Looks like I'm late to the ball...I've been away for most of the week, but I hope you made it through your procedure with flying colours. Get well soon.

Hang in there, Rick. Don't rush your recovery...just take your time and return here when you can. Good luck to you and your back...and your Bills.

Congratulations. Not only did you dredge up OLD news, but the "withleather" website you linked to completely froze my computer.

Thanks for the correction...it's very late in L.A. and I'm bleary-eyed. Cherie wasn't too skanky until later...and yes, Joan Jett was a close second or third. If you saw the Runaways back then and know anything about the band, then you know what a complete crock that Kristen Stewart movie was. Forget for a moment about whether Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart did justice to their roles as Cherie Curie and Joan Jett respectively(Dakota was okay, and Kristen Stewart's facial expressions and acting runs the gamut from a to a). What really irked me was how they treated Sandy West as a minor character in the band's story, when it was SHE who was the FOUNDING MEMBER of the band. Sandy was the one who met Kim Fowley first, and was given Joan Jett's phone number by him. Oh, and where was Jackie Fox? Michael Shannon as Kim Fowley is about the only reason to watch "The Runaways". A better bet is to pass on that Runaways movie and see the Runaways documentary "Edgeplay:A Film About the Runaways" instead..it was made by former Runaways bassist Vicki Blue, who succeeded Jackie Fox when she left then band during the 1977 Japanese tour. One of the disadvantages of posting at 3am is not having your faculties at their sharpest. Reading over my latest chapter, I noticed many things I wished I could edit or rewrite. Alas, it's too late as the "edit" button is no longer available for that post. But one thing I forgot that I am posting now is the ad for the Queen Lizzy tour.

Thanks for the correction...it's very late in L.A. and I'm bleary-eyed.

