WLIR radio back in the glory days of New Wave rock and roll. I had seen Squeeze a number of times and I vaguely remember seeing them open for Elvis Costello in their younger days. Standing ovations for an opening act are rare but Squeeze squeezed out a couple well deserved ones under Friday night lights.

Hall & Oates is the answer to the trivia question who had the most number one hits in the eighties. For those of us old enough to remember, the duo owned the radio air waves for many years and while the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers rarely get critical acclaim, there tunes have held up and have seemingly resonated with younger audiences in recent years much like Billy Joel has. If you sit still long enough what was old becomes new again. A somewhat giddy Darryl Hall with partner John Oates, who unsurpringly claims to have slept with a thousand women, seemed to revel in the Garden adulation as they ran through a seemingly endless number of radio friendly hits that the crowd sang along to frequently allowing Hall to jump in and around the choruses much to his and the fans’ delight. The sound was great, the seats were filled and everyone seemed to have gotten their monies worth. This tour continues through the summer. I attended the Hall & Oates/ Tears for Fears show at the open air Forest Hills Tennis Stadium a couple of years back and had a blast then also. For a fun, happy night out, grab your Hall & Oates Rock snd Soul CDs out for a spin, listen to East Side Story, and go see these acts out on the road at your local shed; you will not be disappointed.

Kool for Kats

Tempted?

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GQ

In a half full NYC Town Hall on a February Sunday night, the eightieth anniversary of Woody Guhrie’s “This Land is My Land” was celebrated by an eclectic group of folk artists.

Jeff Tweedy of Wilco fame and Woody Guthrie collaborations with Billy Bragg was was an affable “headliner” providing personable banter while performing solo on acoustic guitar. The unannounced Joan Osborne played a couple of tunes with guitar accompaniment and was the true highlight of the evening. Ms. Osborne is a super talented singer who might have reached star status had she been born at a different time but for now can be appreciated in front of intimate audiences at venues like the City Winery where she is a frequent performer.

The Woody Guthrie show was an “OK” evening for those that ventured out on a thankfully mild winter’s night in New York City on a school night; not great or very memorable but “OK”

Schmilco

Folk you

GQ

Summer tours are being announced at a furious pace with even The Rolling Stones heading back out on the road for a 15 date 2020 jaunt. Northwell at Jones Beach Theatre has a phenomenal line up in store if you are a fan of 1970’s classic rock. Rolling Stone magazine recently listed the top albums of the past decade and rock and roll is on life support. Have my hero’s become the Frank Sinatra and Perry Como of our generation while Johnny Matthis and Paul Anka still tour? Elton John just won an Oscar for a mediocre Elton John song from his biopic.

Feel free to discuss.

Life is a Long Song

Long Live Rock!

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GQ

My kids gave me the Christmas gift of New Orleans Jazz Fest this April, 2020.

Never been and looking forward to it.

I have been reading the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young biography written by David Browne. The book is a phenomenal read For any CSN or Y fan and anyone else interested in the mechanisms of the record industry, drug dos and don’ts, and how not to form a rock and Roll supergroup.

I was cleaning out my attic this week and found the Rolling Stone magazine published after Lou Reed’s passing.

Lou Reed has been dead for 7 years?

Time flies so live in the moment;

Cheap Trick performs at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury tomorrow night.

Find the Cost of Freedom

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GQ

The Rolling Stones were on a long hiatus and the New Barbarians concert scheduled for Madison Square Garden in May of 1979 was highly anticipated. The band consisted of an all star lineup with Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood on guitars, Faces’ Ian McLagan on keyboards, the legendary Stanley Clarke on bass, Zigaboo Modeliste of The Meters on drums, and the late great Rolling Stones’ Bobby Keys on saxophone. It was a perfect scenario for guest apprearsnces but the rumors of a possible Rolling Stones pseudo-reunion never materialized. The MSG crowd was as amped up as it has ever been and the band did not disappoint, rocking and roling old school. We had managed to make our way down to the orchestra seats and jumped up on the folding metal chairs with new friends in a communal rite. No special guests, but when the lights came up a cloud hung in the air and the folding metal seats on the floor were in various states of mangled, with the orchestra section looking like a war zone as the exhausted crowd began to find the exits. The New Barbarians were a short lived project, however on this night in New York City, they conquered the day, seizing the heavyweight rock and roll crown where Ali once fought Joe Frazier.

It’s Only Rock and Roll

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GQ