Soundonsound

While Blue Girl and Billy Pilgrim may be gaga over the Genesis tour (far be it from me to say anything about the extremely noticeable absence of Peter Gabriel), I did my own shopping today, tickets to this fall's Neil Young show. I've seen him before as part of CSN&Y, a good enough concert in its own right, but it's Neil as a soloist I've been wanting to see, and now's my chance.

I don't get to concerts very often now. The Lovely Bride's back in school, the kids are busy with their own things, and holy God, they're expensive. Buying the tickets, though, got me thinking about bands I've seen.

1. Talking Heads. Part of radio station KGON FM 92's "Catch A Rising Star" promotion, they played the Paramount, a 3,000 seat theater. Admission was 92 cents. Seeing David Byrne sing "Psycho Killer" would have been a bargain at twice the price.

2. Bruce Springsteen. Again at the Paramount. "Candy's Room," "Spirit in the Night," "The Promised Land," all great songs, but I've never seen a band play with as much pure glee as the E Street Band displayed on "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."

3. Lynyrd Skynyrd. The plane hadn't crashed yet and it was one of my first concerts. I yelled "Free Bird" before it was a cliché. My parents couldn't figure out why I was so excited when I got home and I couldn't explain it.

4. Hüsker Dü. It was just a bar band playing to a small crowd. They hadn't been signed yet and people were there mostly for the cheap beer. After a while we gave up trying to talk, got a drink, and listened.

5. Grateful Dead. I'd seen them before and would see them again, but not like this. Outside in the Texas sun, there was barbecue and a skydiver beforehand and camping and parties after. I remember "Terrapin Station" going on for what seemed like hours or at least I remember my memory of it. The next morning we got up in time to run into town for breakfast at a diner, sitting in all our post-concert glory among the families on their way from church. It was everything a Dead concert should be.

6. Patti Smith. I was still trying to decide about this thing called punk. Patti sang "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine" and I knew.

7. The Kinks. The opening chords to "Lola" started playing on a darkened stage, the crowd started chanting, Ray Davies walked on stage, paused, and said, "No. I don't think you're ready." Then he launched into another song. Every half hour or so the band would offer just the first few notes again, Ray would say, "Not yet," and off they'd go in another direction. Smarmy, maybe, but he pulled it off. When they finally played it as the encore, everyone was ready.

8. Green Day. My oldest son's first concert. He liked it just fine. Great songs, great showmanship, great fun. A perfect introduction to rock and roll.

9. U2. Eight days after taking him to Green Day, I took the boy to U2. Lucky kid. Bono takes himself a little seriously, but what the hell, he's Bono. Besides, hearing "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Pride (In the Name of Love") live is its own form of moral instruction.

10. R.E.M./Bruce Springsteen/John Fogerty. It was exhilarating to sit in an arena with thousands of other people ready to vote for anyone but George W. Bush. It was indescribable to hear Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, R.E.M., John Fogerty, Bright Eyes, and surprise guest Neil Young blast through a version of "Rockin' in the Free World" that the Devil himself would have sold his soul to play, repeating the line over and over, "We've got a kinder, gentler machine gun hand" with rage and fury and despair. The greatest show I've ever seen. The greatest show I ever expect to see.