@freddy-steady is no doubt still boiling after 40 years at not being allowed to go to Monsters of Rock inn 1981. More details please! Excellent idea for a thread, the gigs you were not allowed to attend, probably by parents but maybe also by partners putting their foot down etc. etc. Me: on a French exchange aged 15 in France in 1980, and already a veteran of at least 3 or 4 gigs at home. During my stay in Nantes the Police, XTC and UB40 are playing at the Parc des Expositions. Would my French hosts have any of it? They would not. I think I’d even bought a ticket and was forced to go back to the record shop and ask for a refund. In French. Worst Exchange Ever. Your tails of thwarted trips here please.
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moseleymoles says
Though bottom of the bill Skafish look eminently missable even now. The Police wiki reveals this about the event:
According to a French magazine 9000 people attended this concert. The concert took place in a hall that wasn’t good with lots of echo. Sting required an oxygen tent as he didn’t feel too well.
Black Type says
But when they pulled him out, he asked for the latest party.
Pajp says
@black-type
That’s gotta be worth an “Up”. It made me smile, anyway.
Moose the Mooche says
I was going to see De La Soul at Manchester International in 1989. Some mates were going and I made a last minute dash for a ticket but too late.
My mates who did get tickets for them had them robbed at knifepoint outside the venue, so I missed quite a night.
JQW says
Friday night at Reading Festival 1995. I’d booked time off work to go, but due to some cock-up or something we had several other members of staff off work that day too, so I had to stay in the office to cover any potential customer emergencies until 8pm. I made the next two days, but missed several of the acts I’d wanted to catch.
Freddy Steady says
It was actually the Soft White Underbelly gig I didn’t make it to. Was even in the summer holidays so it couldn’t even have been a skool night excuse..I think I’ve erased all memories of the reason for not going though I definitely remember it being talked about, my mate definitely went and it was well attended as like every secret gig, it wasn’t.
I’d been to plenty of gigs there before and all…grrr.
Vincent says
My mother wouldn’t let me go to see Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1974 as I was “too young” (I was 13). it was half term.
Later, i had the pyrric victory of seeing the orginal line-up of Brand X at the marquee, but not before my square, middle-aged, 1950s LMC parents had walked with me to the venue, and, having seen the audience, said “no” to me going in (in front of the queue of older cool people), whereupon I broke into tears with a 15-year-old “it’s so unfair” type outburst. They let me go in (doubtless they were embarassed, too), but I sensed I was looked at as the pathetic wannabe kid at the gig – which, to be fair, I was. No, I was not given consolation beers or bifters, or snogged by a sympathetic doe-eyed hippie chick who took pity on me.
Moose the Mooche says
“My mother wouldn’t let me go to see Lynyrd Skynyrd” AW t-shirt
Vulpes Vulpes says
Madame Renard never tires of telling me that her dad refused to let her go to see Led Zeppelin at the Bath Festival in 1970, tickets for which she had already obtained. She was 14. Lucky escape.
fitterstoke says
Nonsense! Perfect time to see them – just around the release of III, was it?
Jaygee says
I think VV was either being ironic or subtly hinting at JP’s partiality to “younger women”
fitterstoke says
Oops! SubtleHintMeter failure…
fitterstoke says
“Freshers’ Week” at Strathclyde, 1978 – I went to as many pubs/gigs/gatherings as I could manage, rubbed shoulders with all sorts of weird people. All leading up the the big one – Van der Graaf at Queen Margaret Union – with my new student card, I’d be able to get a ticket at the door (although at 17, I was strictly under age). The pubs didn’t care much but the Student Union would check your card before selling you a ticket.
However…
The night before the gig, I had to be put in a taxi and sent home, the assumption being made that I was completely drunk and incapable – but I hadn’t actually had time to drink much that night. I felt awful. Next day, all became clear: I had severe chicken pox (I’d never had them as a nipper). Missed my first two weeks of lectures – and I missed what I suspect would have been gig of a lifetime (for me, at any rate).
And: to whoever gave me that dose of chicken pox – I still hate you, with the heat of 1,000 suns.
Gatz says
I had chicken pox twice – as a kid and in my late 20s. My GP, which had a satellite surgery at the nearby Uni where there occasional outbreaks, told me that it’s uncommon but that all that rare. Bloody covered in them I was, literally from my scalp to the soles of my feet.
fitterstoke says
Same here (barely a square inch clear) – but for the first three days or so, it was more like heavy flu.
I got fed up with people saying “if you’d had them at school, you’d be immune now”. At the time, I just wanted to slap them: now, of course, I could refute their lazy thinking…and then slap them.
fentonsteve says
You have my sympathy.
