Your Musical Time Machine Moment

[Mythos]

Do you have some magical music-related moment from your past? What was it? When was it? A concert? There first time you heard something? The first time you opened that clear Faust LP and gazed at its mystical qualities? The smell of some long sought-after imported vinyl?

Here's mine:
It's around 1974, I'm in my room, I have one wall completely covered in cork, the aqua lava lamp is the only light source in the room and I'm relaxing, fully engulfed in my bean bag chair, no drugs, no alcohol, just me, my electrostatic headphones and Tangerine Dream's Phadrea swirling around my brain...

Life was so simple then....

[mozo-pg]

It's hard to remember, I had a lot of drugs swirling around my brain! It is likely the Trick of The Tail tour and the guy in front of me was selling pot and had an inverted V shaped haircut like Gabriel's. I remember parts of the show, like Supper's Ready and Phil's tambourine routine.

[progeezer]

The first thing that popped into my head was.....In 1967, my then wife (we married @ 20) and I were walking through Central Park in Manhattan tripping. We heard the sounds of a band playing a half mile away (needless to say, a psychedelic magnet) so we started off in the direction of the sound.

(NYC people will know this location) As we got closer & closer to the Bandshell, we also started hearing a crowd below the music.

Punch line: When we got there, after we had to make sure we weren't hallucinaing, we watched the last 45 minutes of what we were told was a 90 minute run through/tune-up for Jefferson Airplane's upcoming NYC/E Coast gigs!

[Buddhabreath]

So many moments but I had to chime in because of your story.

In the Washington D.C. area we had a great station out of Georgetown University WGTB that used to play all kinds of progressive and non-commercial music. Its motto at one time was "One nation under ground". Anyway, I remember laying on my bed one night, turning on the radio and Tangerine Dream came flooding out - I think it was Rubicon. Anyway I had never heard anything like it and I just zoned out. I described to my friends as "I forgot who I was' while listening to it. Needless to say it started a lifetime of my affinity for electronic music. I first heard many great things on that station for the first time...

[refugee]

1977 Wembley Arena, dry ice tumbling from the stage, turned green by a dazzling light show and the mighty Yes tearing into Close to the Edge.

[walt]

Circa 1978, Cathedral of St.John The Divine,NYC.Hearing Olivier Messiaen's L'Ascension(first time live) on a mighty church organ.Don't recall the name of the organist,but it was a truly transcendent,always to be remembered/cherished, afternoon.

[Sputnik]

For me, Yes in June 1979. Still the best show I've ever seen. If I could re-live it, I'd die happy.

Bill

[Buddhabreath]

OK two more:

1) Gentle Giant 1977 standing / dancing right at the edge of the stage after sneaking into the club just a few months underage to see my heroes - still maybe my peak live concert experience.

2) Watching Bob Dylan at RFK Stadium opening for the Grateful Dead on an VERY hot summer day in 80's and tripping hard out of my mind hypnotized by watching streams of neon fruit flow out of Bob's head in an enormous fountain. Suddenly I felt faint as if I were about to pass out when a beautiful women in cut-offs and a tank top poured a great slosh of cool water out of a gallon milk jug over my head!

[mozo-pg]

OK two more:

1) Gentle Giant 1977 standing / dancing right at the edge of the stage after sneaking into the club just a few months underage to see my heroes - still maybe my peak live concert experience.

2) Watching Bob Dylan at RFK Stadium opening for the Grateful Dead on an VERY hot summer day in 80's and tripping hard out of my mind hypnotized by watching streams of neon fruit flow out of Bob's head in an enormous fountain. Suddenly I felt faint as if I were about to pass out when a beautiful women in cut-offs and a tank top poured a great slosh of cool water out of a gallon milk jug over my head!

Later, she invited you back to her bedroom. The rest, as they say, is history.

[markduff]

I was working in Parkersburg, WV and gave a loan to a guy to open a music store in Marietta, OH. Six months later he calls and said he was providing the backline for a Tommy Page concert at Parkersburg High School. He said I had to go to the sound check. I told him no thanks. He said I had better show up because I would definitely like it. We had talked music for a few months and he knew some of my likes. Turns out Joaquin Lievano, former JL Pony guitarist, was the bandleader for Tommy Page. They played a short warmup set with Tommy Page then I got to talk with Joaquin. I told him I saw him with JL Ponty at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh years earlier and that his album "One Mind" was one of my favorites. He and the band then played me a private set of most of that album for about 40 minutes. There were under 10 people there including the road crew to see them play. One of the best shows I ever saw.

