I've had the good fortune to see a lot of live performances over the years. My Virtual Ticket Stub Gallery is far from extraordinary, but I can look back on the volume and variety of shows I've seen with some sense of satisfaction. I saw The Ramones nine times. I saw The Kinks three times. I saw Prince, The Animals, The Bangles, David Bowie, Ray Charles, The Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley, The Beach Boys, Tina Turner, Talking Heads, The Runaways, KISS, The Monkees, Iggy Pop, Johnny Thunders, Gene Pitney, Ian Hunter with Mick Ronson. I saw Paul McCartney. I saw Culture Club and Regis Philbin, though not at the same time (and now I wish it had been at the same time). The Clash, Tommy James, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Replacements, The Smithereens, The Searchers, Earth, Wind and Fire, and more. I've been lucky, and I'm grateful.
But I've also missed a lot of shows, too. Can't see 'em all. In 2016, I wrote a blog piece called "Goin' Nowhere Tonight: The Bands I Missed, The Shows I Didn't See." I may be re-visiting that subject as a new blog series. But in the mean time, I wanted to attempt a list of acts I had some sort of potential opportunity to see in concert, but never actually saw.
Some of these opportunities were more solid than others. I had a ticket to see McGuinn, Clark and Hillman on my college campus at Brockport in the late '70s, but sold the ticket because I stupidly didn't think they'd play any Byrds songs. Arghh. Some of the concerts never happened at all; I had a ticket to see Lou Reed, and definite intent to see Meatloaf, Devo, and Public Image, Ltd., but each of those specific shindigs was cancelled. I passed on a pair of free tickets to see Heart in '85 or '86 because I was too tired to go that night, and car trouble scotched my seemingly unlikely rendezvous with Miami Sound Machine in '87.
The others? A combination of budget, timing, poor judgement, in-the-moment circumstances, conflicting commitments, and random whims kept me away. Some of these were shows I didn't properly consider at the time, and I only came to recognize the missed opportunity in retrospect. Some I had to skip because they took place at the exact same time I was at another show; Chuck Berry's former piano player Johnnie Johnson played at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Syracuse when I was in Rochester seeing Carole King, and both The Bodeans and The Godfathers played separate shows in Syracuse on the same night I went to see The Ventures. Feast or famine, baby.
So here's a list of missed opportunities. I'll come back to update the list as I remember more of them. The music plays on. Even if we aren't there to witness it.
PAT BENATAR
BERLIN
BLONDIE
THE BODEANS
JAMES BROWN
ALICE COOPER
THE CURE
THE DEAD BOYS
DR. DEMENTO
DEVO
DIVINYLS
ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN
FOGHAT
ARETHA FRANKLIN
GERRY AND THE PACEMAKERS
DIZZY GILLESPIE
THE GODFATHERS
GOOD RATS
THE GRATEFUL DEAD
HEART
THE HEARTBREAKERS
HOT CHOCOLATE
IT'S MY PARTY!
THE LAUGHING DOGS
CYNDI LAUPER
LITTLE STEVEN AND THE DISCIPLES OF SOUL
LOS LOBOS
LORETTA LYNN
MAGAZINE
MANNIX
McGUINN, CLARK AND HILLMAN
MEATLOAF
MIAMI SOUND MACHINE
RICK NELSON
GRAHAM PARKER
PENETRATION
THE POLICE
PUBLIC IMAGE, LTD.
SUZI QUATRO
R.E.M.
REDD KROSS
LOU REED
SMOKEY ROBINSON
TODD RUNDGREN
DEL SHANNON
SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY AND THE ASBURY JUKES
SPIN DOCTORS
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
THE TROGGS
U2
STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN
THE WHO
WILD CHERRY
STEVIE WONDER
BRUCE WOOLEY AND THE CAMERA CLUB
X
THE ZOMBIES
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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.
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