I don’t think I missed any gigs of note, but the my final final exam ended on a Friday lunchtime and I went straight to the pub. I had just turned 21. My folks drove down on Saturday morning to take me out for a celebratory pub lunch but, when they arrived, I was still in bed and my mum said “you’re covered in chickenpox spots” when I got up. So they turned round and went home. I spent the day feeling crap and couldn’t get to sleep at night so, at 3am, I took myself to A&E.
“You’re covered in chickenpox spots” the triage nurse told me and shut me in a broom cupboard so I didn’t infect all the drunks waiting in A&E. I had them inside my eyelids and in other more, er, intimate soft parts.
They put some eye drops in, two big patches over my eyes, gave me a tub of calamine lotion and turfed me out on the street. I had to walk back to my digs blind, have a salt water bath, and spent the next couple of weeks confined to my room (food was left on a tray outside the door.)
I felt so shit that I didn’t mind my housemates sunbathing and getting drunk on the lawn outside my window.
Vincent says
Interesting: I picked up chicken pox a month after I finished my finals, too. I was sick as a dog, and think I saved my gonads from destruction by sitting in a cold bath all night. Covered in plukes, I lost a stone. It was the last time I saw my ribs.
fitterstoke says
Gonad destruction sounds like mumps!
Vincent says
My traps were burning up due to inflammation of the undercarriage, and it seemed the only option. It was definitely chickenpox as it was diagnosed by the doc. In fact, the first spots came up in a sensitive place which led to much amusement at the clap clinic where the student doctors admired the mild swelling and spots before telling me the good news – not a dose – and the bad: chickenpox.
Have I “overshared”?
Moose the Mooche says
You’ll get told if you’ve overshared, believe me
fentonsteve says
Gonad Destruction: three more from them later.
NigelT says
In 1977 I went to see VDGG at Bristol Students Union – I just looked it up and it was 22nd October and your gig @fitterstoke, or non gig as it turned out, was 28th Anyway, we walked out after a couple of ‘numbers’ and went to the pub. They were dreadful.
fitterstoke says
Each to their own, horses for courses, plenty of room for everybody, broad church, let all shades of opinion be heard, etc…
…but if they were playing the set which formed the basis of the “Vital” live album: then I can only spurn your opinion, as I would spurn a rabid dog. Not that I was there, of course…
Good evening, sir. I said, good evening!
retropath2 says
My parents wouldn’t let me go to Reading 74 for some spurious reason. In fact, I think it was because I had had an op on my nose a months before, my mother convincing me it would bleed with all that loud music. I went the next year and fully expected it would then. It didn’t. Has anyone actually had a nose bleed from loud rock music?
Jaygee says
@retropath2
Ed Banger famously had a backing band’s worth of ‘em
dai says
My neglectful parents refused to take me to see The Beatles in Abergavenny in 1963. I was only 15 months old but still!
Black Type says
I had to miss a concert in Manchester one Saturday in 1986 because I was on a work event as an organiser for a shitty Volunteering Fair in Hull.
The concert in Manchester was only the Festival Of The 10th Summer…
Also, I bought tickets for a Peter Gabriel gig in London for me and a mate. We ended up deciding we actually couldn’t afford the cost of travel, hotel etc. so we gave it a miss.
It was only the one concert that Kate Bush made a surprise guest appearance…
Moose the Mooche says
The Fall played that festival, I think they were brought on by Bill Grundy. The one occasion MES wasn’t the drunkest person on the stage.
Wilson Wilson says
When I was about 16, Norman from Teenage Fanclub came to my school – his old school – to be interviewed by pupils for a newspaper article. He put us all on the guest list for a gig at King Tuts. Unfortunately, at 16 I still looked about 12 and the bouncer could not be reasoned with, guest list or no.
fitterstoke says
That’s harsh. I have this image of a bouncer towering over you – “Unless you gotta wristband, my man, you don’t get through the door”
dai says
I had tickets to see Simon and Garfunkel in Toronto ca 2009, the tour was postponed because Art needed a voice operation. They never performed together again
Pessoa says
Like The White Stripes cancelling their UK tour in 2007 at short notice and then splitting up
moseleymoles says
me too @pessoa and i imagine a good % of the folks here. No consideration. The Jam had the guts to tour the Gift then split up. Most recently and more understandably Doves, a favourite favourite band, announced a tour for 2020, postponed to 2022, then cancelled due to a band member’s ongoing mental health issues.
Mike_H says
I had a ticket to see the Carla Bley Trio at Union Chapel a few years ago. Carla got sick and it was cancelled. Got a refund (less booking fee) as there were no plans to reschedule.
About a year later I got a ticket to see them at The Jazz Cafe. That one was cancelled due to illness as well (bassist Steve Swallow, that time). Also not rescheduled so another refund (less booking fee).
