Super Supertramp Stub Story

My first “real” concert. After talking Mom into taking me to see Elvis a few years earlier I was now 18 and ready to see my first real show for being a ‘teenager’. To me there were two albums that came out in high school that sum up ‘High School’. Meatloaf’s “Bat out of Hell” and Supertramp’s “Breakfast in America”. As my tastes in music were developing and I was getting past my younger phase of “The Night Chicago Died” and “Season’s in the Sun” I was too young for the Beatles but the Paul and his Wings? well, “Live and Let Die” baby! But as FM with it’s “…no static at all…” was coming into the forefront, I started to really enjoy art rock, or progressive rock. Electric Light Orchestra, Emerson Lake and Palmer, and Pink Floyd were showing how classical music and rock could merge. And whereas Supertramp might be seen a bit more “pop” than all those other art rockers, it was just this appeal to the “simple man” caught up in a world where the "questions run too deep", a world that was too "logical" and "cynical". This is what hit so hard and visceral for a kid about to head off to college. I saw a DVD from about 2 years ago, I think, of a Roger Hodgson concert and the introduction included the line something like, "... a master of song writing from the soundtrack of our lives... " Oh how true!

My best friend whom I turned onto their music, enjoyed singing falsetto with Roger and me, so we decided to get tickets. Probably the last time I saw a show that I was not totally aware of a band’s entire repertoire, so most of the show was ‘new’ to me, yet every song burned into my brain. When that almost eerie harmonica started from the beginning of the song “School” and the crowd roared in thunderous applause, the absolute, amazing rush of a shared experience had me hooked. When all the band members walked out in tails and top hats, I was ecstatic.

With songs like “Rudy” that had the speed up footage of the train behind the band while Rick and Roger traded lyrics back and forth,
Roger: “How can you live without love, it's not fair?” Rick: “Someone said give but I just didn't dare”  I was transported to another world showing what special effects and music could do for an audience while also enhancing the lyrics of a song. I mean a song where the “hero” was an outcast, an overweight loner? Pink Floyd was too cool for that stuff…

And even though almost all the pre-“Breakfast…” songs were new, when they started “Give a Little Bit” ... it was probably the first and last time I said these words: “I didn't know they did this song!”. Fast becoming a music connoisseur I soon lost my innocence for such pleasures…...

To this day, I still remember the radio commercial on Q95 in Indianapolis(waaay pre Bob and Tom if you know their syndicated show) Anyway, that little piano riff from “Crime of The Century” was hauntingly addictive, “Coming to Market Square Arena..” and then seeing it live as the hands grasping the square cell bars floating in a moving star field grew larger and larger on the screen behind them and the music built so dramatically… well... it just now sent a shiver as I typed this.

A short 4 years later I was living in California and saw the very last show Roger Hodgson did with Supertramp in America. I think I researched they did one last show in Europe after ending their American tour and never played together again. So, there were a few concerts in between then, but look for that story later!…

Well... that was it for the stubs I scanned in last week for my Facebook beginnings. From this point on... I’ll have to scan in any ticket specifically for a journal entry…



Click below if you want to see the set-list I started and added what songs I knew of... so there's only a handful of songs... OR click the other link to see what "should be" the entire show set-list from around a week earlier.

Song-Set: (Work in Progress) Set-list I created


Song-Set: Rochester, New York concert around same time 1979

 

Watta "Kick" of a Stub Story

On Facebook, a friend of mine, posted an INXS video of “Don’t Change” the other day and that was what started me pulling out the ol’ box o’ ticket stubs. As I commented how their concert was in my top ten all time favorites and then a mutual friend stated he was at the same show and mentioned how Michael Hutchinson was walking on the edge of the orchestra pit making the security guard freak out and that flooded me with a bunch of memories. 

