Gig Regrets: Shows That I Could Have Seen and SHOULD Have Seen but CHOSE NOT TO GO TO for some damn reason or other

(NOT-QUITE-EDITED-IN AFTERTHOUGHT, added weeks later: Shoulda seen the Meat Puppets and Soundgarden that time, too)

I remember, as a very young man, listening to ads for a Perryscope Production (I think) announcing that Frank Zappa was coming to town. I must have been eleven or twelve? Maybe in 1980, I think at the Coliseum - maybe this show in March? (I love that there is a detailed setlist for it available - not so for most other concerts I missed back then, but Zappa fans tend to be a bit obsessive about such matters. It might also have been this show, in 1981, however, which has nowhere near the detailed setlist). I don't recall the dates exactly, but I recall the context of learning about it. I had a small clock radio by my bed that my parents had given me. I woke up with music every day, listened to it before I went to sleep, and sometimes went out and bought 7"s by bands I liked. Of the early songs I remember hearing, I recall getting singles by Billy Joel ('It's Still Rock'n'Roll to Me," 1980) and the Alan Parsons Project ("Games People Play," 1981). That's the only way I can sort of date the concert - I remember buying those songs based on hearing them on the radio (probably CFOX) and hearing the Zappa ads for the same shows. I had been to a Johnny Cash and a Charley Pride concert with my parents, at that point, I think; and would, around this time, go see my first concert of my own choosing (Billy Joel on the Glass Houses tour). But even though my tastes were clearly not yet very evolved, I remember hearing a snippet of "I'm the Slime" as part of that radio ad (I think) and finding it kind of curious and compelling. My thought then - ate age 12! - was, "This is interesting music, but you never hear it on the radio. Why not?"

It was PROBABLY the first time I had that thought - my first discovery of "The Unheard Music," maybe, which I would grow to spend most of my life listening to: by 14, in 1982, I was self-defining as a punk, and would phone CFOX occasionally and request DOA or the Dead Kennedys and/ or ask the DJs why they didn't play punk. 

I had not heard of punk rock at the time of that Frank Zappa show, of course, but it was the start of my realizing that there was a whole world of music that I was never going to encounter on the radio. And while the odds were always against my going, at age 12 or 13, to that Frank Zappa show, I remember thinking, even then, "Maybe I should go to that?" 

I mean, considering how new I was to music fandom, I can forgive myself; I'm more impressed with myself that I even considered the show than I am regretful or bummed that I missed it, but it was the first show I ever considered, elected not to go to, and now I wish now I had chosen differently about.   

Here are a few others:

1. The time I maybe missed the Blasters? I only have a vague memory of skipping the opening act when I went to see the Kinks - a flash of conversation before the show of whether we wanted to see them or not. I am not sure what year it was, they had shows here in 1980, 1981, 1983, 1985; it was during the hamster wheel years on the Kinks' American arena rock circuit, when Ray's shtick involved spritzing the audience with beer from bottles during the intro to "Low Budget" (and, for that song sang "and dropping my drawers" in place of "so I can buy more"). I think they were touring Give the People What They Want, but it might have been State of Confusion. (Both shows started with "Round the Dial," according to what I can find online). There was a girl I liked that came with my friend and I, whom I was sort of awkwardly pursuing a crush on, which places things in junior high school (same school I went to with Rob Nesbitt, actually, of BUM and the SuiteSixteen). I remember being stressed out whether to put my arm around her or not, the night at that show. I think I chickened out, but I also vaguely remember a sore shoulder, so I might have gone for it, I don't know (she was just too pretty and I never had a chance and knew it, but wow I was impressed with her). A male buddy came with me - he and I had a falling out in junior high, sometime after that show, so I don't think it was the 1985 show, because I don't think we were very friendly anymore by then. But I also remember discussing with him whether we wanted to see the opening act, and vaguely recall words being said to the effect of,  " I don't want to see some shitty rockabilly band." Which would have been the Blasters, if it in fact was the 1985 show. Please tell me I didn't do that?  

Of course, dissing and skipping the Blasters is better, in terms of facepalm pain, than the possibility of my having missed the opening act in 1980, when it would have been the Angels (during the time when they were known over here as Angel City). I've come to adore them. I know people who went to that show, but I was too young, still - that was when I was going to see Billy Joel or, uh, Styx (touring Paradise Theatre). I think my fandom for the Angels and the Kinks (and the Who, whom I never saw, but whose music I loved) came a couple of years later than that, as I became more particular in what I listened to, more knowledgeable. 

