I got to thinking about all the rock and roll stars I’ve been lucky enough to see perform live in my life. Maybe you won’t be impressed by this list, but I kinda was.
Elton John. Billy Joel. The Eagles. Bruce Springsteen. Steely Dan. Rush. Neil Diamond. Stevie Wonder. Dan Fogelberg. Roger Waters. Phil Collins. Cher (with Cyndi Lauper). U2. The Doobie Brothers. Cat Stevens. The Allman Brothers Band, Joe Walsh, and The Marshall Tucker Band (together).
Oh, and N’Sync, with two of my nieces. Shriek!!!
Many of these guys, I’ve seen twice, and in Elton and Billy’s case, four times each.
Then, of course, there are the ones who got away, like Genesis, Wings, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Stevie Ray Vaughn, to name just a few.
Oh, and Johnny Cash.
Yes, Johnny Cash, my first musical hero. I would have loved to see him live.
I thoroughly enjoyed every concert I attended. (Well, not so much N’Sync, but my nieces loved it.) There’s nothing like the energy at a live rock concert. When it’s good, the performers and the audience feed off each other to make an unforgettable experience.
If you were to ask me what my favorite show was, I’d give you different answers, for different reasons. The easy answer is Elton, because he’s my favorite artist, from a long way back. Billy Joel, because he’s another piano player, like I once was (though nowhere near that caliber).
For professionalism and virtuosity, Steely Dan and Rush take the honors. For the sheer spectacle, I gotta give it to Cher and Roger Waters. Those weren’t just concerts, they were events.
The Eagles were and are my favorite band vocally. Their harmony just shines.
Stevie was just incredible. He is so musically gifted. He’s really one of a kind.
But nobody, and I mean nobody, gives more of himself onstage than The Boss. Bruce Springsteen just lays it all out there every time, and the E Street Band is always equal to the task. It is amazing to watch.
It’s great to see live shows coming back now, after going missing last year. There are still some restrictions in place, though. My sister-in-law and her daughter are going to a concert tonight, but they have to show either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test result from the last 24 hours. It’s a new world, folks.
But it’s still a chance for fans to go see their favorite artists, sing along jubilantly, and just forget the world for a few hours and be only about the music. And that’s worth something.
Rock on, y’all.
just drive, will you? 
Reblogged this on Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News and commented:
Good list. Mine: Beach Boys, Doors, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Moody Blues, Dwight Yoakam, The Clash. Not long but memorable.
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Definitely.
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I’m not a great Springsteen fan but I do like Elton. We were on holiday in Rome one year and came across a free Elton John concert
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Lucky you!
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What a great list of greats! I would have loved to see a lot of them, especially Steely Dan and U2 (in the Joshua Tree period). I wish I’d have caught Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin back in the day too, but I did manage the Stones, Clapton, Traffic, Mountain, Supertramp, Elvis Costello (many times), and my personal hero Pete Seeger. Thanks for the nostalgia trip!
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You’re welcome. Your list is pretty impressive, as well.
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I did manage to see Pink Floyd and even though it was in a stadium, it was amazing!
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Oh, I’m jealous!
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Hello from Endless Bitchen Summer! I backed off WordPress for a while after being inundated by Russia bots – it must have been my “Comrade Melania” cartoons 🙂 At any rate, I transferred my Endless Bitchen Summer content to a different WordPress site that I initially started as a professional site: joyceoday.com. For the past couple of years, I have sporadically been posting articles on Medium. I am at the point where I want to merge both my Medium and joyceoday.com content.
Concert-wise, I have been blessed. I grew up in Southern California in the 1970s, where I saw some great concerts: Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, The Stones, Jethro Tull (4th row of blankets from the stage at the L.A. Colosseum), Grateful Dead, Journey, The Who,… Later, I moved to Las Vegas where there are too many to even name. I am a huge fan of Jackson Browne – 4 times, Rush – 4 times, Carlos Santana – over 4 times, and Peter Frampton – over 4 times – including Montreal in July 2019! I’ve seen the Eagles – twice, Roger Waters in Phoenix, Elton John, 1/2 of Steely Dan, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Bush, Queensryche – 4 times, Allman Brothers – 4 times, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Cher, Celine, Bette Midler, Rod Stewart, U2, Moody Blues – twice, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Neil Young – twice, and Bob Dylan the night he won the Nobel Prize. Now I’m just bragging! I can’t wait to get back to it!
Wishing you the best!
Joyce
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WOW!! I am beyond impressed, and a little jealous. Great to hear from you again!
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Many of the concerts I have seen in the last 10 years were for free. My husband and I are members of Houseseats; it is a company that works with venues to fill up seats for events. No performer wants to see empty seats in their audience. We basically kept a calendar of up-coming shows we wanted to see, and the day of the show my retired husband would check the site every 15-30 minutes waiting for tickets to show up. It cost $200 a year for membership, and you could get up to 4 tickets for any show that partnered with Houseseats. Some seats sucked, like the last row for a Rush concert, but sometimes we got lucky with 10th row for Bill Maher and Steely Dan. It was a definite perk for living in Las Vegas. Friday night was the best for getting tickets, since a lot of people driving in from California would get in too late to see a show, so most concerts would not be sold out.
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Thanks again for pointing out this post. I love your list of performers. I am very envious of several names on the list you saw – Stevie Wonder, Johnny Cash, Steely Dan, e.g. It is funny, Cash has a following among multiple generations, in part because of his rebel nature, but also because he helped out disenfranchised folks. He was dropped by his label, then a heavy metal producer won two Grammy’s with Cash on two compilation albums. There is such an allure of live music. Keith
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Sorry, Keith, but you misread. Johnny Cash was one of the ones I DIDN’T get to see, but wished I had. I’ve loved him since I was a kid watching his TV show on Saturday nights in the late ’60’s. He was my first musical idol, and I regret never seeing him when I had the chance. On the other hand, I feel very fortunate to have seen the artists I’ve seen. They all brought it!
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My bad. Still a great list.
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