“Kick” came out in 1987 up until then they were somewhat obscure “New Wave” band if you can include riding “New Wave”s coat tails with “Common Wealth” countries. Obscure especially in Farmville Fort Wayne… “Kick” had only been out a very short time so they hadn’t entered the stratosphere of M-TV exposure yet when they announced they were coming to Fort Wayne, IN. And when I heard they were coming to the beautiful and amazing Embassy Theater I found out when tickets went on sale and early that morning went straight to the theater’s box-office. I was about 15th in-line, which turned into about 50 people before they started selling. One good thing about being in Farmville and not many knowing of INXS meant that it not being huge crowd they didn’t try breaking us up with a dumb lottery system or anything, and let us buy tickets with our original place in line. So my seats were 4th row.. font and center as they say….

Back to the Facebook thread another friend of mine posted he was also there and reminded me that The Brandos opened up, and were also an amazing band.(Sadly I see they aren’t represented on RP ) But anyway when INXS started not only was Hutchinson “walking on the banister of the pit” like the other guy mentioned, I was reminded he was gyrating, faux humping and otherwise humiliating the center guard relentlessly.

But here’s the thing….there were like 15 guards down along the front, as if they were expecting a riot. It was pretty much the first and last “rock” concert they had there at the beautiful ornate and apparently delicate Embassy Theater. And to their credit… it is a beautiful venue…. to say the least. I have several very interesting stories that I will tell in the future about the amazing beauty, and incredible acoustics, that many famous artists have enjoyed over the years. But in this case, the radical rock band from Australia had the authorities very antsy and they were out in force. Any time someone would stand up, they were asked to sit down, any attempt to head to front of the theater was quickly squelched etc.. Now they WERE reserved seats and losing my excellent choice seats to a crazy mob would have sucked, but not to be able to stand?… I don’t know this crowd would have stood the whole show for sure… and I suppose standing would have easily lead to rush to the stage too. But it really started making the INXS members angry and thus started the antics behind the middle guards head… this eventually lead to them completely stopping the show at least twice, and threatening to leave if the audience wasn’t allowed to have fun. At one point the saxophone player Kirk Pengilly started insulting Fort Wayne in general: “hick town” type of stuff, which Micheal did his best to apologize for, but despite all of this, it was still an awesome show and they did their best to thoroughly entertain the "suppressed" crowd, and I do think the last song or encore, maybe, did finally have a rush to the stage that had everyone standing. Me and my two friends, both hot girls, I might add, stayed in our perfectly fine area of the floor, and when they left the stage Jon Farniss tossed his drums sticks out into the crowd.. one of which hit the palm of my outstretched hand but striking it just so, that it spun around and continued on behind me onto some other lucky fan. Oh well.. great show anyway! {Sidenote: I’m not sure exactly what date this was… if you’ll notice the actually date is torn off the ticket. I have MANY tickets that are like this, especially from the stupid design of Sunshine Promotions and The Embassy. When I first thought of doing this book I even tried calling The Embassy to see if they might be able to help me research specific dates and such, but no one ever got back to me }

Since I first wrote this up I was able to find the date as October 21st, 1987 but no song actual set-list keep checking here as I created an empty one:

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/inxs/1987/embassy-theatre-fort-wayne-in-bdb6136.html

Here's a setlist from 8 days later probably similar.
Setlist from October 29, 1987 Albany, NY 

Stub Stories with The Piano Man

In a recent Rolling Stone article it talks about Billy Joel and his “feisty show-stealing set” at the 12-12-12 Sandy benefit. And man o’ man I couldn't agree more. I remember as I was watching it live, and when he started with things like “Anthony works in the grocery store… Savin’ his pennies for some day” I was instantly transported back to my High School/first year of college days, and it was such a joyous fun uplifting feeling. I had just recently joined “Twitter” and I have to admit it was fun to watch the flurry of reaction to what had been his first live performance in a long time.

Of course, I had to dig up this ticket stub from the one and only time I've gotten to see him perform. It was my first year of college and one of my first “concert trips”.  Billy Joel had been something of a mutual infatuation between my longtime friend/more than friends/ back to friends round and round again relationship and actually still friends: Lisa. Ever since I put on all my clothes backwards and lip-synced “Just The Way You Are” to cheer her up one night.. I think there has always been a mutual history for the three of us so-to-speak.  She had a short lived stint attending Indiana University and so even though I had just started college at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana that September it was a no brainer to ask Lisa to go see Billy that next month.