About another year or so passed and I saw they were playing at a jazz festival somewhere in deepest Surrey. Day tickets only and requiring a long drive each way plus hotel overnight. No longer within my budget. I don’t think they’ve played in the UK since.
A shame because both her and her bassist partner Steve Swallow are getting seriously old now. Doubt I’ll ever get to see them.
SteveT says
April 1999 I had a ticket to see Elvis Costello at Birmingham Symphony Hall, My daughter was born on the 13th. Costello was playing I think on the 16th – a full three days after the birth. Mother and daughter were still in hospital and I wrongly thought I would be okay to go. I was told I would lose my testicles if I dared to go.
Bravery went out of the window. The setlist still fills me with remorse to this day – I missed him playing After the fall – a favourite of mine that I have never seen him play in the 25 times or more I have seen him.
fentonsteve says
I can beat that. I drove Mrs F and Offspring The Elder from the maternity hospital to home on a Monday evening (ISIHAC was on the radio). Waiting at our house were my in-laws.
After a quick bite to eat, my (Scottish) FIL and I headed back to Cambridge to see Eddi Reader on her Sings the songs of Robert Burns tour. We were on the guest list with prime-view seats at the front of the balcony. Afterwards, I took him backstage to meet the performers – I think he imagined my musician friends would all have green hair and be taking drugs; Eddi made him a cup of tea.
Quite how I got away with it, I do not know.
fitterstoke says
I was present at the Pixies concert, Glasgow SECC, June 1991. Teenage Fanclub were excellent – home gig and all that. But then…
Talk about Pixies interruptus!
Pixies came on and started playing
The crowd surged forward
The stage physically moved under the pressure
Health & Safety boffins immediately cancelled the concert
Game over – crowd go mental, not in a good way.
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/pixies/1991/scottish-exhibition-and-conference-centre-glasgow-scotland-63c0d693.html
spider-mans arch enemy says
T.Rex at Newcastle City Hall on what turned out to be their last tour, as my girlfriend had to work till late that evening and couldn’t go, and wasn’t that keen on me going without her, so l gallantly said l wouldn’t, foolishly thinking l would see them on the next tour.
A very bad mistake.
TrypF says
In late 1991 I was very efficiently relieved of £25 by a young chap in the back streets of Brixton, under the premise of selling me some ‘herb’ and then demonstrating an impressive burst of acceleration. As I went home, in the highest of dudgeons, I told myself I wouldn’t get a ticket to Tin Machine at the Academy the following week, to remind myself never to be so stupid again.
Some would say I did myself a big favour, some say it was a great, unpredictable show. Rumour has it that touts couldn’t give tickets away on the night.
The upshot is [Uncle Monty Voice] I never got to see… The Dame.
fentonsteve says
That reminds me.
Phoenix Festival 1996. Bowie headlined the Thursday night. Despite leaving work at lunchtime, I made it as far as the outskirts of Straford by mid-afternoon and sat in a many-hours-long traffic jam. It was dark by the time I got to the Long Marston site and, as I unloaded my tent from the car, I could hear the sound of The Dame. By the time he finished his set, I was in my sleeping bag.
Glastonbury 2000. Mrs F and I went down to camp in the garden of my friends in Pilton village, my 6-months-pregnant pal and her husband were staying in a B&B in Shepton Mallet. Mrs F had to be back to work on Monday morning, the plan was she’d get a lift home on Sunday evening. Just as we arrived at the Acoustic Tent on Sunday lunchtime, my pal rang to say she was too tired to come onto site and was going home, but would wait an hour for Mrs F if she still wanted a lift home. We declined, spent the afternoon at the festival, left about tea-time, packed up the tent and drove up the M4 to the sound of Bowie’s set playing on the car radio, and me grinding my teeth.
“I’ll see him next time.”
Carl says
In July 1985 Bruce Springsteen was playing at Wembley.
I was working away at my desk when a friend came up and asked if I wanted to go along with a group from the office who were going with the intention of buying tickets off touts.
My problem was that I had bought a flat the previous year before and not long before the Springsteen gig I had been summoned to go and see my bank manager for going overdrawn on my overdraft. He had torn a strip off me and I promised to rein in my spending (which had been for the most part on essential stuff other than going to Rotterdam to see Everton in the European Cup Winners Cup Final – which I didn’t disclose) so I had to turn down the prospect of seeing Bruce.
The next day I was so pissed off when I found out that the touts had vastly over-estimated demand (they probably created a vicious circle for themselves) and that in their desperation to get some return on their investments they had sold tickets to my mates for the princely sum of 50p per ticket.
Black Type says
Euphoric punter: “How much? 50p, is that all?
Disgruntled tout: “Yep, that’s the price you pay”