I didn’t attend many concerts when I was younger. Besides a few one-off concerts back in the 80s and 90s, I didn’t start really going to concerts until the mid-2000s. Perhaps it’s my mid-life crisis, concerts being my sports car or motorcycle. Either way, the number of concerts have grown from once a year back in 2002-2006 to the 27 I went to in 2013. I do consider any event that has live music a concert. Your mileage may vary.
Here’s a list of my earliest shows:
1989 Depeche Mode – Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY
1989 Bee Gees – Poplar Creek Music Theater, Hoffman Estates, IL
1995 Cranberries – Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, NY
In June 1997 we attended an Erasure concert Radio City Music Hall during their “Cowboy” tour. With Andy and Vince in their prime, it was an amazing show from our vantage point in the 7th row. Unfortunately, about halfway through the show, someone had a heart attack 2 rows in front of us. My wife administered CPR for 15 minutes as we waited for the EMT to arrive. Strangely, the show wasn’t stopped until 5 minutes after the heart attack. It’s pretty impossible to check for a heartbeat in the middle of a concert. My wife then accompanied the ambulance to the hospital where he passed away. The poor guy had attended the show with his wife and 2 kids. It was quite a downer to what had been an amazing performance by Erasure.
Given that experience, I didn’t attend another “concert” until the Columbia Presbyterian Heart Gala in 2002 where Diana Ross performed. The one thing I remember was Diana Ross scolding me for taking pictures. It was the first time I took pictures and I got yelled at!! This is before the days of everyone having a camera phone. Cheap camera. Pictures were terrible. They’ve gotten much better over time.