You never forget that first concert

Am I the only one out there whose first live concert turned out to be a flash-in-the-pan teenybopper?

I may as well get it out there right now: Bobby Sherman. 1970. Memorial Hall.

“Bobby who?” my kids would say.

But at the time he was the dreamiest of teen idols, the youngest brother — the one with the shy stutter — on the Western comedy series “Here Come the Brides.”

Nevermind that his music turned out to be so forgettable that even the oldies stations won’t touch it. (What – you don’t remember the classic hits “Easy Come, Easy Go” and “Julie, Julie, Julie, Do You Love Me?”)

You never forget your first concert – the first time you discover the magic of live performance.

Turns out that Bobby Sherman was the first concert for my friend Teri Rizvi as well. “You can buy the 45s, but there is nothing like hearing the songs you listened over and over again in person,” she recalled. “It is a magical experience.”

It would be piling on, don’t you think, for your first concert to be a legendary show? I mean, who can boast that their first live performance was Led Zeppelin at Earls Court?

My friend Mike Bissett, as it turns out.

He wasn’t even a big fan. “It was mostly that the opportunity presented itself,” he recalled. “I didn’t even have to stand in line to get the ridiculously cheap ticket.”

The 1975 London show is now considered one of Led Zeppelin’s finest. “It was almost too much to see them at the very peak of their career, when I’d never even been to a rock concert before,” Mike said. “I don’t think my feet touched the ground for a week after that.”

But that’s just a fluke, right? Who else saw one of the all-time greats as their first concert?

A whole lot of people, apparently. When I asked around, a surprising number of my friends listed classic performers as their first concert.

Bo Diddley. Ray Charles. Johnny Cash. Eric Clapton.

And there’s my sister Peggy, whose first concert was The Rolling Stones at Cleveland Municipal Stadium on June 14, 1975.

She nearly passed out from the heat and dehydration, but, she recalled, “I think I wrote 20 pages or so in my diary that night — more pages than what I wrote after my son was born.”

My husband saw The Stones at Soldier Field in Chicago in 1978, anticipation mingled with suspense as he asked himself, “Without a lot of studio tricks, will they still sound as good? Can they do it?”

They did it, of course, and then some.

The prospect of an immense music festival proved too much for my claustrophobic soul, so I didn’t join my sisters for The Stones’ tours in ’75 and ’78. I later regretted it, especially when subsequent Stones tours commanded ticket prices roughly the equivalent of a monthly mortgage. I thought I’d missed my chance to see the world’s greatest rock’n’roll band.

And then came last Saturday’s show at Ohio Stadium, where we snagged tickets for a mere $75.

Once again, we wondered, “Can they do it?”

We needn’t have worried.

Even after more than 50 years, they still seem near the peak of their powers. And Mick Jagger, at 71, is a freak of nature. Observed my friend Linda Lombard, “I would defy lots of younger people to follow Mick Jagger around a stage. He never stops. These guys are all thin and fit, even Keith Richards, whose beleaguered face is a mirror of his life.”

And Richards showed such an unabashed joy in performing — as if astonished, himself, at having lasted this long — and such affection for his fans.

The best performances take you places you never expected to go. While The Stones performed their greatest hits in Columbus, rarely taking detours, they did perform “Hang On Sloopy” for the first time since 1966, leading the stadium of 60,000 in doing O-H-I-O. And their shows are elevated to another level from the sheer electric charge of Jagger’s stage presence and his improbable, rubber-band athleticism.

Bobby Sherman isn’t exactly bragging rights, it’s true, but it was the beginning of my romance with live music — which will continue this summer with not one but two top-notch local venues, The Fraze and the new Rose Center in Huber Heights.

I still remember how thrilling it all was, and the way we screamed at any slight movement of the curtain.

The same scene repeated itself last weekend when I took my youngest daughter, NiNi, and two of her friends to see their first show, indie pop artist Marina and the Diamonds, at Bogart’s in Cincinnati.

And Marina didn’t disappoint. She’s an electrifying stage presence, with the hyperkinetic energy and unabashed sex appeal reminiscent of a certain aging rocker.

And I have no doubt the kids will remember it 50 years from now.

Because you never forget your first concert.

What was your first concert? How did it change the way that you experience music? Contact this columnist at maryjomccarty@gmail.com.

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