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Gapers Block published from April 22, 2003 to Jan. 1, 2016. The site will remain up in archive form. Please visit Third Coast Review, a new site by several GB alumni.
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Friday, March 29

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Fuel

Carlos / December 12, 2003 10:29 AM

Nirvana...

:(

alicia / December 12, 2003 10:39 AM

my bloody valentine
a certain ratio
joy division
nina simone
...

& hundreds more

amyc / December 12, 2003 10:43 AM

The Beatles. (I know, it's an obvious choice. Fuckin' sue me.)

Prince, before he went mad

Johnny Cash

Bikini Kill

The Smiths

miss ellen / December 12, 2003 10:56 AM


The Talking Heads - here's to a reunion tour, baby!

Johnny Cash

Grateful Dead (was in the parking lot of the last show, but too young to realize it was all about to end)

Andrew / December 12, 2003 11:00 AM

Me, too, on Nirvana, Johnny Cash, Talking Heads.
Also, Elvis, John Lee Hooker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis.

I got to see James Brown this year, which is probably for the best -- he didn't seem like he's got much performing left in him.

Shylo / December 12, 2003 11:33 AM

The Smiths
Johnny Cash
Patsy Cline
New Kids on the Block (when they were really popular and I was 10.)
Journey (with Steve Perry)
Cibo Matto

Naz / December 12, 2003 11:41 AM

Richard Pryor
Bill Hicks
The Smiths
The old Rollins Band (not the newest incarnation)
Rush
The Afghan Whigs
Sunny Day Real Estate

Ian / December 12, 2003 11:49 AM

The Clash
Elliott Smith
Jeff Buckley
Joy Division
The Smiths
Pavement
My Bloody Valentine

Shasta MacNasty / December 12, 2003 11:55 AM

Ella Fitzgerald in 1960-something at the Jazz Festival in Germany to hear her and the band mangle "Mack the Knife". The recording is hysterical.

heather / December 12, 2003 11:57 AM

Sarah Bernhardt
Oscar Wilde
Harry Houdini
Mae West

stephen / December 12, 2003 12:06 PM

Hmm, good one..

> John Coltrane & Miles Davis
> Jimi Hendrix & Janis Joplin
> Postal Service
> Nirvana
> Ella Fitzgerald
> Sarah Vaughan
> Joy Division
> Stevie Ray Vaughan
> The Doors
> Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett

Tons more..I am glad, however, I got to catch Massive Attack at the Vic during their Mezzanine tour. That's probably the best show I've been to since I've been here.

Great mention of Sarah Bernhardt, she isn't very recognized over here, unfortunately.

daruma / December 12, 2003 1:04 PM

FIGDISH
LED ZEPPELIN
WHAM
MARVIN GAYE

jima / December 12, 2003 2:16 PM

Zappa.

Craig / December 12, 2003 2:23 PM

* Neutral Milk Hotel in 1998.
* DJ Shadow in 1996.
* Nick Drake in 1972 on a rainy day in a dark British coffee shop.
* Any prominent jazz artist in their prime era. (Coletrane, Davis, Rollins, Smith, etc) in a smokey bar in Uptown Chicago.
* Any prominent reggae or rocksteady performance in Jamaica in 1969. (Ellis, Dekker, Maytals, etc)
* A dub soundsystem in Jamaica in 1975 (Tubby, Perry, or Scientist)
* the list could go on...

Michael / December 12, 2003 2:30 PM

Frank Sinatra (pre-1963 version)
Charlie Chaplin (vaudeville days)
Gene Kelly
Talking Heads
The Clash
Jeff Buckley
Ella Fitzgerald
Lady Day
Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn
Shlomo Carlebach

And of course, The Beatles. I just hope they pass the audition.

kegz / December 12, 2003 3:08 PM

Muhammad Ali
Led Zeppelin (pre-drummer death)
The Who (pre-drummer death)
Iggy & The Stooges
Dylan going electric in '66
REM opening for The Police in '80
Michael Jordan in an NBA Championship Final

Jake / December 12, 2003 3:33 PM

The Smiths. I had a chance on the Queen Is Dead tour. Friends of mine went, but I had only just received a copy of my first Smiths tape and hadn't yet become the complete fanatic that I became about two months later...

I saw Johnny Cash play for about 500 people at Michigan State University the summer after the first American album came out. It was totally awesome. Except the crowd was pretty much all old geezera who kept shooshing us for (badly) singing along. His whole posse performed. June did a ridiculous comedy routine and then a set of Carter Family songs with some relatives. Then John Carter Cash came out and sang some really intense songs; there was one called "February" that totally creeped me out. Then the Man in Black came out and totally rocked the house. It was totally awesome.

Saw Elliott Smith at the Riv back in May 2002 and it was so upsetting that I worried out loud that he'd be dead in a year. He only made it a few months longer than my unfortunate prediction. I wish I would have seen him when he was healthier.

I wish I would've seen Elvis. My parents saw him at the Pontiac Silverdome on the New Years Eve show where he split his pants. I have the Super 8 film of bits of that show that my dad took. Elvis looks like a shaky white dot.

I don't really wish I'd seen the Beatles unless it happened to be at a private performance for me in 1968, maybe running through some White Album songs for me. I'd love to have seen them rocking out to "Helter Skelter" and "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey." I guess seeing them pre-Brian Epstein would've been cool, all sweaty and speedy and leather-clad.