Me visiting Lisa at I.U.

She was staying with a couple of cousins or a cousin and her friend etc.. so as is common place in college days of yore… I drove down to Bloomington, Indiana to pick her up and then couch surfed at their place in the evening… I recently found this picture of me checking out their album collection in what I realized was my black Billy Joel t-shirt from the previous night’s performance. I remember that shirt so well the Billy Afro in silhouette against a ‘New York state of Mind’ skyline… (I just found this T-shirt image on Google…how cool... this internet thing just may catch on;-)

So on November 19^th 1979 we drove up from Bloomington to Market Square Arena. They weren't exactly prime seats but I remember thinking even from that distance I could tell he was a very small man. There was a ramp system that went up each side to a platform behind the stage and watching his diminutive frame run like a mad man up and around those ramps time and time again was quite the sight to see. The energy and fun he was having on the stage was just incredible.

In my research I saw that “Glass Houses” wasn't released until about six months later… well into 1980… because I remember him saying they were on tour not to promote any particular album like “most do” he said kind of proudly. But then he also announced he had a few songs they were working on and would try them out here. I know “You May Be Right” was one of them; pretty sure there were at least two others. Just did a little research on the site I found called Setlist.fm and in a set-list from around the same time I found indeed three songs from "Glass House" were played in Houston I think I found.. in addition to the one I mentioned he played “Sometimes a Fantasy” and “All for Leyna” and that sounds about right. I know he was taking flack on soft middle of the road album “52^nd Street” and I can say he did really try extra hard to rock out on these new songs in concert for sure. 

Here is the setlist I started myself. If you know of, or hear of, the actual setlist be sure add it here, or just keep checkin' back here to see if it does get fixed: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/billy-joel/1979/market-square-arena-indianapolis-in-53df1fc9.html

Here's the setlist from 6 days later
Setlist Nov. 25th Houston Texas

Stub Stories with "the Cute One"

Cool I was just about to post this write up when in researching some pictures to put with it I JUST found out Paul was touring this summer even coming back to Indiana in July. Sure wish my “editor” for my book here would give me an advance to go to this show,  With things as bad as they are these days… I sure won't be going to this show  Makes me sick to my stomach to even think about looking to see what ticket prices would be… Oh well I have my memories of better days… So!... 

First of all…. gonna do a little copy and paste from Wikipedia… couple of facts here I wasn't aware of when I went to the show, or had at least forgotten since then  >>The Paul McCartney World Tour was a worldwide concert tour by Paul McCartney during 1989 and 1990. It was McCartney's first major tour outing in ten years, since Wings UK Tour 1979, and his first appearances in North America in thirteen years, since the 1976 Wings Over America Tour. It was also his first tour under his name.

While the tour coincided with the release of his Flowers in the Dirt album, it was thematically more about his finally embracing his Beatles past, including for the first time, in any of his tours, a substantial number of Beatles songs in the set list.<<

There was a bit of a “mania” if-you-will about getting tickets so it doesn't surprise me that it hadn't been since the Wings over America tour that he been here. A triple album set that I spent hours pouring over the sleeves, posters and listening to and watching specials about that tour etc… I, of course, was a more a Wings fans since although slightly older than Mariel Hemmingway it was still applicable that I could relate more, for instance, to her line in Woody Allen’s Manhattan: something like, “The Beatles? Wasn't that Paul McCartney’s old back up band?”