[alanterrill]

August 1969. I'm 15 and have persuaded my parents to let me go to the first evening of the Plumpton festival as long as I'm back the same evening. Pink Floyd are top of the bill and I'm a huge fan. Its a warm summer evening and I'm sitting out on the grass near the stage and I've come alone as none of my friends would come. My last train home leaves at 10.30, but Pink Floyd have only just taken the stage. I decide I'm just going to have to see them now and I lay back as they perform - they have their azimuth co-ordinator with them and two large stacks of speakers at the back corners of the stadium -footsteps and other sounds wizz round behind me. They put on a great show and I enjoy every minute of it. Then the crowd starts to leave and I see its 12 o'clock. I have no idea how I'm going to get home, or whether I'll have to sleep in a field. Just as I start walking down the country lane towards the station, a scruffy grey mini-van pulls along side me and a voice asks "do you want a lift?". Its my friend Brian, a delivery driver who works at the same supermarket where I work on Saturdays. I arrive home and sneak into bed, my parents none the wiser.

[adap2it]

No doubt about it...hearing PROLOGUE on CHUM FM in 1972. My introduction to GENTLE GIANT, my musical messiah had arrived!!

[markwoll]

So many moments but I had to chime in because of your story.

In the Washington D.C. area we had a great station out of Georgetown University WGTB that used to play all kinds of progressive and non-commercial music. Its motto at one time was "One nation under ground". Anyway, I remember laying on my bed one night, turning on the radio and Tangerine Dream came flooding out - I think it was Rubicon. Anyway I had never heard anything like it and I just zoned out. I described to my friends as "I forgot who I was' while listening to it. Needless to say it started a lifetime of my affinity for electronic music. I first heard many great things on that station for the first time...

WGTB was the source of many revelatory moments. Was that the live broadcast of TD? Professor Mota is heard on the opening track of the Encore album from that show.
When they went off the air I stayed home from school, mom understood.

[rapidfirerob]

I thought about picking out a first listen to an album or a concert, but I’m going to relate a favorite gig. I was in an Allman Brothers tribute band called The Deep South Band. One of these gigs was The Berkeley Blues Festival in 99, which was its last year, sadly. There were three blues bands, and us. It was in a street in downtown Berkeley. We were third up. There were many thousands of people in the street. They all dug The Allman Brothers it seemed, as you can see in the photo. Our singer took this picture from the stage, thank goodness![/ATTACH]11389[/ATTACH]

[Harry's Hand]

Summer of '90. 18 years old. Had just gotten into Triumph a few years before and was majorly bummed about Rik Emmett leaving. Happened to be visiting a friend in Canada and heard Rik Emmett was playing what amounted to a bar in Buffalo to work out some new materiel. Now, Rik Emmett playing a bar today wouldn't raise any eybrows but at that time Triumph wasn't far removed from playing arenas.

Made the drive to Buffalo the next day, got to the club super early and managed to get in - and maneuvered to the front of the stage. He blew the roof off the place, playing songs from his yet to be released solo disc and all the Triumph classics.

[gilawi]

Mine was circa 1979 or 1980. By that time, my favorite drummer was Bill Bruford, one of my favorite singers was John Wetton, loved the violin and keyboards of Eddie Jobson. Then a supergroup was born: U.K. To my amazement, United Kingdom played in concert in Puerto Rico (where i live). The concert began with the powerful Synthetizer chords of Alaska and I thought I was in Heaven. To me, the most incredible concert I've ever attended.

[JKL2000]

I guess it'd be Summer of 1980 when a friend loaned me a cassette copy of DSOTM on a cross-country camping trip. Listened to it every night on headphones for a while and was mesmerized. Before that, the more psychy Beatles and ZOSO were as prog as I'd gotten. So it was time travel and an intro to (IMO) prog proper.

[Steve983]

Wembley Empire Pool October 1978 - Yes in the round. I wasn't there.

I'd also love to go back to when I first bought Jon Anderson's Olias Of Sunhillow and experience that feeling of awe and wonder for the first time again.

