Unforgettable concert moments

                   I also saw Boston on their very first tour, in the summer of 1977 at the Ottawa Civic Centre, and had excellent seats, and behind the band was a gigantic fluorescent backdrop image of the debut album cover of theirs. They played quite well.

            ELP on their first concert in Ottawa, in Jan. of 1993, in a small, maybe 500 seat civic centre, and it was a great show. They opened their set with the Tarkus suite. Loved it when they did a three section jazz trio thing that was awesome, with Keith leading on piano.

                     I missed out on so many great concerts, like Triumvirat opening for BTO in Montreal in August, 1975, as I was a latecomer to prog.

 

 

My first ever big concert was the Tubes.  They put on a spectacular and elaborate show that simply blew my teenage mind.

 

Peter Gabriel in 1984 was also a highlight.

 

Allan Holdsworth in a small club in Eureka, California.  My jaw dropped at the first legato run and did not lift for the rest of the show.  Also saw Oregon there, when Collin Walcot was still in the band.  And caught John Scofield in an even smaller theater where both he and the bass player broke strings at the same time.  That was some hard jamming!

 

Much more recently, I caught Magma at a club in Seattle.  Incredible.  If I had seen them around the times of the others I have mentioned, it would have been a life changing event.  Even at my age and as jaded as I am, pretty darned impressive.

 

This one was remarkable but not because of its glory, rather the opposite, its sadness. Carl Palmer Band (trio with Paul Bielatowicz and Simon Fitzpatrick) at some forgotten rather small German town close to the Dutch border perhaps around 2008. I was living in Belgium at the time and I drove there with a friend, having booked a cheap hotel in the village for the night.

The venue happened to be tiny, something like a town social center where to hold parties or small exhibitions and things like that. The audience turned out to be perhaps 200 at most. The guys played well and the audience was enthusiastic enough, but I couldn't help feel sad seeing the great Carl playing what seemed like a high-school gig.

When the concert was over we stayed around and after a good while, when most people had already left, a big van drove in front of the venue and we saw Carl himself and the other 2 musicians with a little help from a couple of more guys loading himself his drum kit and the other stuff into the van. You know, the star who had had three trailer trucks with their names on the roof moving the equipment around the world, now loading his own drums into a van. That was really sad for me, "this is so unfair" I couldn't help thinking.

A bit later we went to the booked hotel to sleep, and it was really a very humble hotel. Next morning I wake up before my friend and I go downstairs for some breakfast, they served just coffee and toasts with jam. After some minutes I see Carl Palmer coming into the breakfast room and ordering some coffee and start spreading some jam on his toasts. The room was nearly empty and nobody seems to know who he is.

I couldn't help going to my car and picking up a CD of Tarkus I had and came in again and approached him to tell him I had loved the concert the evening before and asked him to sign the CD sleeve. He nodded and signed it but he was clearly not in good mood so I opted for leaving to my table and not disturbing him anymore. He didn't look at me anymore nor made any sign of gratitude or anything.

In summary, I felt really sad seeing a guy who had been at the very top, rated several times as the best drummer in the world, traveled in dedicated jet planes, being driven in limousines, staying at the best hotels...  now having to unload and load his gear in a van himself, staying in a nameless village hotel where no one recognized him....