Having just posted a video of the Chuck Mosley - fronted FNM I’m feeling somewhere between nostalgic and embittered about outfits you never got to see, either at all, or when they were in their full pomp.
For me it’s mostly rock/metal from my youth.
I saw FNM shortly after Mike Patton joined and that was chaotic enough (and I still have an iffy neck from a stage-diver landing on my head). Chuck Mosley however was an absolute one-off and I rue not having seen him in person.
Judas Priest at the Hammersmith Odeon on the Screaming For Vengeance tour. The opportunity was there but I was fundamentally too young. I think they’re still plodding around but if they are then it’s past a joke by now.
I had a weird run-in with the drummer from whatever was passing for the DKs in the early noughties. I passed on the free tickets although it felt rude at the time.
Actually, exactly the same scenario with Blue Öyster Cult. The common thread being that the drummers all liked a particular brand of wristwatch.
I was so dirtpoor as a kid I only got to a tiny fraction of contemporary bands, plus (no surprise) I was a total billy-no-mates. I had to skip university, so that route to top bands never happened. Then a long break during which I convinced myself I was “too old for music any more” (it’s pointless to try to rationalise such drivel), and then there’s all the bands like Love that I didn’t discover until too late.
Flipside, I did get to see some bands I adore - like Slint and The Flaming Stars - more than once even though they never gigged all that much.
Pistols ,friend had my ticket and we missed each other.
Would be quite happy just to have the ticket as it’s probably worth a couple of quid.
Also stranglers in there early days at same venue,though seeing joy division there makes up some of the disappointment
Few others
Talking heads
Original pil line up
XTC
Specials
Mansun
Au pairs
The ruts
Gang of Four
Not being wise enough in 69 and 70 as we drove right next to the Isle of Wight festival.Definitely remember 70 as there was ply fencing up which I think there was a rumpus about,as the capitalist pigs wanted paying for entry.
Galaxie 500 - tried to see them twice but snow in Leeds and a dumbass girlfriend in Sheffield meant I never got to see them.
Nirvana - on 26/11/91 I had to choose between seeing them in Bradford or Mercury Rev in Leeds - chose the latter, which was a great gig but given subsequent events maybe the wrong decision.
In the 70’s I missed out on seeing the bay city rollers my girlfriend was quite keen
I had taken her to see Mott the Hoople and Queen and had enough testosterone to say no. She ditched me soon after.
On a more serious note Gentle Giant was my most missed - They played in Oxford several times in my early days but for some reason I never got a ticket.
Were playing in Birmingham, I guess late 70’s early 80’s. Wanted to go, could have gone. Something, can’t remember what, came up & I didn’t. Always regretted it.
EDIT: Looks like it was 1981. He only did one gig that year & bizarrely it was in Birmingham.
When I was 15, some friends and I booked a bunch of gigs at around this time of the year. The first of these was The Damned at The Electric Ballroom - 22/12/79.
I’d only been to see a couple of bands before, and in the previous few days, I’d been quite ill with a sickness bug. Anyway, I got separated from my friends on the way up the steps, coming out of Camden Underground and then set about by a bunch of skinheads who gave me a bit of a beating and knicked all my money. Because I wasn’t all that well and I was shaken up, I found the gig a bit overwhelming, so decided to leave about halfway through.
When I got to Euston, I just missed a train on the Victoria Line and then had some homeless guy, out of his gourd, screaming at me for a solid 10 minutes!
The upshot of this was that I completely lost my bottle with going to see bands for a while and gave away my other tickets to another friend. They were; The Clash (London Calling Tour) Siouxie And The Banshees and The Dead Kennedys. Have always been gutted that I never saw those bands…
A few months later, we were late to one of the Hugh Cornwell-less (in prison for heroin posession) Stranglers gigs at the Rainbow and missed Joy Division who were lower down the bill. I think it was their last london show…
Had the same shit after seeing the slits at electric ballroom in 79 at the tube station
They were out of their nuts on a mixture of probably glue,special brew and barbiturates threatening to throw people on the tracks if they didn’t give them their punk pin badges of all things