[BarryLI]

A concert and a listening experience: 1972 at the age of 18, I had fallen in love with Jethro Tull two years earlier upon hearing "Benefit" on a fellow bunkmate's reel-to-reel tape deck while waitering at camp. I had delved back into their catologue to This Was and Stand Up, then of course they exploded with Aqualung, I was following the impending release of their next album, TAAB. It had been released in GB on Chrysalis but the US Warner Bros version was still in the can, I located an import pressing at JEM Records in The Bronx, couldn't get there fast enough. I rushed home and cracked the shrinkwrap, was amazed at the newspaper package, all the articles and whatnot, fired up my Koss Pro4AA headphones and my Harmon-Kardon stereo, lay back in my bed and immersed myself in new Tull music. Near the end where the "where the hell was Biggles" section begins with the rising crescendo I realized I had tears streaming down my cheeks, having had a complex relationship with my dad that theme came through clearly Ian having had the same experience, I thought to myself "boy oh boy Ian has done it again, only bigger", to this day it's my favorite piece of music bar none. The following year I was in college in Alfred, NY, drove 70 miles north to the U of Rochester to see Genesis with my friend, it was just prior to the release of SEBTP. The concert was in the gym, no seats, the stage a three foot riser, somehow we found ourselves in the front sitting with our feet touching the stage, Peter Gabriel standing 5 feet in front of us. Watching the band from that location at that time was a religious experience, at one point (I think during The Musical Box) they shot off flashpots, our proximity to the stage caused about 30 seconds of temporary blindness lending to the entirely surreal experience.

[flowerking]

I have several but I'll give you two.

2002 - we were late coming back from dinner for Nektar's performance Nearfest. I'd been a Nektar fan practically since I started listening to rock. My sister had Remember the Future I used to listen to it all the time. Anyway, we got to our seats just as the lights went down and they opened the show with Tab. They went on to play all of Tab, all of Remember the Future, the title track for Recycled plus a few other songs. A real magical moment.

1988 - I had only heard a few Zappa albums when I picked up Stage I. Listening to the 1973 band do Big Swifty was a "wow" moment. From that day on, I've been a huge Zappa fan.

[Lopez]

Mine is some time in November/December 1969, I'm 16 and I'm doing homework on a Saturday afternoon (yeah, sure) and I'm listening to the local college radio station (WBRU, Brown University). They're playing music I'd never heard before - Moody Blues (To Our Children's...), King Crimson (21st Century...), and others. I was stunned by what I heard. And I had to wait quite a while before the DJ gave the list of what he had played. That did it for me. I was hooked by the crazy music that was being called art rock. What I'd give to go back to that Saturday afternoon to be overwhelmed by the music I heard.

[Gladiator1634]

It was December of 1974 I was just turning 16 my friend was a Genesis fan and turning me on to some of their music. He got us tickets to see the Lamb show at the Academy of Music in NYC. He said he had heard it was going to be a great light show and we should take something to enhance the visuals. Another friend who was suppose to drive us to the subway which was a few miles away calls just as were about to leave and says he can't go to the show because he got in trouble at school. Oh man talk about regrets! By the time we find another ride to the subway and start riding the train were running late and the effects of what we took are starting to hit us. If any of you have ever rode the NYC subway in the 70's you know that was an adventure in itself. We arrived at the venue like 30 or 40 minutes past the 8pm starting time and quickly sell the extra ticket out front for face value for something like $6.50 or $7. We get to our awesome 2nd row center lodge seats and lucky for us the concert hasn't started yet. From Tony Banks very first notes with the Manhattan skyline coming into view on the screens through the entire Lamb album we watched and listened totally mesmerized by the show. Then they announced that it was time for a few older tunes which was when they really blew us out of our seats. The power coming off that stage during the Musical box and WOTS was something I've never experienced from a band prior to or after that show. At the completion of each of those two songs it seemed that everyone in the entire theater had a lighter and some began lighting the handout that were given out with lamb story printed similar to the one on the album cover. This show totally changed my taste in music. They instantly became my all time favorite group. The next day I purchased a ticket to see it again the following weekend at the Capital theater in Passaic N.J. Without a doubt the best two concerts I ever saw!!

[Buddhabreath]

WGTB was the source of many revelatory moments. Was that the live broadcast of TD? Professor Mota is heard on the opening track of the Encore album from that show.
When they went off the air I stayed home from school, mom understood.

I wish I knew, but I'm not sure I even knew at the time but you've cued a faint memory that does tell me it was live. I do remember a DJ in particular named Bambi as I recall that played a lot of great stuff... those were the days.

[alucard]

1976 Gentle Giant in Düsseldorf with Banco as support act. The first side of Playing The Fool comes from this show and a couple of tracks on Under Construction. Good memories.

Envoyé de mon GT-I9195 en utilisant Tapatalk

[Zappathustra]

1976 Gentle Giant in Düsseldorf with Banco as support act. The first side of Playing The Fool comes from this show and a couple of tracks on Under Construction. Good memories.

Envoyé de mon GT-I9195 en utilisant Tapatalk

That is too painful man. Just because we are somewhat younger doesn't mean you have to take it on us like this! (what a dream combination!)