Post #11: APRIL FOOL'S DAY: A Day for Firsts Date: Friday April 1, 1977 Hello again...your prodigal narrator returns. I had some computer problems...lost some archival files...but I'll carry on the best I can. When last I left, Robert Plant had contracted tonsillitis and the 1977 Tour was postponed. All the Los Angeles dates were moved from March to June, which turned out to be a godsend as that made it possible to see more of the Forum concerts than I had originally anticipated. So now it's a month later, April Fools' Day to be exact, and here is where things stood. After consulting with my friend, our original tickets for March 12, which were now June 22 tix, were traded in for June 25, as my friend could only go on the weekend dates, as he had a family engagement during the week that he couldn't get out of. I had 3 June 25 tix that I now didn't need, so I swapped two of the tix for June 26 and 27 seats. The third ticket I swapped for a Pink Floyd ticket. They had just added a second Anaheim Stadium concert for Saturday May 7, which was perfect. I didn't mind skipping the June 22 Forum date, as I figured that would give me a day to recuperate. My schedule of Led Zeppelin shows was now set in stone: Tuesday June 21: LZ concert Wednesday June 22: rest Thursday June 23: LZ concert Friday June 24: rest Saturday June 25: LZ concert Sunday June 26: LZ concert Monday June 27: LZ concert Overkill? Maybe...some people found it excessive, and perhaps still do. All I know is that I had accomplished once again my quirky goal of getting tickets to one more Zeppelin concert than the previous tour. In 1972, I saw them twice; in 1973 three times; and so on until in 1977 I was up to 5 shows. Due to time and money constraints, there were only two concerts I saw in the month of March 1977, but they were both good ones. First up was the Queen/Thin Lizzy show at the Forum, March 3. This was either the second or third time I had seen both bands in concert, but having both on the bill together was a stroke of genius. At that point in time I was probably slightly more a fan of Thin Lizzy than Queen. Not that I didn't like Queen, but up to that point("Day at the Races" had just been released) I thought Queen's albums were uneven. In concert, while Queen was definitely a flamboyant and energetic band, there was something about the band's sound, and Brian May's guitar tone in particular, that came off sounding canned. But even so, when Queen was good("Tie Your Mother Down", "Death on Two Legs", "Somebody to Love") they were very good. I just wish they didn't have to rely on backing tapes for "Bohemian Rhapsody", and who knows what other songs. On the other hand, what a voice Freddie Mercury possessed! And what a performer...what a ham!!! I mean that in the best sense. Pretty good stage lighting for that era, too, if I recall. Thin Lizzy of course was incredible...they had one of the best twin-guitar attacks of all time. In fact, I'm not positive so I'll allow some Thin Lizzy expert to confirm, but I think that Gary Moore was in the band for this tour. By not being the headliner Thin Lizzy was also able to consolidate their setlist to 45 minutes of their best material. And what is there to say about the great Phil Lynott that hasn't been said already? He was the heart and soul of Thin Lizzy...a great songwriter and bass player/vocalist and a geniunely warm stage presence. What a unique talent and such a great loss when he died. I'll tell you one thing, that '77 Queen Lizzy tour was one of the best of the Seventies...they had the Forum rockin'! The other concert I saw that month was Boston/The Outlaws/Starcastle at Long Beach Arena Saturday March 19. This was one of those bills that were common in the 70s. Starcastle was one of those Yes-wannabe prog-lite bands that seemed to proliferate in the Midwest. Bands like Styx and Kansas. In fact, one of the highlights and side benefits of digging through my past like this has been rediscovering long-forgotten bands from days of yore. Of course, most of them were forgotten for good reasons. The Outlaws were the second band and they had about three albums under their belt, although none had the impact of their debut album, released in 1975. That was the album that had their best known songs: "There Goes Another Love Song" and "Green Grass and High Tides". As one review of the time put it, they were a harder-rocking Eagles/Poco or a more countrified Lynyrd Skynyrd. The best thing they had going for them was Hughie Thomasson on guitar. People were toking left and right during the Outlaws...I wasn't smoking, but I didn't need to. The Long Beach Arena was so thick with smokey haze that I probably got a contact high. By the time the band got to "Green Grass...", well, it was high times indeed. The smoking didn't let up for Boston, either. Now, I don't think much of what Boston became later on, but on that first album tour, I have to say they smoked!!! Even today, I still like much of that debut Boston album. Brad Delp had those crazy high vocals and Tom Scholze came up with that ear-candy guitar tone. That "Boston" album was a smash in 1976...radio played it to death, and having missed them in 1976, I was looking forward to finally checking them out in concert. I was not disappointed. What was incredible was how they recreated the guitar sound from the album. At times they had three guitars going at once, with Tom, Brad and Barry all wielding axes. The setlist was pretty much the first album. But I still recall the encore being a new song..."Television Politician". It didn't appear on "Don't Look Back", either. Don't know if it ever got released. "Foreplay/Longtime" was a highlight and "Smokin'" was...well, smokin'. If only they could have kept that creative spark they had for that first year or so, Boston could have been a decent band. But by the second album I was already beginning to lose interest and when they took a decade to make their third, I had long ceased to care. But man, that first album and tour...if you are old enough and lucky enough to have seen them then, you know what I mean. That brings me to April 1, 1977, where a couple of events of note and importance took place. Event number 1: The Runaways/Cheap Trick at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. This was my FIRST TIME seeing both bands. Cheap Trick was a late add to the bill and I didn't know a thing about them. I think their first album might have just been released, but radio wasn't playing it...at least I didn't hear it on KMET, KLOS, or KWEST. But there had been a couple brief notices in the L.A. Times. That said, I was unprepared for how thoroughly wacky and enjoyable the band was in concert. What a bunch of characters, led by Rick Nielson, the Huntz Hall of the group. It was at this show I first heard "I Want You to Want Me", and even then, in the less-than-perfect acoustics of the Santa Monica Civic(basically a glorified gym), you could tell this was a perfect song for radio. Which made it puzzling why radio wasn't jumping all over this band. Not that other songs measured up to that one. After the concert, I went out and got the "Cheap Trick" album, and I found it very hit-and-miss. But I did make a note to keep an eye on them in the future. How can you not love a band where the drummer nonchalantly plays with a cigarette dangling from his lips? But the only reason I was at this concert to begin with was the headliners, The Runaways...the Queens of Noise! I had been wanting to see the Runaways for a year, ever since reading about them in the L.A. Times and then getting that first record and hearing "Cherry Bomb". The clincher was hearing Robert Plant was at one of the many L.A. appearances the Runaways made in 1976. For some reason, though, I could never seem to get it together to go to any of their 1976 shows, culminating with their New Year's Eve show at the Whisky with Van Halen opening!!! FUCK! Imagine the rock n roll deliciousness of that night! So when the Runaways announced the Santa Monica gig, I finally had a chance. It was not on a school night for one thing and money was no problem, as I could swap one of my extra Zep tickets for the show. "Queens of Noise" had been out for a couple months and I was fully primed to see these girls rock! I was a couple of months away from turning 15, and I thought it incredible, if not impossible, that girls only a couple years older than me were headlining concerts. That was one of the benefits of the punk rock era...you could actually see bands with members that were in your age group. Before punk, it sometimes seemed as if rock was only for an elite few...mostly male, and mostly older. The audience was closer to our age group, too. Save for the odd older pedophile types there to ogle the girls. Speaking of ogling, by then I had already determined that Jackie Fox was the Runaway I most wanted to sleep with...followed by Cherie Curie. But once the band took the stage, those thoughts left my head and I just reveled in the high energy racket they were making...Queens of Noise, indeed! This wasn't music that was deep or polished. But it hit you hard in the glands and made your juices flow; it was fun. Much like the Ramones. And like the Ramones, it was over before you knew it. Finally, on the same night I was attending the Runaways/Cheap Trick gig, a few hours earlier in Dallas, Texas, a momentous occasion took place. Event Number 2: Led Zeppelin plays the Memorial Auditorium in Dallas, TX. The FIRST concert of the 1977 tour! After delay upon delay, postponement after postponement...after a 2 year wait, Led Zeppelin was finally back on the road and playing live on a stage. The 1977 U.S. Tour had at last commenced. Contrary to what the earlier article in the Times announced, it wasn't in Toronto but Dallas that the tour started. No matter...as long as it started somewhere. Being that it was April Fools' Day, I kept fearing that another announcement would come to dash our hopes. Plant would get sick again, or Page would strain a finger. Or Jones would crack under the strain and leave the band to become a professional backgammon player. Fortunately, no such announcement came. The tour was underway. There were now 81 days to wait until the tour hit Los Angeles.

