Time Machine and gig list
Monday, April 18th, 2005 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanHaving started something of a (ahem) debate with this morning's post on Channels 4's top 100 album list (and isn't it fun to have a futile argument over something that matters not a jot and for which there is no correct answer?), and having continued to ponder the gigs list that was infesting LJ last week, I have been thinking on and off about those bands I'd like to have seen but never did either because I was too young, or the gigs were too distant or expensive, or for whatever reason.
Anyway, for what it's worth, here's some performances I'd hijack the TARDIS to witness:
The Beatles, January 1969, roof of the Apple building, Savile Row. A performance chronicled in Let It Be, showing the early death throws of the most influential band in history.
The Jefferson Airplane, Monterey, 1968. A performance that is now only available in much reduced and highly edited form on Bless Its Pointed Little Head, and a poor quality DVD. An example of late psychedelia jam, not long before the trauma of the Jefferson Airplane's split, but with the waste of the Jefferson Starship years, just ahead, and the abomination of Starship's (no longer Jefferson Starship, by then) fall into power ballads and power chords yet to come…
King Crimson, any gig by the 1973-74 line up. An ear-bleeding rhythm section with Wetton and Bruford driving the band hard; Fripp's guitar surfing over the top, and Cross' violin and mellotron weaving through the gaps. Music to paste the audience into a bloody pulp against the far wall of the auditorium, and hinted at only obliquely in their album releases.
The Soft Machine, Roundhouse London, 1967. Early circuit performances with Daevid Allen still in the line up, and before the concept of band co-ordination had taken root. The arrival of the Canterbury Sound, with psychedelic punk ten years early.
The Concert for Bangladesh, Madison Square Gardens, New York, 1971. Just look at the line up: George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Billy Preston, Klaus Voorman, Badfinger, Ravi Shankar, Leon Russell and band members, Don Preston, Carl Radle, and Claudia Linnear with friends Jim Horn, Jim Keltner, and Jesse Ed Davis. Trust me, kids, that's a line up to have. One of the first rock benefit gigs.
I need a time machine.
Anyway, for what it's worth, here's some performances I'd hijack the TARDIS to witness:
The Beatles, January 1969, roof of the Apple building, Savile Row. A performance chronicled in Let It Be, showing the early death throws of the most influential band in history.
The Jefferson Airplane, Monterey, 1968. A performance that is now only available in much reduced and highly edited form on Bless Its Pointed Little Head, and a poor quality DVD. An example of late psychedelia jam, not long before the trauma of the Jefferson Airplane's split, but with the waste of the Jefferson Starship years, just ahead, and the abomination of Starship's (no longer Jefferson Starship, by then) fall into power ballads and power chords yet to come…
King Crimson, any gig by the 1973-74 line up. An ear-bleeding rhythm section with Wetton and Bruford driving the band hard; Fripp's guitar surfing over the top, and Cross' violin and mellotron weaving through the gaps. Music to paste the audience into a bloody pulp against the far wall of the auditorium, and hinted at only obliquely in their album releases.
The Soft Machine, Roundhouse London, 1967. Early circuit performances with Daevid Allen still in the line up, and before the concept of band co-ordination had taken root. The arrival of the Canterbury Sound, with psychedelic punk ten years early.
The Concert for Bangladesh, Madison Square Gardens, New York, 1971. Just look at the line up: George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Billy Preston, Klaus Voorman, Badfinger, Ravi Shankar, Leon Russell and band members, Don Preston, Carl Radle, and Claudia Linnear with friends Jim Horn, Jim Keltner, and Jesse Ed Davis. Trust me, kids, that's a line up to have. One of the first rock benefit gigs.
I need a time machine.