Foghat. Awesome. Bet I could get away with wearing the hat now.

Kansas Power tour show in KC was great. Not theatrically but just a nice and tight, semi intimate, show supporting an album I really liked, and all the rest.

Was a Boston show good?
[Reply]

Triumph and Yes are the only two that I would have had the opportunity to see but missed and regretted. There are other bands that would have been fun to see, but it doesn't really bother me.

As much as the band bitched about Union, I wish I had seen that Yes tour live. So many great musicians on the stage.

I've seen Cheap Trick several times over the years and I want to catch them again before they hang it up, but the last few times they have been in town, I've been gone, or they have been opening for bands like Poison who you couldn't pay me to see.
[Reply]

A friend of mine says he saw Foghat at a state fair or something similar and they both opened and closed with Slow Ride. I can’t personally say if that actually happened, but he swears that it is true.
[Reply]

Bands opening, how many times have been really impressed with an opening act? It sometimes doesn't matter who opens for the headliner and sometimes it the difference between going and not going.

I was impressed a few times, once was in July 27, 1980 I went to the Gulfport Coliseum in Biloxi, it was about a 90 minute drive from Pensacola. Journey was the headliner, I had bought their third album "Look into the Future", the first three Greg Rolie the keyboard player did all the vocals, no Steve Perry yet. I liked his voice when he was in Santana. Then came the Infinity album and they had Steve, then Evolution and Departure and "Anyway you want It" is all over the radio. They had the Babys opening and that was icing on the cake, I played their album Union Jacks to death. They were the perfect compliment to Journey, here they are live in '79 and Jonathan Cain was the keyboard player, that's how apparently they hooked up when Greg Rolie quit Journey after this tour.



The other time was May 25, 1983 Savannah Civic Center Georgia and ZZ Top Eliminator album and videos were hot. ZZ Top came to town with Sammy Hagar opening, and he didn't do just 40 minutes, he did 90 minutes. He played everything Bad Motor Scooter to Heavy Metal. I really didn't know as much about him at the time, but I soon learned. He was really a headliner in disguise. BTW, ZZ Top put on a great show, was very impressed with their visuals and sound, they weren't no southern rock band.



Sammy's 1983 setlist

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/sammy...-33debc5d.html

February 1983 Billy Squier was a MTV favorite, and when just listening to his music on the radio or the album you got kind of a pop Led Zep vibe. However, this show in Savannah, Georiga he was a big disappointment, it's a known fact that the video where he wore a pink tank top and danced around his bedroom was a career downfall. In concert he came across as a lightweight, not a rocker, even with good songs. However, the opening act from Canada, Saga was unreal. They've become very big in Germany and toured there every chance they had over the years. For whatever reason, they never became big in America. I equate them to a Giuffria with less guitar. They played just 40 minutes but the next day I bought their album World's Apart. The song Wind him Up really stood out.




[Reply]

My introduction to The Babys was watching them perform "Head First" on SNL. I was immediately a fan.
[Reply]

My Grandson (GEEEZZZ) turned me on to these guys.....



If I had any regret - it would be that I haven't been able to catch them "live" - hell, if they even tour....As a bass player myself, I'm not a huge Anthony fan - but he IS a great backing vocalist.
[Reply]

The best opening act I ever saw (that I'd never heard of) was House of Lords, who opened for Cheap Trick when I saw them on the Lap of Luxury tour in 1989. Cheap Trick was at the top of their game and House of Lords was just as good. They were basically an 80s hairband, but a really, really good one. This is one of their songs, which is also one of my personal favorites:



Sadly, they never got big - I assume they were victims of the AIDS otherwise known as grunge that ruined rock in the early 90s. It seemed like overnight all the contemporary rock stations started playing nothing but Nirvana and similar crap, the only radio station in the area that played that kind of music went off the air, and the classic rock stations that proved my only refuge never played their songs.
[Reply]

Blackfooot opening for Journey at Memorial Hall in KC, KS, 1979.
[Reply]

I’ve been to several shows where one or more of the openers stole the show. And it’s not that the headliners were bad, some of them were great. But I’ve been exposed to some really really awesome underground bands because they were an opener at a show I was at.
[Reply]

House of Lords was a semi-supergroup. Not surprised they were good.
[Reply]

I remember it took me years to get a hold of the Sahara CD. None of their stuff was sold in the department stores or local record shops (not even Rock Records in the Chicago Loop), and of course that was before the time that Amazon and Apple put pretty much anything at our fingertips. A guy I worked with knew of a specialty record store out in the burbs somewhere, and found a copy for me. That was around 2001. At that point I wouldn't have heard any of their stuff on the radio for about eight or nine years.
[Reply]

Gregg Guiffria, who had previous success with Angel, then the band Guiffria, founded House of Lords.

Many of the guys that played in Guiffria are on House of Lords albums.

You might really like the Guiffria albums if you haven't checked them out. They were very similar to House of Lords.
[Reply]

Yup.
[Reply]

I like the Foo Fighters a lot but have heard mixed reviews on their live concerts. I have a friend who really didn't like their live show.

Anyone seen them live in the last few years?
[Reply]

Thanks. I'll check them out. I was wondering if you knew any of those guys.
[Reply]