Originally Posted by SimonB
Oh to see any of those bands in a small club! I did manage to see Jerry Cantrell in a small club


SimonB,
I once saw a new group called "Van Halen" play at a rich kid's graduation party up in the Whittier Hills. Great White had a hell of a time breaking out of the LA club scene. While I was up in Portland, a local group with a female sax player called themselves "Seafood Mama". They eventually went MTV as Quarterflash. I can't remember the names of many of the other bands I saw in the 80s that made it. Some made it big and some were one hit wonders.

Back in the 70s I saw an unknown group called Areosmith open for ZZ Top. That was one of the craziest nights of my life, and that's saying something. The legendary Golden Bear in Huntington Beach was my local club for a while in the 80s. Stevie Ray Vaughn and BB King were house acts. The groups that went through there were impressive, but more often it was a solo act or a few members of a big group-just out playing clubs for fun. Ingve Malmstein, Joe Perry, all kinds of folks.

I saw all kinds of acts and oddball performers at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. Lots of up & coming bands, plus traditional Bluegrass and Chicago Blues at The White Eagle Saloon in Portland.

Back in the 80s I misspent part of my youth mining gold in the Mother Lode counrty. The pub crawls with my fellow miners were legendary. Bars like the Crazy Horse in Nevada City managed to throw us out regularly. The main street of town had bars every other door, sometimes next door. The live music spilled out onto the same streets that the 49ers walked in the first Gold Rush. Somehow, we made it back to camp at sunrise.

I miss the club scene! Can you tell?

Dan


"Facts are the enemy of Truth"
Don Quixote