In the 70’s “Band on The Run” “Helen Wheels” “Listen What the Man Said” etc.. were all over the AM dial, and of course the very first single I ever bought? Bond… baby, James Bond… lol “Live and Let Die” Oh yeah!… Yes, the Apple label became common place in my little 45 box with the little metallic flip latch against the hard cardboard case, a sound which I can hear in my head even now … So even though my older brothers never quite could forgive any of them for breaking up, that was pre-history to me. And while they were old enough to appreciate All Things Must Past, and the Plastic Ono Band etc… It was years later before I backtracked through all that and learned to appreciate it all in my college years with Lennon’s passing etc… but at the time? I stayed loyal to the Top 40 God Paul, even when he WAS writing his “Silly Long Songs” (I even had more Ringo in that collection what with “Oh My My” and such, but hey I was what... 12?   So the fact I was able to see Ringo live four years later was fitting I guess… stay tune for that stub story

Anyway, when it was announced that Paul was coming to Indy, I knew I had to go. At the time I was in Big Brother Big Sister program with a great kid named Josh Wood. So I knew his mother Paula Wood worked at a place now bought by Macy’s called Ayres, which had a Ticketmaster deep in the bowels of the store. I wasn't sure what there policy of employees versus public getting into the store but I knew she had a better chance than I would. I don’t remember the details of how she did end up getting in line or how far back she was, but bless her heart, she got me two tickets. Pretty sure it sold out quickly; because even with her advantage they were average seats, but I didn't care I had TICKETS!

A sad fact as will become apparent in Stub Story after story is that on far too many occasions, this  was yet another example of taking someone to a concert that really had no interest in going. In fact, I don’t even think I was dating Judy Scott anymore.  I may have asked when we were dating, or it could have just been the fact we are still good friend, and are still to this day, that had something to do with her agreeing to go. But with the concert actually being on VALENTINE DAY! was nothing more than sad irony to me…... Her taste in music didn't run much past Madonna with even a certain disdain for 60’s music. I remember saying oh I like the Madonna song “True Blue” “Oh that’s the only one I DON’T like. I hate that old sounding stuff” “Yeah? Well let go see the most famous 1960’s music ever then huh?”  So yeah even though we weren't dating anymore and even though she probably didn't particularly care for the music etc… at least I wasn't dragging my sister to another concert..  So thanks for that Judy. I’m also positive she would have let keep the program that I just found out was handed out for free, and do remember having it for a while but I think is got water/beer stained either that night or later, and if I have still have it it’s buried deep in some box in the attic. 

But as for me? I couldn't have been more excited as we approached downtown Indy heading for that Market Square Arena where I had already seen so many great acts going back to one of Paul’s favorite Mr. Elvis Presley. And so here again I was feeling the ‘historic’ occasion of seeing a Beatle

..

.  Listening to Q95 radio station, I remember, the DJ talking about how great it was going to be to see Paul go crazy during “Hey Jude” Which was starting the chills down my spine… But not only was the suspense building for Beatles music I actually thought  Flowers in the Dirt was a GREAT CD! His collaboration with Elvis Costello was a great success. As many pointed out Elvis’s cynical, sarcastic wit and turn of phrases brought a certain bite back to some of McCartney’s music that was missing since John Lennon. So for instance, when he launched into “My Brave Face” it wasn't a signal to get a beer or run to the restroom. It was GREAT! Okay… maybe I did get a beer during “Put It There” 

Linda McCartney got a bad rap on her skills as a singer/musician but it was fun to see her and Paul have a give and take on stage. And when the band held up their big hearts for the Valentine’s Day ‘celebration’ it was nice to share in that very famous “couple’s” special night together   

Even though I was a huge Paul McCartney/Wings fan in that I am pretty sure I have every vinyl album  they put out … and would have been happy with a Wings encore & closing etc… but when he ended with the ultimate ending to any and every concert ever?

 “Golden Slumbers”, “Carry That Weight”, and “The End”? 

Well.. nobody can top that… ever… and I saw Paul McCartney close his show just that way...

