Saturday Six – First Concerts You Ever Attended

Welcome to the Saturday Six, where each week I let you get to know me a bit better with the help of a list. Any idiot can do a Top 5 list, which is why I kicked it up a notch to a Top 6. This week’s topic: First Concerts You Ever Attended.

Last week I talked about how I didn’t get to attend the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Coming Out of Their Shells tour. So this week I thought I’d go through a list of tours that I actually did get to attend. Only music tours though, so no discussing my trips to the Ice Capades, or the Masters of the Universe Power Tour, the He-Man and She-Ra themed roller skate tour (yes, that was a real thing that I actually attended in 1987 when I was 6).

1. The Hooters – Atlantic City Boardwalk – 8/4/1989 – To say my mom is a Hooters groupie is a bit of an understatement. I don’t exactly understand why. They aren’t really a big band. They got a lot of MTV play at the time, and opened up the Philadelphia portion of Live Aid, but they are basically a glorified one hit wonder. However, they are apparently huge in Europe, and my mom was part of a tape trading circle on AOL message boards. It got to be a little insane. Apparently she was listening to the radio and heard they were doing a free show that afternoon, so she came down to vacation bible school, pulled me out of class, and drove me down to Atlantic City. We got there rather late, and since it was a stage on the beach backing up to the boardwalk, we couldn’t get in front of the stage to see the show. We ended up walking down the boardwalk a bit and just sitting there listening. Needless to say I was less than excited to be there with nothing to see for a band I didn’t even like. I just kept jumping off the boardwalk and playing in the sand. This would not be the last time my mom drug me along to a Hooters show, as a few years later she took me to a Eric Bazilian solo show at the TLA that I did not want to go to. I actually curled up against a wall in the back and fell asleep until it was time to go.

 

2. Ben Folds Five, Gin Blossoms, and Neil Young – 9/16/1996 – This was the first show I actually asked to go to. I had bought a copy of the Gin Blossoms’ New Miserable Experience used for $3 at my local comic shop after it turned into a used CD store after the comic book industry bust of 1994. I was like “Wow, I actually really like these guys! I didn’t know they were the band behind all these songs.” So I specifically went to go see the middle act on the bill. Being a naive 15 year old, I had no idea who Neil Young was. When he got on, I was like “Who is this old man, this guys sucks, and why do all his fans smell weird? Let’s get out of here.” We left during his second song. Needless to say, current me wants to smack 15 year old me for being so dumb, especially since they were pretty expensive tickets being a Neil Young show.

 

3. K’s Choice & The Verve Pipe – 5/10/1997 – I believe I’ve discussed my love of “The Freshmen” many times on the site before. It was the song of my Summer of ’96, and still my favorite song ever. Even though it was the only song of theirs I had ever heard, I pleaded with my parents to take me. I forced my way to the front row, and just kinda stood there all night until they closed the show with “The Freshmen”, and sang along at the top of my lungs with everyone staring at me.

 

4. Metallica “Million Decibel March” free show – 11/11/1997 – This was a free show Metallica had in the parking lot of the Corestates Spectrum for the release of ReLoad. I wasn’t really a big Metallica fan at the time, but all my friends were, and I wasn’t about to pass up seeing them for free. It was held at 3:00, and school did not let out until 2:30, so it was impossible to do both. I managed to convince my parents to ditch school for the day, but their rule was I had to stay home until it was time to leave. I guess they were afraid I’d run into a truancy officer or something walking to meet my friends at the train. I think I still have the bootleg tshirt I bought that said it was at the “Coor’s State” Spectrum.

 

5. Family Values Tour – Korn, Limp Bizkit, Ice Cube, Rammstein – 9/26/1998 – Why Ice Cube was on this bill I’ll never know, but I was very excited to see Rammstein and their giant squirting penises, even if I didn’t understand a damn thing they were saying. I remember my friend buying a concert tshirt for his girlfriend from a guy in the parking lot. The guy kept all his shirts stuffed down his pants, with large down one leg and extra large down the other.

 

6. Insane Clown Posse – The Amazing Jeckel Brothers Tour – 7/9/1999 – Yes, there was a time when I was a juggalo. The Great Milenko was our driving anthem my senior year of high school. This was the opening night of the tour, and I almost died when the pit opened up around me and I had nowhere to go. Some guy slammed into my friend, who in turn got slammed back into me, headbutting me square in the face. I managed to eventually get out, but was so dehydrated I didn’t enjoy much of the show. Fortunately, I managed to catch one of the hundreds of Faygo bottles they threw into the crowds to satiate my thirst. I also almost died when waiting it line outside I may have said a little to loud that ICP was like the Weird Al of the Hip Hop community. Apparently juggalos do not take kindly to that comparison, no matter if it’s true or not.

JohnScott is the proud owner of a life size replica Captain Kirk Chair. He is a hoarder of Comic Books, Transformers, and Star Trek action figures. He attended Space Camp as an adult. He has taken vacations to the closing of the Star Trek Experience and the final night Shuttle launch. He has been known to yell at his television when the kids can't put together the damn statue in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. When not writing for InsufficientScotty, he is a Software Engineer for a major healthcare communications company. You can Email or follow on Twitter @NotEnoughScotty or Facebook