I saw the Dead live over 200 times (it's not my fault, they were following me around), Bob Dylan over 50 times going back to the Before the Flood Tour with The Band back in 74, and I saw Pink Floyd after Dark Side of the Moon, but a solid year/year and a half before Wish You Were Here. And I saw The Police open for Talking Heads and Prince open for Morris Day and the Time at a little club called the Keystone (usually just The Stone) in SF. I also have a powerful hankering for Asleep at the Wheel and I've been all over the country to see them. Brother Ray testifies to me, Am I High?. I've seen Leo Kottke do over 20 shows and I can't get enough of him either, or a guy named Adrian Legg who is an amazing guitar player also.
I blame my mom who dragged me to see things like Van Cliburn, Isaac Perlman, The Chicago Symphony, and the ballet, and the opera, and all that like cultural stuff when I was growing up.
But the ones that stand out (aside from hearing/watching Van Cliburn do the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #1, which was so good, and in such a class of its own, that it alone equals everything that everyone is going to list here) would be seeing the last concert of U2s first American tour (1980) in a 700 seat club that was half sold, if that. They were never that good again sad to say. Any of the Frank Zappa shows I saw were better than most band's careers in total. Black Flag before Henry Rollins came in an ego-tripped all over that stuff was pretty good, but not quite as good as X was about the same time. But back in '76 - that wacky Bicentennial year - I wound up in a crappy little club, I mean you would not even want to drink the bottled beer there (it was so bad I bet the rats and roaches had moved out), and this old blind guy, who was so sick and crippled that he needed help getting in and out of the chair and have to have his instruments handed to him by someone else. He flat-out played about the best sax I've ever heard, I thought he played flute better than Jean-Pierre Rampal (who was also no slacker), and he played some clarinet, a bit of harmonica, and threw in some English horns, and even tossed in a bit of recorder. And if that wasn't enough, he could - and did - play two saxes at once. He could hold a note longer on the sax than anyone else, and play 16th note runs at any speed you wanted, for as long as you wanted, despite the fact that he was so sick he couldn't stand up on his own.
In his, "Concerto For Saxophone" on the Prepare Thyself to Deal With a Miracle record he plays a 20 minute take with no discernible break for inhaling. Really, check it out, 20 minutes and you don't hear him take a breath. I was breathless watching him, and when he was done I broke down and cried, I cried all the way home, and I think I cried for days after that. What he did not only transcended the dump we were in, elevating it to a place beyond heaven, it transcended music, hell, it transcended art. That was well over 30 years ago and still when I think about it I start to shutter and cry all over again. And when I have to work with a bunch of whiny-assed, ego tripping, no talent jerkwads (Billy Corgon I'm looking right at you, you cheap punk poser) I can make it through because I saw Rahsaan Roland Kirk and that one night makes up for all the other ones.
you wouldn't forget him either
if you met him where i met him
talkin' about desolation
desolation is a railroad station round about a 2am on a week night
you walk into desolation like that and suddenly out of nowhere comes a warm song you aren't about to forget it
this is the first time i've heard him at the airport
i know he moves along the piers
he calls himself a journey agent
a eulipion
says his friends the poets and the artists and the musicians are eulipions too
listen to his tune
he calls it the duty free gift for the traveler
Listen to The Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color
and I Talk with the Spirits, which is all flute, is worth a listen also.
