Your prog rock stories

This happened not to me but to a former boss, but its still a pretty neat story..

In 1997, a collegue I worked with asked me if I liked Yes. I replied that they were one of my all time favourite bands. He then said he had been having lunch with their road manager and had two complimentary tickets for their gig in a few days and I could have them. I was very excited and told me wife where I would be going on Saturday night. She reminded me we were going to our neighbours for dinner, and as we had already canceled twice, I was not going to "a stupid concert". I had intended to give the spare ticket to my brother but drastic measures were called for. I asked my neighbour (the bloke) if he liked Yes. He said he did and we persuaded our wives that we should go, but we would come straight home when it was finished. I had no intention of doing that because not only did I get tickets but back stage passes as well!

The gig was in Glasgow's new Clyde Auditorium, which I had not been to before, but was perfect for a band like Yes. There are twelve rows of seats at the front followed by a fifteen foot gap then our seats. Big comfy chairs with all that leg room - brilliant. My guest stated that he hoped they played Wondrous Stories and Don't Kill the Whale! It turns out he don't know Yes very well but once owned Going for the One - what a waste he had never heard of Heart of the Sunrise.

When we sat down, I was next to a grey haired elderly lady which I found quite strange. However, it turned out it was Alan White's mother and we had a long chat about how well her  boy had done.

The only negative part of the evening, was when the concert finished and I suggested going back stage with our passes, my friend insisted we join our wives back at his house, as he had promised he would be straight home. I was devastated, but he had the car!

Edited by TartanTantrum - March 06 2008 at 08:49

I got into Genesis in 1972 when I was 14. At that tender age buying and album was a major purchase because they cost £2.25 and I only earned £1.50 a week on my paper round. It was therefore imperative to have a group of like minded friends who would buy the albums you couldn't afford. I was lucky in my street to have two friends who liked Genesis when I played the two albums I had, Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot. One of them bought Trespass and (the following year) Selling England and the other bought Live and From Genesis to Revelation. My memory is not good enough to recall if it was new or second hand, but it was the original, which is well documented only sold 650 copies. You can tell it is the original because it was in the all black cover with the gold lettering but has no band name on it, it is on thick, pre-oil crisis vinyl and has a lyric sheet and sleeve notes by Jonathon King. By the time I was 17 I had all the Genesis albums myself, except of course FGTR. I niggled away at my friend to sell me it and finally, when I was 18 he sold me it for £2. I still  have it. The last time I played it was a couple of years ago when I ran it through a computrr program that converted it to digital so I could burn a CD of it.

I found out about the Flower Kings in 1999 (quite by a bizarre accident but that is another story) and they were instantly propelled to one of my favourite bands. In 2001 they released the rainmaker and I noticed on their website that they were touring and one of their gigs was in Scotland. They were playing in a village about 10 mile from Glasgow, which I thought was a bit strange, but I headed into the ticket centre to pick up two tickets. They were numbered 3 & 4. Two weeks later I had persuaded two more friends to join me, and I offered to pick up tickets for them. I was rather alarmed to notice that the new tickets were numbered 15 and 16. In two weeks hardly any tickets had been sold! I telephoned the promoter to ask him if the concert would be going ahead. He assured me it would and I duly turned up with my friends. It was a pub! It did not have a stage, and the band were set up in a tight corner. I could not believe it. There was a merchandise table set up and as I did not Flower Power, I checked it out. The guy at the table had a long chat with me about the fact I did not know Garden of Dreams and how I was in for a treat later on. I bought Flower Power and then soon after the band began. The guy who sold me Flower Power turned out to be Tomas Bodin and when they played Garden of Dreams he kept looking at me to see if I was enjoying it. The point about this whole tale is that when I was younger (so much younger than today) I used to daydream about Yes or Genesis turning up at my local pub and playing their full set. I am convinced that had the Flower King been contemporaries of the aforementioned they would have been every bit as popular. Here I was in a pub with about 100 other people, standing 10 feet from a world class band playing the most sublime music. It will never be beaten in my mind - the best musical experience of my life.