> Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2006 09:21:11 -0500
> From: "Michael Bennett" <mrhonorama@hotmail.com>
> To: audities@smoe.org
> Subject: Re: openers > closers
> Message-ID: <BAY108-F1597B5AF546BA360F98CB2C93A0@phx.gbl>
> 
> Of course, I'm sure a lot of us have gone to our fair share 
> of shows only to 
> see the support band.  Thinking back --
> 
> Frisbie opening for Big Star.  And I really enjoyed Big Star 
> -- this was the 
> first time I saw Frisbie, who I had never heard of before that night.


I was at that show, too, and I have to vehemently disagree with Mike on
this one. Frisbie was great; Big Star was transcendent. Part of that was
the musicianship of the more predictable 3/4ths of the band, and part of
it was the sense of bated-breath suspense one always gets when the
ever-mercurial Alex Chilton is in the room.

Auer & Stringfellow themselves pulled off an opener-beats-the-headliner
feat one night back in the '90s at Metro. The Posies opened for Pere
Ubu, and as much as I liked the Posies I was really looking forward to
seeing David Thomas & Co. But they turned out to be pretty listless
live, whereas my first experience of hearing Jon & Ken work those
harmonies onstage was a revelation.

I must be living a parallel existence with Mike Nicholson, because two
of my better opener-beats-the-headliner experiences from back in the
Cretaceous Era were seeing AC/DC (then unknown in the States) absolutely
crush top-billed Syracuse favorites Rush in '78, and then seeing the
Sweet better the featured band, Foghat (admittedly, not much of an
accomplishment), a year later in another Onondaga County War Memorial
show.

My favorite story of this ilk concerned a show I saw here in Chicago at
the Vic when I was in college, when my then-favorite band the Boomtown
Rats came through town. The Rats were tons of fun, but I was so blown
away by the unknown opener, D.L. Byron, that I bought his *This Day And
Age* LP at the merch table at the back of the theater after the show.
I've treasured it ever since; it's one of my all-time favorite albums.
Who would've thought that Billy Joel's backing band could play power
pop?


Gregory Sager