BEST LIGHT SHOW - Blue Oyster Cult - 10/31/1976
Etched in my mind forever. This Halloween concert will never be repeated......ever. Helium‑Neon lasers were aimed at the audience and by using rotating mirrors, gave the effect of 3‑Dimensional planes of light going up, down, sideways and everywhere. Absolutely Incredible! The technical know‑how for these effects was way ahead of its time. [Aiming high intensity lasers into the audience was outlawed in the U.S. immediately after this tour]

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STRANGEST STAGE SETUP - ZZ Top - 02/17/1977
A most unusual stage indeed! Several caged and un‑caged live animals on the stage with the band included a longhorn steer, black buffalo, two vultures, two rattlesnakes and live cactus. Weird. The set was massive. It was a seven‑hour build process which took 40 crew members to assemble. It used 260 speakers and 130 light fixtures, using over 136,000 watts of power. A crew of 50 people traveled in a series of 13 semi‑trailers to transport 75 tons (150,000 lbs) of equipment. Over $140,000 (USD) was spent to insure that the animals were healthy, traveling under the supervision of an animal expert and veterinarian. The entire production and crew were insured for $10 million. I remember leaving the arena that night near the back entrance and walking down the street past rows and Rows and ROWS of semi‑trailers

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BEST ONE MAN PERFORMANCE - Neil Young - 03/01/1983
This performance was for the 'Trans' album tour. Everything for the first set was computerized with vocoders, synths and lots of sampled voices and effects. Neil played all the instruments for a majority of songs. The second set was acoustic or piano numbers

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BEST VISUALS - Todd Rundgren - 04/04/1980
This was the first time I had seen a large video projection screen used during a concert. The video was very cutting edge and was synchronized with all of the songs

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BEST SET - The Who - 09/29/82
This is one band that's had plenty of time to practice. The sound for this performance was unbelievable. The Who is not necessarily my favorite band so I'm not leaning towards them but...WOW! This set was really on the money. It was almost like hearing a perfectly recorded studio album with no flaws. All the songs were perfect and all four performers never missed a beat. You can listen to this entire concert from a high quality Soundboard Recording by clicking here. Phenomenal Sound!!!

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WORST SET (tie) - Rolling Stones - 11/24/1981 / Led Zeppelin - 04/17/1977
Both of these shows were total crap. These shows were a huge rip‑off and I left these shows feeling as if I threw my money away. The Rolling Stones. What a joke! I almost fell asleep. A boring stage setup and a terrible sound system made for a long night in Chicago and an even longer drive home. Maybe Indianapolis was a rest stop for Zeppelin? The band was on another planet for this show. For the very first song, Jimmy Page came running from offstage and his guitar cord popped out of the jack. He was motioning for the sound man to turn him up and he started to get really mad and was flailing his hands. One minute later, a roadie ran from offstage to plug the guitar back in and scared Jimi Page out of his wits. Jimmy must have jumped three feet backwards thinking it was someone from the crowd who jumped up on stage. Several key songs were not played including 'Whole Lotta Love'. It was all hype for the new 'Presence' album. When tickets went on sale, so many tickets were bought up by scalpers that they were going for only $3 on the day of the show. Almost 1/4 of the seats were empty when the show started because people thought the show was sold out and they would never get a ticket at a reasonable price

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STRANGEST CROWD - Grateful Dead - 06/30/1984
This was an outdoor concert. All seating was reserved (or so we thought!). Metal chairs were on the lawn area and were all laboriously connected together using thick metal bars so they could not be moved easily. Twenty minutes before the Dead took the stage, several people in the crowd started tearing apart the metal chairs while chanting 'Dance floor! Dance Floor! DANCE FLOOR!'. All of the chairs were thrown into giant pyramids at both sides of the stage. When the Dead took the stage it was pandemonium. My 8th row center stage seat disappeared into an ocean of jumping, jittering, boogie‑woogie dancers. Someone from behind me tapped my shoulder and I turned around to hear some guy shouting at me, 'I'M INVISIBLE! I'M INVISIBLE!', and he laid down on the ground with his arms crossed over his chest. He stayed on the ground for most of the show shouting, 'I'M INVISIBLE! I'M INVISIBLE!'. The day before this concert, out of the blue, Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead stopped by the computer store where I worked to ask questions about a new laptop computer he was interested in buying. I gave him my spiel for about 15 minutes. He didn't buy because the laptop weighed too much and it was hard to lift. At the end of my spiel, I said something corny and, 'Thanked him for all the music over the years...blah, blah, blah...'. As soon as he realized that I recognized him, he immediately said 'Thanks' and then walked out of the store