The bell keeps on tolling...Grim Reaper's been mighty busy lately. R.I.P. Mr. Scruggs.

I guess that's a "No", then. Funny...with quite a few metalheads here, I thought somebody would have known. The movie is really good and Bobby Liebling is lucky to still be alive. I always thought John Frusciante was the guy I saw closest to death from drug abuse, but Bobby Liebling surpasses him. There are scenes in this movie that will turn your stomach; at the packed premiere I was at last Friday, the squirming and groans from the audience were very real. You could see some people shielding their eyes. I don't want to give away anything, so I won't divulge any details here...other than to say there is a Kiss anecdote and there is a slight Led Zeppelin reference. If you like metal, or simply are into music documentaries, you need to put "Last Days Here" on your list. There was a bit of buzz about the Anvil documentary a couple years ago, and I consider "Last Days Here" better than that Anvil flick...for two reasons. One: the stakes are much higher in "Last Days Here"...literally a man's life. If ever there was a walking advertisement for the horrors of drug abuse and the ways crack and heroin ravage the body, Bobby Liebling is it. Two: Pentagram's music is better, in my opinion, than Anvil's. Have a listen yourself:

After nearly two years away, the return of "MAD MEN"!!! Season 5 premiere tonight on AMC. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/22/entertainment/la-et-mad-men-review-20120323 http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-mad-women-book-20120323,0,7307911.story

Jimmy's seeing more action in this thread than in real life lately.

Why is that? I don't get it...it's not like you're gonna run off and sleep with Jimmy Page.

Wow, talk about a low shot. I'm not a great fan of the Chili Peppers, but at least I'm living in the 21st Century. The Chili Peppers only did that socks-on-cocks thing a few times, and that was in the 80s...over 20 years ago! It's like mentioning mud sharks every time you talk of Led Zeppelin..irrelevant and long past its due-date.

