Never mind Who- WHERE Are You?
Oct. 23rd, 2014 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogI'd hoped to do something of a Throwback Thursday post tonight, inspired by the news today that our NFL stadium, now under new ownership, will soon be resuming its second life as a major concert venue. The boy band One Direction will fill the Ralph with teenage angst in a little over ten months, just before next football season begins. It's fitting, perhaps, because one of the last two shows to fill the then-named Rich Stadium was an NSync concert in 2001. (Dave Matthews closed its first era of concert usage 10 days later.)
It brought back lots of memories for locals about the many shows which passed through Orchard Park in the venue's first almost 30 years. The Stones, Fleetwood Mac, the Dead and 10,000 Maniacs all took turns- every one of which I missed. Yet I was there in September of 1982, five years to the day before our wedding, for a lineup of bands that included the Hooters, David Johansen, the Clash (the first of two times I would see them here in the first half of the decade)- and, headlining, the Who, on the first of their many alleged farewell tours.
I'd never been there, for a Bills game or anything else, in my first year of living here before this show. I remember going alone, I remember getting there on a Metro Bus to avoid parking hassles and drunkenness, and I remember it being nosebleed territory. This site has the Who's setlist from that afternoon, which I can't recall or deny, but it sounds about right for them as they were then formed (this was after Keith Moon's death and supported the It's Hard album, best known for the single "Athena"). Kenney Jones was still Moon's replacement, and John Entwistle was still on the bass; both would be gone by the time their next album came out, although Entwistle would reunite with Pete and Roger before his death in 2002.
Also, I can't remember where TF my ticket is.
----
You'd think 32-plus years would give me an excuse, but it really doesn't. I'm a pack rat of the highest order, and just a few weeks ago, Eleanor came upon a treasure trove of old memories from that era, once posted on a bulletin board hung in our cellar sometime in the 90s. That ticket was definitely among them- pinkish-purple, as I recall In those pre-internet days, I decamped outside the Central Ticket Office, 210 Delaware, to claim that $15 ducat weeks before the big Sunday.
No internet then, but there sure is one now, and of course someone posted THEIR ticket from it:
Two things of note on there. One: no reserved seats, a touchy issue given the trampling deaths at a "festival seating" Who show in Cincinnati only a few years prior, but if I recall, the vastness around the stadium and of its multiple entrances minimized the trouble from that. Also: the "Harvey" listed as the lead concert promoter was UB graduate Harvey Weinstein, who eventually left Corky and Tice, rejoined his brother Bob (and honored their parents Miriam and Max), and made a few movies you might have heard of.
----
That was the only show I ever attended there. I've been to a small handful of Bills games (there's a 1999 Bills-Giants ticket in the stash Eleanor found, which I remember nothing whatsoever about- but the internet does, telling me we lost that day), and was on the field for the only time in my life two summers ago when I ran my first 5K ending on the 50 yard line:
You won't find me at any boy-band shows out there if this foretells more shows in OP; probably Springsteen or Billy Joel would be the only bucket-list performers I'd brave the drive and the cost for.
Or, unless the Who do another farewell show. I'd probably go, if only for their own benefit; after all, it's been 32 years since the first time they said goodbye and Pete and Rog can still rock it out:)
It brought back lots of memories for locals about the many shows which passed through Orchard Park in the venue's first almost 30 years. The Stones, Fleetwood Mac, the Dead and 10,000 Maniacs all took turns- every one of which I missed. Yet I was there in September of 1982, five years to the day before our wedding, for a lineup of bands that included the Hooters, David Johansen, the Clash (the first of two times I would see them here in the first half of the decade)- and, headlining, the Who, on the first of their many alleged farewell tours.
I'd never been there, for a Bills game or anything else, in my first year of living here before this show. I remember going alone, I remember getting there on a Metro Bus to avoid parking hassles and drunkenness, and I remember it being nosebleed territory. This site has the Who's setlist from that afternoon, which I can't recall or deny, but it sounds about right for them as they were then formed (this was after Keith Moon's death and supported the It's Hard album, best known for the single "Athena"). Kenney Jones was still Moon's replacement, and John Entwistle was still on the bass; both would be gone by the time their next album came out, although Entwistle would reunite with Pete and Roger before his death in 2002.
Also, I can't remember where TF my ticket is.
----
You'd think 32-plus years would give me an excuse, but it really doesn't. I'm a pack rat of the highest order, and just a few weeks ago, Eleanor came upon a treasure trove of old memories from that era, once posted on a bulletin board hung in our cellar sometime in the 90s. That ticket was definitely among them- pinkish-purple, as I recall In those pre-internet days, I decamped outside the Central Ticket Office, 210 Delaware, to claim that $15 ducat weeks before the big Sunday.
No internet then, but there sure is one now, and of course someone posted THEIR ticket from it:
Two things of note on there. One: no reserved seats, a touchy issue given the trampling deaths at a "festival seating" Who show in Cincinnati only a few years prior, but if I recall, the vastness around the stadium and of its multiple entrances minimized the trouble from that. Also: the "Harvey" listed as the lead concert promoter was UB graduate Harvey Weinstein, who eventually left Corky and Tice, rejoined his brother Bob (and honored their parents Miriam and Max), and made a few movies you might have heard of.
----
That was the only show I ever attended there. I've been to a small handful of Bills games (there's a 1999 Bills-Giants ticket in the stash Eleanor found, which I remember nothing whatsoever about- but the internet does, telling me we lost that day), and was on the field for the only time in my life two summers ago when I ran my first 5K ending on the 50 yard line:
You won't find me at any boy-band shows out there if this foretells more shows in OP; probably Springsteen or Billy Joel would be the only bucket-list performers I'd brave the drive and the cost for.
Or, unless the Who do another farewell show. I'd probably go, if only for their own benefit; after all, it's been 32 years since the first time they said goodbye and Pete and Rog can still rock it out:)
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no subject
Date: 2014-10-24 10:53 am (UTC)I think that's the game we went to, though I won't swear to it. (It was Bills-Giants, I remember that much).
And both Springsteen & Joel are worth seeing-- I saw them both at HSBC (or whatever the Sabres' stadium is now called-- I still remember waving hi to John Rigas now and again when walking through the command centre near the EMS area). Both were amazing. Clapton's worth the cost as well. :)
(PS: I posted a bad pic of my haircut on my LJ for you. :P)
no subject
Date: 2014-10-24 12:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-24 12:48 pm (UTC)I wonder how that would've worked if they had ever played on a neutral field #wideright
(And I like the hair:)
no subject
Date: 2014-10-24 12:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-24 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-24 01:12 pm (UTC)Yeah, I still flinch at those 2 words in conjunction...
(And I like the hair:)
Ta! :) It should be easier to deal with when travelling, at the very least.