With the passing of Charlie Daniels I got to thinking of something. While I had seen him in concert a few times towards the end of his life, who have you seen before they got popular?

I remember seeing Alabama in the high school gymnasium in St Clair Missouri when they had released one album. My ticket cost $7.50. It was a great show. I thought Randy the lead singer had too much Mountain Dew.

What about you?

Yeah, Mountain Dew

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213th FBINA

Went to a Who concert in maybe late '70s. During the warm up, there was some guy in a flat brim black hat, sitting on a stool, absolutely wailing on a blues guitar. Nobody had ever heard of him, but I thought he was pretty good. Couldn't wait for the main act, but the performance stuck with me. Seems it was some guy named Stevie Ray Vaughan

edit to add: Also saw Charlie Daniels, I think with the Allman Bros, and yes, The Devil Went Down to Georgia. But, they were already famous at the time. Amazing fiddlying. However, I think the best fiddle ever was Papa John Creach with Jefferson Starship. If you want to get into "Who have you seen," just let me know

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Some collect art; I shoot it!

Went to Charlie Daniels concert. He was showing people Travis Tritt before Travis got big.

I saw Def Leppard at Reading Festival in 1980. That pre-dates the album Pyromania which is generally considered their breakout album in the US.

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Release the Kraken

I saw ACDC when they were an opening act. Unfortunately I was waaaay too high to remember who they opened for.

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Retired Career Security Guard

Never saw him play live, but went to high school with Carmine Appice, and remember him playing the drums on The Ed Sullivan Show with a group called Vanilla Fudge.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

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Slava Ukraini!

In 1966, I went to a concert featuring a new band, Big Brother and the Holding Company. A teeny-bopper girl in a granny dress kept wandering around the stage as they set up, and I wondered what she was doing there. When they started to play, she started to sing, and I got my answer. She was no teeny-bopper, that was for sure. She was Janis Joplin, and she proceeded to blow the roof off the joint.

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What, me worry?

Before he got really big, GEORGE JONES in Wash DC about 1966 -

A later photo taken inMarch1967 backstage win Johnstown PA I am in the white shirt, Tammy on my left. She had been snowed out of Chicago and took a cab from either Philly, or Pittsburgh. Showed up on a mink coat Yeah I had a right to grin. Girl on the far right as you view the photo is my Wife.

Though I absolutely LOVE music, I haven’t really been to a ton of concerts and I guess I’ve never seen anyone before they were stars. I did see Bon Jovi before his biggest success shortly after 7800 Fahrenheit came out.

However, I did see two different stand-up comedians before they were huge. I saw Lewis Black before anyone knew who he was and saw Dave Chapelle long before he was really famous.

In 1992 I saw Tim McGraw open for Alabama and Diamond Rio in Michigan. “Indian Outlaw” had just come out. He stole the show.

My first and last live concert I attend, was the same one! The music was so loud, I was wishing I had brought my shooting ear muffs. Never attended another concert.

May years latter, I was waiting in line at the airport to check-in for a flight. In line ahead of me was a group of five guys. They where in their mid-20's and several were carrying guitar cases. In talking with them I discovered they had completed a concert the night before and they were on their way to their next concert. I don't recall the name of their group but one thing I noticed about them, each one was wearing two hearing aids!

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Bill

The Police and George Thorogood performed at different concerts at the University of South Carolina at the student union building in the late 70's/early 80's when I was there. IIRC it was $1 to get in.

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Isaiah 41:10

In Vegas Saw Kenny Rogers and the First Edition in a lounge.
That was just before he went solo.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

Went to a New Years Eve party at a local bowling alley on December 31st, 1972. The band playing that night was The Michael Stanley Band. They were very good.

I saw Blue Oyster Cult in a night club when they were calling themselves
“ Soft White Underbelly “

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I reckon so

I was stationed at Camp Pendleton in southern California in about '64 and '65. A girl I was dating wanted to go to a concert down in San Diego. It was a boy/girl duo. The boy was short with a beetle haircut. Looked kind of goofy and wasn't a very good singer. The girl was tall with long black hair and a severely deviated septum. She had a deep smoky voice and sounded pretty good. I had forgotten about them by the time I got my girlfriend home.