I wish I could have seen the Clash. And the Ramones. But seeing the Libertines at the Empty Bottle earlier this year was pretty fucking great.

The Temptations and Otis Redding and Sam & Dave and the Supremes and Aretha Franklin back when they were good. And P-Funk on the Mothership tour.

I wish I could have seen Gram Parsons. And Buffalo Springfield.

Mississippi John Hurt. Howlin' Wolf. Elmore James.

Louis Jordan.

Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochrane, Buddy Holly. I saw Link Wray at a club in Kalamazoo and it was the loudest concert I've ever been to in my life. My ears rang for a week. He rocks.

Uncle Tupelo as a three-piece. The Replacements.

The MC5, the Stooges, the New York Dolls.

amyc / December 12, 2003 3:41 PM

I don't really wish I'd seen the Beatles unless it happened to be at a private performance for me in 1968,

Jake, you wouldn't have wanted to be at Shea Stadium? I'm a little surprised.

jonk / December 12, 2003 11:41 PM

stravinksy in paris, may 29, 1913

Kevin / December 13, 2003 3:39 AM

Frank Zappa. I could kill myself for missing his last tour in 1988.

LD / December 13, 2003 10:43 AM

-The Dead when Pigpen was in the band.The Doors.
Ella. Simon & Garfunkel. The Smiths. The Story. Billy Joel in 1975-76. Luckily, had a chance to see j. buckley at green mill in '94...truly amazing.

onid70 / December 13, 2003 11:30 AM

I would have loved to see:

Led Zeppelin
Nirvana
The Doors
Robert Johnson

That is all I could think of right now. My mind is racing. Do you ever have two or three books in mind that you know you want to buy but as soon as you walk into the bookstore you completely blank because there are just SOOO many books? It's kind of like that.

bran / December 13, 2003 4:15 PM

Tom Waits. I gave up the chance to see him so that a friend could. I heard the show was amazing. Sigh. The things we do for (a friend's) love.

Performer I wish I'd never seen: Phillip Glass at his Monsters of Grace performance. Awful, awful stuff.

Kenan Hebert / December 13, 2003 8:09 PM

Saw Nirvana. Saw My Bloody Valentine. Saw Nina Simone... that was the best. She made me cry.

I would love to have seen: John Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, The Rolling Stones (when they were good), The Velvet Underground. And while the sixties would have been a peak time to see any of these people, I'm glad I wasn't there, because then I would have become one of those people who never shut up about the sixties.

matt laff3y / December 13, 2003 11:30 PM

David Bowie 1970-1977
Black Flag (pre-Rollins) 1980-1983
The Stooges
MC5
Joy Division
The Velvet Underground 1967-1969
Dead Kennedy's 1981-1984
John Coltrane
The Germs
Bob Dylan (pre-Royal Albert Hall) 1963-1966

Joseph J. Finn / December 14, 2003 12:00 AM

1. Bruce Springsteen
2. The Who, in all their glory
3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
4. Janis Joplin
5. Beethoven

kyle garrett / December 14, 2003 2:40 PM

The Birthday Party
Bikini Kill
Unwound
John Coltrane
Red House Painters
The Slits

kyle garrett / December 14, 2003 2:40 PM

The Birthday Party
Bikini Kill
Unwound
John Coltrane
Red House Painters
The Slits

Ramsin / December 14, 2003 7:36 PM


1. Original Globe Theater production of either Henry IV pt 2, Hamlet, or Richard II
2. Mozart's Don Giovanni in Prague
3. The first performance of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire
4. Original performance of Moliere's Tartuffe, given I could speak French.
5. Randy Newman.

Alice / December 14, 2003 9:41 PM

1. Danny Kaye - my favorite performer of all time
2. Houdini
3. And, I love Ramsin's idea so I'll also say an original performance of Shakepeare's Hamlet!

A lex, x, x / December 15, 2003 9:11 AM

- The Smiths (I've seen Morrissey more times than I can count, but never saw The Smiths)
- Jeff Buckley
- Tchaikovsky's premiere of Symphony # 6 in b minor, the "Pathétique", back in 1893.
- Gene Kelly: hubba hubba hubba!

Jake / December 15, 2003 9:36 AM

"Jake, you wouldn't have wanted to be at Shea Stadium? I'm a little surprised."

Would that really have been a cool show? All those screaming kids, you'd be so far away from them, such a short set... I guess it would've been pretty amazing to see John getting all crazy on the organ during "I'm Down," but I don't know. There are a lot of historic shows/tours that I'd rather go back in time to see if I had to pick.

Eccentric Gardener / December 15, 2003 9:50 AM

Sam Cooke.

You're right about The Smiths... Great show at the Aragon (I think) during the Queen is Dead tour.

Pete / December 16, 2003 12:47 PM

R.E.M. at the cozy Foellinger Auditorium in Champaign, 1986. I stupidly passed up the chance to go, in order to work on some now long-forgotten school project. I've been kicking myself ever since.

Pete / December 16, 2003 12:49 PM

Also, the Pogues at the Aragon in 1992, with Joe Strummer filling in for Shane as lead singer. Oh, the possibilities!

holden / January 8, 2004 3:24 PM

LH

sorry if this doesn't work. i'm trying to figure out how to make a link.

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