Bump for start on Monday.
PRELUDE…A LONGGGGGG story, SHORT I was born in Jersey City, NJ in January, 1960 and until the age of 12, my only concerns in life were sports, girls, friends, family and school. My idea of music was whatever I was hearing on AM radio stations that played one “one hit wonder” after another (which I still love to this day). It was in 1972 that I met a friend who would drastically change my life.
I mean, jeez, I married his sister 15 years later (but hey, that’s not what this is all about). My new friend was “musically mature”. He introduced me to albums by Elton, The Beatles, Chicago, The Who, The Stones and many others. A year later, his older brother introduced us to an amazing sounding band called “Queen” (of all things), plus bands that he called “Progressive rockers”. I was hooked! My new “concern” was now as important as the others. Then, in the summer of 1973, hanging out with friends (some a few years older), something called “concerts”, came into my life. Now, 50 years later, I’m closing in on
800 concerts (
with all stubs collected in a book for posterity)! As I'm now retired, my wife constantly pushes me to write a book about all the concerts I’ve attended. Well, this certainly isn’t a book, but I think posting on this great site may interest a bunch of you. If not, it’s at least giving me something to do!
👍Before I get into it, I want to set up some classifications of concert tickets:
1) “
F” -
Fake ticket entry
This was the method used to gain entry into “
most” of the concerts I attended from ‘73-’76 (and a few others afterwards). The older guys we hung out with began going to concerts in ‘71-’72. We heard stories of them seeing The Stones, Grand Funk, Jethro Tull (who was “he”
😀), Deep Purple, The Moody Blues and others. The funny thing was they hardly ever “purchased” tickets. Their scheme was simply buying a whole bunch of NY Yankee bleacher tickets from Ticketron (later known as Ticketmaster) @
$.50 - $1 per ticket, then use that ticket, plus slipping the ticket taker at Madison Square Garden a couple of bucks per ticket, and whalllla…entry! When my friends and I started doing this, it went from a couple of bucks, to maybe a $5 spot (per ticket) along the way, but it was always
interesting pulling this off. Some shows, we’d hear people complaining about spending $25-$50 (and sometimes more….BIG money “back in the day”) by buying tickets from scalpers outside the arena and we’d just laugh. My system for getting a “real stub” was simply by offering anyone who was interested a
dollar for their stub at the show's close. More times than not, I’d just be given the stub for no fee. Why, from show #1, I wanted a stub, I don’t know, but I’m glad I did. There are many interesting stories being let in with this method, and I will make sure to tell a condensed story.
2) “
S” - Buying a ticket outside of the venue from a “
scalper” for entry or from a ticket “Agency” (basically, a “legal”scalper). This was a method used at various times (especially at non-MSG venues as I was afraid my “fake ticket” scheme wouldn’t work). Again, any interesting stories will be shared.
3) “
P” -
Buying tickets through the regular “on sale” date either from venue or Ticketron/Master (in person or nowadays, online). Shouldn’t be many stories on this method, other than a few instances.
4) “
C1” - Buying tickets from the
venue after camping out all night! Lots of fun stories on these.
5) “
C2” - Buying tickets from the
venue after camping out all night! This was under the guise of starting
my own “scalping ring” (on a very small, but very lucrative level). After buying tickets a few times from a specific ticket “agency”, I became tight with the owner and others “in the business” and wound up working for him in the office for a few years starting in '77. During this time I made good contacts and wound up running my own “side hustle”. Many good stories will be shared on these, that basically ran from 1977-1982.
6) “
M” - Buying tickets through
Mail Order. This was done rarely and pretty boring actually. It only happened for some real big acts of the time, but certainly not all big acts used this method,
thankfully. Some interesting stories though on getting lucky with these tickets.
7) “
L” - Getting a ticket solely on
blind luck & good fortune.
8) “
W” -
Winning tickets through radio call in. Only a few, but interesting nonetheless.
9) “
H” - Pure
happenstance. Originally not planning on attending but…...
10) “
G” - Whether it was a
girlfriend, a date or later on, the wife, they were the reason I went to a specific show…
11) “
C” - There were
many shows, starting in 1983 (Meadowlands Arena) and 1987 (MSG) where I had a friend who worked security who got me and some buddies into shows for
free.
***I will break down the shows by years (or year when there were many) starting with
1973-1975 (total of 19 shows) before we get to 1976 when it really started to ramp up. I was married in 1987 and had twin boys in 1990, which led to a reduction of shows for some time. I was also in a musical “funk” around that time (hair metal kind of did a job on me) and it was not until 1992 when I went to see one of my favorite metal bands (Iron
F’N Maiden) and I saw a fascinating opening band named
Dream Theater that I got REALLY interested once again in the current music scene!
1972 Regrettable Misses3/11 David Cassidy @ MSG
6/9 Elvis @ MSG
7/24 Rolling Stones / Stevie Wonder @ MSG
8/30 John Lennon & Yoko Ono @ MSG
11/19 Elton John @ Carnegie Hall
12/8 Jethro Tull / Roxy Music @ MSG1973-1975 (The Beginning) coming Monday (Jan 2nd)!
Topic: 2023 FIFTY-year anniversary of concerts! (1973-77...more stories to come) (Read 7636 times)