Sometime in the 70s we saw them on tv. By then they were big time and had their own show. The boy was still short and goofy looking with the beetle haircut and hadn't improved his singing. The girl was still tall with long black hair and the deviated septum and was singing even better.

The whole time I was watching them I was thinking how familiar they looked. Then it hit me. I was lookin' at Sonny and Chere.

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Real men love cats!

Was dragged to a Kiss concert in a college auditorium in April of '75. Skipped most of the opening act because we'd never heard of them...it was a little three piece band by the name of Rush.

Cincinnati used to have a music festival downtown Cincinnati during the summer. It was a multi-night event spread across several blocks. I forget what the called it.

I went once, saw Cheap Trick (they were fantastic) and Morphine (mainly to see their sax player).

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Common sense isn't so common.

I saw Styx in my college days around 1973 or 74 but around the same time I won tickets off of some radio station to see a band called KISS at the old Lafayette's Music Room in Memphis, Tennessee. I walked out after about 15 minutes, thought they were awful and the makeup had me wondering a little more about them.

I still don't like them.

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LIVE FROM THE DAWGHOUSE

I saw BB King in roughly 1970 and one of the warm up acts was a no name guy called Rod Stewart

My brother in law was living in India in the 1960s.Some young guys carrying guitars came up to him one day asking directions. He gave them the directions,and they chatted a little while. The next year,my brother in law moved to America to attend Nyack college in New York. One day he was cruising around town and he happens to notice a billboard. Incredibl y,its the same guys who asked him for directions in India. It was the Beatles

In the early 80's the garden club in Roswell NM wanted to have a concert to raise money for upkeep . They posted ads in and around the country looking for someone to help them out . They received an offer from a guy that said he would do it for free . They decided to refuse his offer ---- " Garth Brooks ". Regards Paul

I saw George Straight performing outside on a flat bed semi trailer with about 50 people in the audience at the Oklahoma City state fair and I saw Robert Palmer in a very small auditorium in Dallas performing and it was pretty quickly afterwards that he went big time and had the videos with lots of girls in it.

I remember when Buffalo Springfield was a "garage band" and the Beach Boys played bars in the South Bar of L.A.

Username and location...I believe you !!!

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- Post No Bills -

When I was in high school, we got a new neighbor, in the little town of Mill Valley, that was just a short distance North of San Francisco.

It turned out to be one of the Kingston brothers.

They were ok but having to hear them practice all their songs got old.

Saw Billy Ray Cyrus at a state fair about a week after Achy Breaky Heart was released. He was on the cusp of stardom. I noted he kept these small dates to which he was committed even though he was becoming a big star.

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No life story has happy end.

I went to a Sonny & Cher concert where they had some goofy comic I had never heard of named STEVE MARTIN as their "warm up" act.

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Y. B. Ord & A. Ree

I saw Jimmy Buffet on the Student Union lawn at college. Ticket cost, $0. Walk up, plop down, listen.
He was just beginning to be known, and was hired to give a free concert.

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Reg. Magnum wants/Rossi wallet

Tom Petty in Gainesville Fl when they were Mudcrutch

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Still Running Against the Wind

Hootie and the Blowfish played my college campus when they were nobody

In 1964, the Rolling Stones played Big Reggie’s Danceland in Excelsior, MN. The old firetrap of a barn had a capacity of 2000. 283 people attended. We hated them and they hated us. Nobody really knew who they were. Their only hit was “Not Fade Away”. “Time Is On My Side” would not come out for another couple of months. No “Under Assistant West Coast Promo Man”. No “Satisfaction”.

We had no clue about John Lee Hooker, who gave Keith Richards so many of his riffs. Jimmy Reed was the only bluesman we knew anything about. Their only album, “England’s Newest Hit Makers” was mostly covers of American artists.

A buddy had this exchange with Jagger as the band carried their own instruments across the dance floor toward the parking lot:

“Nice ******* show.”
“See you around, scum.”

I think the Stones skipped the Twin Cities on their next couple of US tours. I know I didn’t see them again until 1971 in Saint Paul.

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Not in jail.