Pentagram was a metal band from the 1970s. A so-called "street Black Sabbath" and forefather of doom metal, or whatever they call it. My memory is a little fuzzy on them. I don't own any of their records nor do I have a clear memory of seeing them in concert, although it's possible they were one of the opening bands to some metal fest or tour that I've long forgotten about. It'll take me a while to scour through my archives to see if I saw them. Does anybody else here have any recollections of Pentagram? Apparently they are a band held in some esteem by metalheads. The reason I bring this up is that there is a new documentary out about them called "Last Days Here", and it looks amazing. Here's the trailer: I am going to the opening night party at the Cinefamily tonight, where the movie will be playing for a week. Along with the premiere and after-show party, Bobby Liebling himself will be there! Should be an interesting night, to say the least.

I meant jealous in a friendly competitive sense, like brothers one-upping each other. It's no secret both Dave Grohl and Chad Smith love Led Zeppelin and both were at the 2007 O2 gig. So I'm sure Dave takes every opportunity to remind Chad that Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones joined the Foos for their encore at Wembley a few years ago. As for Jimmy touring with the Foos, don't hold your breath Pagesbow. Jimmy couldn't even get roused from his slumber by the offer to collaborate with the Flaming Lips, a far more interesting band than either the Foos or RHCP.

Yes, the Chili Peppers do some jamming...or at least they did. After seeing them well over 50 times going all the way back to 1985 or so, and over multiple line-up changes, I am kind of over the RHCPs by now. Josh is what now, their 50th guitarist? Don't get me wrong, they had their purpose, and in the late Hillel Slovack and John Frusciante, they had some great guitarists(Dave Navarro was good but he didn't quite fit the Chili Pepper vibe). But as good and energetic as their live shows could be, they were hit-and-miss in the songwriting and vocal areas. In the scene from which they sprang, along with their fellow LA-brethren Thelonious Monster, Fishbone and Jane's Addiction, the Red Hot Chili Peppers will always rank behind those bands, even though they went on to greater fame and fortune. Thelonious had better songs, Fishbone were better musicians, and Jane's had a more profound cultural impact and influence. And they all put on killer shows. As for the Peppers wanting Jimmy to jam with them, a lot of this sounds like jealousy that he jammed with the Foos.

I'm having breakfast, so I didn't bother reading the article, Jahfin, as I didn't want to risk Gene Simmons causing me to hurl. I'll grant you RS might occasionally have an interesting article or two...usually on politics or a memoriam such as Whitney, but not often enough to warrant a subscription or even picking it up at the newstand to browse. Besides, if RS does happen to get lucky and strike gold with a particular article, someone will eventually post it here or at some other internet depot and I can read it then. But whether it is fair or not, I still consider RS to be a music magazine first, their primary raison d'être. Their music reviews and coverage ceased to be trustworthy decades ago and for me, if you fail at your primary mission, I don't care how many bells and whistles you have, you're not relevant. In the 70s, Creem and NME and Trouser Press easily trumped RS...they turned me on to hundreds more bands in all genres than RS did, and in a more timely manner. Compared to the others, RS was late to the Punk Rock Ball. I still read Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, Hunter S. Thompson, Cameron Crowe and a few others whenever they had a piece, but RS was not the rock n roll bible they liked to portray themselves as. What's worse is that as they broadened their reach to include all of pop culture, their mediocrity spread. Peter Travers is one of the worst film critics of the last 25 years or so...he's a "Blurb whore". Today, while there are no Creems, Crawdaddys, Trouser Press, and NME is a shell of its former glory, there are still plenty of music coverage sources superior to RS: Mojo, Paste, Uncut, Q, Word, the music issue of Oxford Magazine. Not to mention all the music websites out there. RS is an antiquated, outmoded has-been and the fact that they're the self-elected gatekeepers of the rock n roll kingdom is a joke.