Anyhow, I have no idea who the opening act was for the Kinks show I did get to see was. I'm glad I saw the Kinks, but whatever happened before they took the stage, whatever night that was, whichever year, is a deep void. Based on the junior-high school time frame, the shows in 1981 or 1983 make the most sense, but I don't think it was 1981, because I liked Red Rider's "Lunatic Fringe" and "White Hot," and they were the alleged support for that. I think I would have been interested to see them. But in 1983, it was the Ray Roper Band that opened - a Stonebolt offshoot. It's possible that that was the opener I missed?

No offense to Stonebolt fans out there, but I'd much rather have missed the Ray Roper Band than the Blasters or the Angels. 

2. The Pretenders at the Coliseum, I think in 1987. I had heard about Iggy Pop, who, as the opening act, was touring Blah-Blah-Blah, and realized by that point that - though I liked a few songs on that record - he had a much richer back catalogue. I had read about him in Creem magazine, talking about Zombie Birdhouse, and might have had that album by then, maybe even Party and Lust for Life (the first three Iggy Pop albums that I owned, I think). I was already getting snobbish about my music, already an elitist, and as I recall, thought the Pretenders (touring Get Close, I guess) were just some crap commercial pop band, unworthy of my time. I shared this thought with fellow punks on the way out of the Coliseum, who, as I recall, were disappointed by Iggy's show because he didn't do anything from Soldier. I didn't know that album, I don't think, but we bonded in this "fuck the Pretenders" sentiment - oddly also reinforced by a live clip of Iggy performing a song on a Toronto cable show (doing "Rock'n Roll Party," "Winter of My Discontent," and "Dum Dum Boys") where at one point, he addressed the audience and said something like, "what do you think this is - Chrissie Hynde? This is hardcore." 

Which it wasn't, but the next big show regret was...

3. The time I snubbed the Crucifucks. It wasn't until I saw the gig poster, years later, that the memory came flooding back to me (the poster was the same basic design, but was Vancouver-specific, with the opening bands listed; it's only online in black and white, however, so I'm electing for colour). The first night the openers were I, Braineater, the Bill of Rights, and the House of Commons, all bands I'm really glad I got to see back in the day. (Bags of Dirt apparently also played, but I either did not see them, or have no memory of them). But blogging about the gig back in 2012 - see that previous link - I discovered that the Crucifucks had been among the supporting acts the second night. 

After writing that 2012 piece, memories floated to the surface of seeing the poster before the show and being disturbed by the Crucifucks' name (the singer himself has, last he was a public figure, sworn off profanity, so to speak, and refers to his earlier band as "the Christmas folks." I was no longer a churchgoer at that point, but my Christian years weren't too far behind me; I can date my ceasing to go to church at around 1980, because it was that year - at age 12 - that I discovered the joys of masturbation, which I was prepared neither to give up nor confess. Something about sending 12 year old boys into dark alcoves to tell priests about their masturbatory habits - because what other sins does a 12 year old really HAVE, ferchrissake? - seemed off to me even then, and who knows what bullets I dodged. But even though I'd already apologized to God, telling him in prayer that I was going to give up both church and prayer, because I just didn't BELIEVE in him enough - "hope you'll forgive me if I'm wrong" - I believed in being respectful of institutions.. The Crucifucks was a "band name too far," it was frightening, made me worry what my parents would think, made me too afraid to want to see the show.

Of course, I really got into them, shortly after that. Steve Shelley, later of Sonic Youth, drums on that first album. That would have been something to talk about with him when he was at the merch table for that Lee Ranaldo gig...

(BTW no offense is intended to Death Sentence here, since I did actually see them shortly thereafter, so I don't kick myself for missing them the way I kick myself for missing the Crucifucks).

Those are the main shows I regret missing - Zappa, maybe the Blasters, the Pretenders, the Crucifucks - the shows that, if I could travel back in time and tell myself to go, I would. There are many others - Sonic Youth touring with Neil Young; Sonic Youth touring with L7 and the Beastie Boys; the Beastie Boys playing a Lollapallooza I was actually at, working a merch stand (I recall dimly hearing "Sabotage" start and making no effort to leave the stand, even though the merchant who I'd come along to help suggested I go; I was too much of a snob even then!). I think a 1980's version of Guided by Voices played that Lollapallooza, too, but I wouldn't even have known who they were. Then there was the time I missed the Butthole Surfers at a Lollapallooza I was at, and every other Butthole Surfers gig I didn't go to. Never saw Husker Du, never saw Tupelo Chain Sex, never saw Black Flag, never saw Nomeansno with Andy. I had a chance to see John Fahey in Japan that I missed, and also a reunion of 3/4s of Can, including Michael Karoli (Fahey and Karoli would die not too long after both shows). And of course, I missed every chance I had to see John Prine, and I'll never get another. 

I've seen my share of shows, though. I wonder if it will console me much, looking back?