Here’s the set list http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/paul-mccartney/1990/market-square-arena-indianapolis-in-33d23ce5.html

And here’s some pretty extensive information on that particular tour including things like exactly who played what on which song: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paul_McCartney_World_Tour

Elevation Stub Story

Recently in another blog entry I was talking  about footage that existed of particular shows. Right after that I found someone had uploaded a bunch of pretty descent bootleg footage of this concert. What I would call footage of a very historic show: U2’s first American concert after the tragic events of September 11^th 2001. (Be sure and click on the song titles to see the footage below)

Found several Bootleg audio and video recordings as this show was simulcast on the internet
with your choice of cameras and the like

I didn't hear about the show until like the day before, and a quick internet search found what I can only assume were tickets that were just put on sale. I am guessing that with the particular design of the huge walkway out into the audience many seats were put on sale at the last minute. $85.00(plus $10 or more in fees!?) was kind of steep I suppose for my meager existence, but they were amazing seats. As I remember we were about half way back with only a railing in front of us to the main floor. The main floor was standing room general admission area. And then a huge heart shaped walkway came out into the general admission area. So when Bono or Edge came down the walkway on the left side facing the stage, they couldn't have been more than 20 – 30 feet away. But more so than the great seats was what an amazing, deeply visceral and cathartic show this was. I’ll copy and paste a few posts I had when I first found this footage: (sorry for the political commentary if you’re offended… but hey it is Bono after all;-) 

>>Opening song of the first show of the 2nd American leg of the 2001 tour. I was there. At one time the world stood with America. At one time, the whole world shared our grief, at one time almost every nation was on our side, and before Bush shone a bright spotlight on the left versus right, and drove a wedge down the middle of this country turning this nation against itself and the world, concerts like this were possible. As U2 landed on our shores in 2001 for the first time after Sept 11th and welcomed a hurting nation with such a moving concert that healing actually seemed possible.... it was a Beautiful Day. Until…well you know… Bush and Bombs:-(

 “Beautiful Day”

---

>>How much fun is this? Great song with great fun. Just watched a little more and you can see the railing we were up against. As I described earlier the our "seats" were up above the general admission standing on the floor section(s), so around 3:51 you can see the railing, and a little more to the left, again just off frame, you can see just how close we were to them… right in front of us, having so much fun:-) We were so close I felt like introducing my date, “Julianne, Bono and Edge, Bono and Edge, Julianne…” 
“Until the End of the World”

 >>Ah now here you a go!!!... The Bono they love to hate lol… real political statement intro… mentioning efforts of Notre Dame and such, calling for an end to poverty etc.. and then introducing the 1st responders (later having them come on stage)… ...

… oh yeah and my favorite U2 song to boot!;-D 

“One”

---

>>Here’s the song they later turned into very large tributes in later videos and such which I saw evidence of on YouTube, but here in South Bend was their first tribute to these heroes from just a short month previous. And of course how can you not get political when you know that some of these very guys walking on the stage probably got sick from the debris and yet Republicans (the party of "No") blocked their aid just because it was something Obama was fighting for… no wonder this country is gridlocked. 

“Walk On”

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>>No matter what… you hafta agree this is a great cover….I know, I know…. a bit of a U2 overload I suppose… but even if you haven’t seen any of my South Bend collection of U2’s attempt at healing a wounded nation back in 2001, I would at least suggest this one. What an amazingly moving rock and roll cover of an r&b song! I had chills then, it gives me chills now… Too bad a certain administration did not agree that “…War is not the answer…”;-) (Later research showed this was the debut of this song on the tour; not only for the Sept 11th victims, but the band had already been working on it for Bono's work with AIDS in Africa.) 

“What’s Going On”

---

That last one sums up was a incredible healing show that was… at one point Bono marched around the stage with an Irish and an American flag unfurled together and there much celebration!  (I know I wont be able to ad the videos of such songs in "my book" Who know how long the videos can stay up on YouTube for that matter lol... but as long as I have the chance for a multi-media experience... why not?...)

Garbage was the opening act, and unfortunately my “date/friend” made us run late and only caught part of their show but having seen them open up for the Smashing Pumpkins a few years earlier the tiny little Shirley Mason still put on one BIG mean tight show, wishing once again I could see them in a whole concert and not just an intro to another band.

Here's U2's set-list for the evening: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/u2/2001/joyce-center-south-bend-in-6bd6fee2.html

And here's Garbage's set-list http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/garbage/2001/joyce-center-south-bend-in-43d7eb8f.html

A little addendum as I just found this button that I bought this day.