Valentines Day, 1990, Soundgarden at the Sunshine Theater in ABQ NM. Voivod and Prong opened the show. One of THE best shows I've ever seen!

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Thread Killer.

To come full circle on ya my wife and i went to see aerosmith years ago and cheap trick was their opener. Nobody knew who they were (I picked up on it pretty quick) and cheap trick actually poked some fun at themselves bc of it.

While working on a electric power station in 85 in Victorville, California I seen Alan Jackson AND Charlie Daniels at the local watering hole aptly named named "The Cocky Bull"

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NRA Endowment member

Kenny Rogers, Rio Grande Valley Texas, way back (1966?) when he trying to get his foot in the door doing rock.

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U.S. Coast Guard, retired CPO

I saw Alan Jackson play at the Executive Inn in Owensboro. He was opening for George Jones. May have been in 1987?
David

When I was a sophomore in college the school brought in Alice Cooper as the headliner for a concert. Opening for them was Brownsville Station. Brownsville Station stole the show playing oldies and looking like they were having the time of their lives.

My wife and I saw Reba McIntire at Bush Gardens in Williamsburg, Va., when she was just getting started I guess. It was a little amphitheater that maybe would have held, 2500 people ... probably not that many really. Anyway there were probably only a couple hundred people there for an afternoon show.

Later we saw Ricky Scaggs open for Hank Williams Jr. I'd never heard of him, but he stole the show. Hank could have stayed home.

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John 3:16 .

Way back, saw Freddy Fender in a Beer Joint in San Benito, TX.
Later on, he did go to prison.
Not to worry, The Singing Governor Jimmie Davis paroled him.
I saw Freddy later once in Vegas and once here in Albuquerque.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

Saw a lot of groups when they were on the cusp of becoming famous.
Early 60's, Beach Boys, Everly Bros., Conway Twitty, Peter, Paul & Mary, to name a few. 70's-80's, Alabama, Tanya Tucker, Sometimes being in fly-over country was good. A place for artists to perform between gigs in bigger cities.

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Super Snooper

I am so envious. The only ones of those I saw in concert were the Beach Boys.

Was very fortunate to have a score of small town ballrooms/dance halls within 100 miles and a couple of promoters who knew how to get bands booked. The Roof Garden, Arnolds Park IA is where I saw most. Others were the Cobblestone, Storm Lake, IA, The Surf Ballroom, Clear Lake, IA, Woodcliff, Spencer, IA, Danceland, Hartley, IA, The Ridotto ballroom and others.

The Roof Garden and the Surf are the only ones still in operation.
The Surf of course, is famous for being the last appearance of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper before the fateful plane crash that took their lives.

Jerry Lee Lewis once crashed a brand new piano off the stage of the Roof Garden.
Rumored that when Johnny Cash played there that he was so strung out on booze & drugs that the promoters tossed him in the lake to sober him up.
Jimi Hendrix appeared at the Roof in 1963 as part of a "twist band", Joey Dee & the Starlighters.

Lots of Rock & Roll history in Iowa!

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Super Snooper

I saw Etta James in a small joint in Indianapolis back in 1961 or '62. I still love her songs.

My wife and I saw Charlie Daniels and Earl Scruggs revue perform in Central Park, NYC one summer night in the early 1970s. Shaefer Beer was sponsor and it cost a whole dollar to sit in the grass and listen. Loved their music.

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Bob.
SWCA 1821

Saw KT Osslin at Jones Hall in Houston back in the 80s Her opener was new to me but the next day I went out and bought 2 of his albums. I can't remember the team but he played in the NFL for a while. His name was Mike Reid. His vice was awesome and he played one of those portable looking keyboards. I was hoping it wouldn't come to pieces before the end of his set. His key pounding style reminded me of Billy Joel. Any way Mike was a great writer as well. Wrote A Stranger in this House and Lost in the 50s For Ronnie Milsap and 80s ladies for Kt. Probably more but I can't think of them.

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Real men love cats!

I remember Mike Reid playing football for Penn State and then he was drafted and played for the Cincinnati Bengals.

Never had any use for Reba after she said she would trade show tickets for turned in guns. I wouldnt walk across the street to see her.