Your first music (rock?) concert you attended (what were you thinking?). I thought of this a while ago reading Jeff Faraudo's 20 questions with Cal recruits, since one of his frequent questions was "What was your first concert?". It made me more than a bit sad that 50% of the recruits hadn't attended a concert.

via www.recordsale.de

The first rock concert I attended was Derek & the Dominoes at Legion Field, Birmingham Alabama in 1973. Hey, that's pretty cool, right? I mean, Slow Hand, Guitar God, the man's a legend (Eric Clapton). But there a few details that made this experience slightly less than completely awesome.

One, my mom drove me and my younger bother and sister up to Birmingham from Montgomery to see this show. Really, I was the driving factor in attending this, since I was a huge Eric Clapton fan (Cream, Yardbirds, Blind Faith) and now with Derek & the Dominos. Second, the concert was in the day time (not cool), and my mom attended the show with us (not cool in the slightest bit). At the time, Legion Field was two sets of stands, with the end zones open. The band set up on the sidelines, at the 50 yard line, facing one of the stands.

Now I have two indelible memories for this concert (aside from thoroughly enjoying it), but for one of them, you need to understand the mores of a 1970's rock concert. 1) Everyone smoked weed, and 2) it was a HUGE social faux pas to "bogart" a joint, hence attending a concert at the time meant that every minute (seemingly) someone was handing you a joint. Now my mom was not prepared to allow me to partake in this, but neither was she going to interfere with the customs of the time. When in Rome, etc. So she sat in the middle of the four of us, and reached over to grab the joint, and pass down the line, skipping me.

The second thing was, I personally could have listened to the band for hours, and if I was bold enough to yell out a song, I would have shouted "Tell the Truth" (I didn't). But many in the crowd chanted "Layla" at every f-ing song break. So pissed me off, I mean morons, it's his biggest hit, it's played constantly on the radio and JUST SHUT UP ALREADY HE"S GOING TO PLAY THE DAMN SONG!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah well, memories. What's your first time? We need the details, man.