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MOST UNEXPECTED MOMENT AT A CONCERT - Spirit - 09/09/1985
Spirit was the warm-up band for several other bands of which I can't recall. After Spirit played their set, Randy California walked from backstage unnoticed into the crowd. He stopped right in front of where I was sitting and leaned up against a pillar and was listening to the next band on stage. I walked over and asked for an autograph and he ducked backstage right after he signed his name for me. Cool! Randy California was, and always will be, a guitar god to me so it was extra special when I met him. One of my best autographs ever!

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- - - - Some Amazing Things I've Seen At Concerts - - - -
[ The most amazing things seemed to occur at concerts from 1975 through 1978 ]

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Blue Oyster Cult / March 8, 1975 - The stage setup had really large white cloth banners about 14 feet tall sporting the BOC Kronos symbol, one on the left and one on the right of the band. There was an even larger cloth backdrop directly behind the band which had the 1st LP cover on it. I saw someone throw a lit road flare from the top row of the Coliseum into the crowd of people and hit someone below. It was equivalent to the drop from a 3 story building. Ouch! The set that evening was incredible and the crowd was real rowdy. I was 15 and it was my first look at the drugged out, crazy concert scene. After the show was over, rowdy, screaming fans were exiting the Coliseum only to run into a long row of Marion County Sheriffs lined up outside the doors blocking our way forward and also blocking to the right. Each sheriff had their own German shepherd K‑9 attack dog barking ferociously at the end of their leash. The crowd got un‑rowdy really, really fast. People shuffled away to the left without making much noise after seeing the K‑9 attack dogs. It was a very surreal moment and was like we were trapped inside a bad 1940's WWII movie

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Kiss / August 2, 1976 - I watched a pair of 'KISS' mimickers on opposite sides of the arena engage in a fire spitting duel. The first kid would take a can of butane, fill his mouth and hold a Bic lighter up to his mouth and emit a _HUGE_ ball of fire. The second kid at on the other side of the arena followed suit with an even _BIGGER_ ball of fire. Each time this happened, the crowd cheered and yelled louder and louder. This competition continued for about 6 or 7 sorties. The people sitting in the seats below the two flame throwers were slowly moving away to safer areas as the ball of flames grew larger and larger each time. The final blast of fire from the second kid was so large, it caught his face & hair on fire and he started jumping over and around the seats like a hot potato. This proved to be too much for the first kid and the duel was over. The first kid stood up and waved his hand as if to gesture, 'You may have this victory. I am unable to compete with your idiocy.' This proved to be a most entertaining act during intermission and lasted a good 5 or 6 minutes

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Led Zeppelin / April 17, 1977 - My friend smuggled one thousand firecrackers into a concert. These were no ordinary firecrackers though. All one thousand firecrackers were connected to a single strand fuse which meant that when it was lit, all one thousand firecrackers would explode in succession without stopping. One thousand is a lot....when it's indoors... in the middle of a crowd of people sitting in their seats. Yes... we were some of those teenage jerks you hated... the ones who brought explosives to concerts. With the lights on at intermission, my friend lit the fuse and threw the huge package into the air, into the opening where the sports players usually come out of the tunnel but... something went horribly wrong. The strand of firecrackers unraveled and opened up into a long wing‑like projectile. It missed the tunnel opening where it was supposed to fall (void of people to make for a safe prank) and sailed like a child's glider into the middle of a crowd right into some guy's huge head of hair (I mean......this guy's hair was REALLY huge, an enormous orange afro...about two feet in diameter). The firecrackers started exploding and it seemed like the deafening noise was _Never_ going to stop. People were running and jumping out of their seats in that section and the other surrounding sections because random firecrackers were flying like missiles everywhere. For the next 2 minutes, the ENTIRE AUDIENCE was fixated on the noise and mayhem towards the back of the arena. After the explosions stopped, the crowd went absolutely crazy and started cheering, screaming, yelling and clapping. Surprisingly, my friend stood up and took a bow. During his third bow, the guy with the huge orange afro yelled up to our seats with a clenched fist yelling 'I'm going to kill you, firecracker boy! I'm going to KILL YOU!!'. I then turned to my friend, smiled and said, 'Aren't you going to take another bow?' It was a tense couple of minutes but luckily the lights went out soon and Zeppelin took the stage