Wow! I just had a flashback moment this morning watching ESPN. On the early morning Sportscenter, they showed a clip from a 1989 CBS NFL Today pregame show, with Brent Musberger and Irv Cross. The topic of discussion was a Cowboys-Eagles game where Head Coach Jimmy Johnson had accused Eagles coach Buddy Ryan of having a bounty on Cowboys Aikman and Zendejas. ESPN let the clip run a good couple of minutes uninterrupted, which was a miracle itself. But watching it, all of a sudden the memories came flooding back...I REMEMBER THIS HAPPENING!!! My brothers being Cowboys fans, they harped on this bigtime back then...Buddy Ryan was evil. So why didn't I remember this when the New Orleans story broke? Not being a Cowboy fan is probably one reason. You tend to remember things that happen to your team the most. I'll have to call my Cowboy-loving brothers to find out if they still remember the Eagles-Cowboys Bounty Bowl of 1989. One other memory came flooding back watching that old clip: nostalgia for the old NFL pregame shows, especially CBS NFL Today.

I don't think either Kiss or Rush deserve "Hall of Fame" status, whatever that is anyway. My loathing for these kind of crusty, musty notions of some museum-type enshrinement for an art form that by its very nature should be youthful, spontaneous, vibrant and ever-changing has already been stated by me. I have an idea though...who died and made Jann Fucking Wenner king and arbiter of all things rock and roll? Rolling Stone magazine isn't fit to wipe my ass. I wouldn't even risk poisoning my fish by using it as fish-wrap. Kiss has tons of money...I'm sure Rush does, too. Why don't they start their own rock n roll hall of fame? Nobody passionate about music gives a hoot what Rolling Stone thinks anyway. Why are they the only ones allowed to have a rock n roll hall. Detroit's dying, right? Well, imagine the boost if Gene and the boys created their own hall in Detroit Rock City? It's close to Canada, so Rush fans could make the trip easily.

^^^You mean that show is real? Someone...maybe you...posted a clip over on the Make Me Laugh thread and I thought it was a spoof or one of those homemade YouTube shows that are all the rage. Note to self: Stay out of West Virginia. So I take this thread bump as a subtle way of telling me my First Concert thread over at Ramble On is a duplicate. Fair enough. But, to be honest and in fairness to others who probably encounter the same problem, the search function on this site is quirky to say the least. I've had to reword my searches several times before I find the desired result. When I started that Your First Concert thread, I searched for a first concert thread using those words and I didn't see a thread listed in the first couple of pages of results. It was already 3 in the morning and I was in a post-St. Paddy's day haze and getting tired, so I wasn't about to scroll thru the rest of the results. Just the other day, it happened again. I had wanted to write about a King Crimson show, so I searched for a King Crimson thread. I typed in the words "King Crimson". I had to scroll through 5 pages of threads before I found the "King Crimson" thread...that should have been the first result on the first page. On a whim, I typed in the words "starless and bible black" in the search function. Whaddya know, the King Crimson thread showed up on the first page. There has to be a way to fine-tune the search function to make it more efficient. I know I've been a bit of a thread-police sometimes, and now that I know it's possible people did use the search function before starting their duplicate thread, I apologize. Since this is a democracy(with the mods as benevolent dictators ), I'll leave it to all of you which thread you want to use for your first concert memories. Peace.

Would you like me to put a hit on the bastard? That is just evil and sick...who did he think he was, Torquemada?

There ARE!!! I just posted there were above. I've had at least two versions: SIRA's "56,000 In the Ocean" and Badgeholder's "Top of the World".

Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane crash was Oct. 20, 1977, so it couldn't have been 1978. Probably either 1976 or 1977, as they played Manchester both of those years. Here's a little tip...the only vowels in Lynyrd Skynyrd are "Y"s. No "A", "E", "I", "O" or "U".

^^^You had it right the first time, chef...it's matrixes. Hmmm, it was good...but better overall than 6.23, or even 6.21? That's going to require further investigation. I will say this: 6.26.77 had my favourite encore of the 5 nights I saw, tied with 6.23. And I only liked 6.23 because Keith Moon was out there...the last time I would see Keith Moon on a stage. But musically, I was tired of the by rote short versions of Whole Lotta Love the band was passing off as an encore, usually linked with Rock n Roll. "It'll Be Me" however was fresh, fun and the band seemed to enjoy playing it. I always thought for the multidate cities like LA, Chicago, NY and Landover, they should have played a different encore each night.

There is...I've had a boot of this show for years. It's called "Top of the World".