What was your FIRST concert????

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Something reminded me of an old friend the other day who is unfortunately no longer with us. Some of you may recall his name, Robert Nerenberg.
He was a cool dude and we hungout
from time to time through the years.

Oh yeah, what reminded me of him was that I was watching an episode of my new favorite guilty TV pleasure. A reality show called
"Bar Rescue".

It's a show similar to chef Gordon Ramsey's "Kitchen Nightmares" where he would save restaurants that were in distress.
It was a very entertaining program!

The Bar Rescue show has the same format, but only deals with bars and nightclubs that are going under. And the glue behind these amazing rescue's is a guy named John Taffer.
My new hero. LoL

Anyways, this one specific episode brought the Bar Rescue crew to a bar in Staten Island, named Rhythm & Brews.

It was once called Coaches and I believe Rhythm's before that. It's located on Richmond Road just down the block from the Berry Homes. It was then renamed "5th & Vine"
after the rescue.

And it was in this bar, when it was Coaches back in the '90's, when I saw Robert for the last time before he passed.

It was really funny. I went there at the last minute to go see an Ozzy Tribute band play.

The show was really strong. The dude singing looked like tiny Ronnie James Dio, but had a strong powerful Ozzy-like voice. Good stuff.

I was hanging out right next to the guy running the soundboard and lights. I'd say some time into the fifth song, I glanced over at the sound guy, and thought to myself... "Man, I know this dude!"

And sure enough, it was Robert Nerenberg!
We haven't seen each other in years and
neither one of us recognized the another as we stood just 3 feet apart for 5 songs... LoL

It was really neat bumping into him. We had a few beers and laughs between sets and then went our separate ways after the show.

Well as I was watching the Bar Rescue show and remembering Robert, I thought of how many concerts that fucker had been to. During our growing up years he was by far the king of concerts. He never missed a show... any show!

Which then brought me to the thought of my own very first real concert. Thus sewing the seeds
for this blog entry!

I've listed that first show along with just a few other shows and ticket stubs. There have been SO many great shows over the years. I have a pretty decent size pile of stubs and memories, but, the real king of concert going, even beyond that of my friend Robert Nerenberg, is my brother Michael and his band of crazy friends! They never missed a show... any show... LoL

Awesome!

What was YOUR first show huh?????

My first concert was
Jethro Tull
Robin Trower
Rory Gallagher
at Shea Stadium July 23, 1976

Ronnie Gallo, John Newman and myself had the time of our lives. We were young, stupid...
and quite frankly... awesome!!

The journey began on a bus stop bench
across from the Bridge Tavern bar.
Which was right down the block from
our high school in Port Richmond.

From this point on... well...
let's just say that things happened... lolol
And we had one of the greatest
times of lives up to that point!
Ronnie and myself ended up lying on our backs, in the driveway across from the Van Name Ave brook (our hang out)...

... completely drained from the days, and nights festivities, singing every Tull song we could muster up at 3 o'clock in the morning.
Pretty cool!



Emerson, Lake & Palmer
July 7, 1977 at Madison Square Garden

This was during the "Works" Tour.
Was an amazing show.
I remember Keith Emerson manhandling one of
his many synthesizers and having it land on him as he continued to play!

Ted Nugent
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Nov 10, 1977 at Madison Square Garden

Ted rocked our asses off as usual. We NEVER missed a show of Ted's or Aerosmith
when they came around!
Lynyrd Skynyrd did not play at this show.
This was less than a month after the band was involved in a plane crash during the tour and lost several of their band mates including their front man, Ronnie Van Zant.

(( And I just read something of interest
not too long ago while reading the
autobiography of Joe Perry from
Aerosmith. He said that their manager
turned down an offer to purchase
this very same plane. He had someone
give it the once over and they 
determined that the plane was a
piece of shit and an accident just
waiting to happen! And they passed on
the offer just months before the crash.
How fuckin' unbelievable right! ))   

The only bummer that I can remember about the night, was the fact that Ted never even mentioned Skynyrd or the crash. I guess that was by design, not to kill the mood... who knows.
Still love the Motor City Madman though!!

Always!!

Aerosmith
Ted Nugent
Journey
Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush

August 6, 1978 at Giants Stadium
Commercial spot for the show

Great show!
This was only the 2nd concert ever held at Giants Stadium. Bruce Springsteen played the very first.
We missed the first 2 bands as we were drinking beers in the parking lot.

But I remember walking through the gates and onto the field and as we were pushing our way towards the stage we saw Ted Nugent climbing up onto the stack of amplifiers on the right side of the stage.

Then a roadie tossed him his guitar and seconds later he came leaping onto the stage playing "Just What The Doctor Ordered"... too cool!

Check out these 3 "pro-shot" photo's of Ted

on stage during this show... August 6, 1978!!

Look at this awesome pic of my man Ted Nugent
on stage at Giants Stadium from that day... August 6, 1978!
We were to the left of the stage just beyond the photo.
Thanx to Richard Jallouk, who was also at this show, for sending me the pic!!
Look at how simple that stage setup is... LoL...
compared to the present day stages... wow!

Then Aerosmith came out blasting away to
"Helter Skelter"... again... too cool!

Setlist for that show

Check this shit out

Live recording of the entire day...

quality sux... but if you were there

how fuckin' cool is this!!!

Aerosmith 8/6/1978

Giants Stadium
This show available on cd... HERE



The WHO
September 17, 1979 at Madison Square Garden

The band decided to tour after the release of "Who Are You" and the death of their madman behind the drum kit... Keith Moon.
Moon passed on September 7, 1978 and was replaced by Kenny Jones.

Here's a few minutes of the band in the
studio rehearsing for this 1979 tour
with Kenny Jones on drums.

As for the show, even though we lost our chance to see Moon perform live, was still as big as we hoped it would be. After all... it was THE WHO!

I remember Pete sliced his hand wide open while he was wind-milling during "Who Are You". The band kept playing and jammed until Pete returned during "Magic Bus".

Click the link to hear THAT show...

so fucking cool... especially if you were at this show!

THE WHO MSG Sept 17, 1979

Now that's Rock 'n Roll muthafucka!

This is so cool...
Here are a few pix of the band on stage
during this very show
September 17, 1979

 

After Keith died I had an idea for a poster.
Him looking down from the clouds at the boys on stage with Kenny playing drums.

The WHO
Quadrophenia
July 21, 1996 at Madison Square Garden

Just had to add this one!
A bunch of us went and sat in different sections. But me, my brother Michael,
Ronnie Gallo and his brother Alan sat in the same section on the floor, same numbered seats,
with another row between us.
Michael and Alan sat in row "Q"
while Ronnie and myself were in row "S"
with row "R" between us.

The 4 of us sang every word, to every song
of the Quadrophenia album start to finish out loud at the tops of our lungs like we were the ones who wrote the fuckin' lyrics... fucking exhilarating my friend.
Nothing short of orgasmic!!

By the end of the show, nearly the entire row "R" had bailed out and stood along the side railing/walkway... LoL

High fives all around!



There have been so many other earth-shaking concerts along the way.



How about you...
your first show...
a great memory
from a great show???




Still wanna rock??
Go check out...


New York/New Jersey...
The 1970's/1980's Rock Club Daze
Part 1: The Clubs



New York/New Jersey...
The 1970's/1980's Rock Club Daze
Part 2: The Bands



New York/New Jersey...
The 1970's/1980's Rock Club Daze
Part 3: The Ad's & Promotions