1) Triumph, Toronto 77, tiny venue: I was only there to show our newest member whom I'd brought along (a world-class player from Brazil), that our own band could compete. Right on cue, Triumph fell apart during their rendition of Zep's blues cover 'Nobody's Fault But Mine'. It was the quintessential train wreck. Much as I despised their Corporate Rock, I felt sorry for Triumph. It was pathetic.
2) It gives me no pleasure to report on this one 'coz I actually quite like him. We saw Robin Trower in '76 inflict a hissy fit on his audience over disatisfaction with the PA. My brother's pal was actually backstage and witnessed the prelude. Too bad. Robin was definitely better than that. As a result, newcomer opening act Boston absolutely blew him away.
3) For sheer pretentious bullshit, the Battered Wives 'punk' band (Toronto '77) might just take the prize. Punk was born of Brit working class youthful angst. Period. For middle-class Canadians from the 'burbs, whose daddy was possibly the VP of some big business, to pose as a punk act was just silly. One even used a phony English accent! I am done. The End.
Punk was born of Brit working class youthful angst. Period.
The Ramones inspired the early British punk bands. Their July 1976 tour of Britain kickstarted punk in that country.
but the Brits had the fuel to keep it going - punk here was more of a rebellion against the overbloated, over formulated, over ego-ized closed society music empire that rock had become in the US - born of angst but not so much social and political since we had a pretty good life here in the mid/late 70s by comparison - it would have been a flash in the pan here if the Brits hadn't had real angst with what was going on economically and politically there to fan the flame and keep it burning - like so many other US inventions we didn't really know what to do with it so we sold it off to another country for development :-)
hehe - we did, didn't we - never thought of it like that before - at least it left an opening for us to move on to Boy Bands - yippee skippy
I liked "boy bands" like Minor Threat and Black Flag ... and Flipper.
Edited by: peromyscus
I have a "thing" for the Pegboy boys myself - now that's a boy band I could, erm, sink my teeth into
Peromyscus, I'm with you on Sweet. They were a surprise (no previous announcement) opener for Journey in Buffalo in '77. I was there to make a live recording for ahem...posterity and taped both acts surreptitiously. Sweet were drunk/high and mediocre. They were also unnecessarily vulgar and rude towards the audience. Their contempt came through like an endless tsunami. Listening to the tape afterwards was like hearing a bunch of spoiled showbiz brats complain about working conditions. Later, we discovered that some original members had left the band just prior.
P.S. My bootlegging history came back to me karma-wise in recent years: someone stole the title of one of my original songs written in the '70s and used it for a TV show title: 'Vanity Insanity'.
Hey thanks for all the replies - I forgot about this post after I wrote it, so I'm glad to see it took on a life of its own.
Someone mentioned James Brown playing at their highschool (wow!) - well, check this out - it's ? & the Mysterians (of "96 Tears" fame) playing at some US school in the late 90s - now, this would've been a corker of a gig to witness. Thirty years on from his hey day and the man is still a legend...talk about ageing disgracefully!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdfM6I-Cjs4&feature=related</a>
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