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Lynyrd Skynyrd / June 23, 1975 - I watched a girl of about 15 years old make it past a security search with a bottle of Bacardi 151 in her back pocket. One security guard noticed it as she passed the gate and he asked for her to give it to him. She said, 'No way! You're not going to get it from me!', and then started to back away from the gate. Another security guard saw this and came running up from behind her, took out a large metal flashlight from his belt, swung and smashed the bottle in the girls back pocket. Rum was running everywhere down her leg and she started crying and both security guards started laughing. This was one of several incidents involving concert security which really made concerts a bad time for everyone

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Rush / April 9, 1976 - I carried in a Frisbee hidden under my jacket. I went to the top of the arena and let it fly into the crowd. As I was watching it sail into the crowd, a uniformed Marion County Sheriff grabbed my collar from behind, whirled me 180 degrees so that I was facing him. He grabbed the front collar of my coat with both hands, smiled at me, and then pushed me backwards down the concrete stairs. I fell down about 12 stairs on my back, got up and watched him calmly walk away after the crowd turned around to see who pushed me. Luckily I wasn't hurt

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Van Halen / September 12, 1978 - During Van Halen's first US tour in 1978 as the special guest for Black Sabbath, I was in the front row shooting a roll of black & white high definition film. After the set, I went into the seats and took out the roll of film to load another for the next set with Black Sabbath. As I opened the back of the camera, the film canister fell out all over the floor. The camera malfunctioned and did not rewind the film back into the protective canister. At a different Black Sabbath concert (October 8, 1980) they were the opening act for Blue Oyster Cult. Towards the end of the Black Sabbath set, I slipped past security guards and climbed into a fenced off area backstage to get a good shot of the stage from behind. It's really easy to go places when the lights are off. After I snapped two pictures, fire and explosions started going off all around me. I stupidly managed to sneak into the pyrotechnic area which was rigged with flash pots and percussion bombs. It was mayhem and my ears were ringing for the next two days

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My concert experiences can be broken down into three categories; Musical Performance ‑ Impact ‑ Atmosphere

Musical Performance
Compared to the albums they made, some of the groups were absolutely terrible on stage. It could have been related to the long, hard life on the road or maybe they were just better musicians in the studio. Some of the worst sets I ever witnessed live were by Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton. Some of the best performances were by Van Halen, Golden Earring and The Who

Impact
Some of the concerts I saw in 1975 through 1976 were very memorable because the bands were trying to establish themselves as early supergroups. Their performances were legendary and you could tell they were there to impress the crowd. Some of the early band incarnations and absolute killer performances I saw in those two years were by Van Halen, Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, ZZ Top, Kansas, and Golden Earring

Atmosphere
There are some concerts where the music couldn't compare to what was going on in the audience. The Bush Stadium Rock Festival was such a crazy environment. It was a non-stop 12-hour party from 9AM to 9PM. So much stuff was happening in the festival seating crowd on the baseball diamond that the bands on stage were more like a small event happening on the sidelines. There were people selling mescaline and hash out of one-foot tall glass beakers and the occasional undercover cop could be seen wading through the crowd. Sometimes, a person would jump up and just take off running with two plainclothes policemen in pursuit... it was an absolute circus

• (Not Shown) Autographed copy of 'The Andromeda Strain' by Michael Crichton (Emmy Award winner, screenwriter & author)
• (Not Shown) 3x5 Card autographed by 4-time Indy 500 Winner Al Unser Sr. (Indy 500 Driver)
• (Not Shown) 8x10 Photo autographed by Charles Bronson (Actor)
• (Not Shown) 8x10 Photo autographed by Clint Eastwood (Actor)
• (Not Shown) 4x6 Photo autographed by Tom Seaver (Mets Pitcher/1969 World Series)
• (Not Shown) 8x10 Photo autographed by Allen Funt (TV Producer)
• (Not Shown) 3x5 Card autographed by Art Pollard (Indy 500 Driver)
• (Not Shown) 3x5 Card autographed by Bart Starr (Green Bay Packers QB)
  
  
• (U) 1967 Canceled check signed by Rod Serling (6-Time Emmy Award Winner, Screenwriter, Author and My Hero)