Bands That I Have Seen in Concert?

photo credit: Tim Barrios

Since it's a Throwback Thursday, I will blog about something other than technology or application program interfaces such as Autodesk Forge.

There is a Facebook meme going around where you post a list of bands that you've seen in concert but mix in one that you haven't seen. Your Facebook friends take guesses at which one is fake. I first saw this when my friend, Rex Rundgren (son of Todd Rundgren) posted his list. It's fun to see which bands your friends have seen, as in, "I have seen them too.", or "Really? What were they like in concert?" Trying to guess which band is out of place based on your friend's personality can be quite a stumper. They construct their lists so the obvious choice is not the correct choice.

I decided to get in on the fun. Here was my list:

1. Aerosmith
2. The Beatles
3. Blue Oyster Cult
4. Boston
5. Fleetwood Mac
6. Gregg Allman
7. 'N Sync
8. Jeff Beck
9. Maroon 5
10. The Osmonds
11. Van Halen
12. ZZ Top

Which one is fake? My friends, Sharmaine Moody and Bill Bricker, each correctly guessed that I have never seen The Beatles perform live.

Here are the stories behind those real concerts:

• I was 13 when I went to my first outdoor concert. It was at City Park in New Orleans. The lineup included a little-known band named Aerosmith as the opener, Fleetwood Mac, Jeff Beck, and ZZ Top. It rained the whole time. The crowd was soaked. Jeff Beck got so wet that he threw his electric guitar into the crowd while it was still mic'd. That was an interesting minute of sound.

• I attended a festival show at the Louisiana Superdome that included: Sammy Hagar (solo), Van Halen (with David Lee Roth), Blue Oyster Cult, and Boston. The show got so far behind that Boston came on before Blue Oyster Cult even though Boston was the headliner.

• Gregg Allman headlined the first concert ever held in the Louisiana Superdome. There were 90,000 people. The openers were Wet Willie and the Marshall Tucker Band. Gregg was so out of it on drugs that he could hardly perform. The crowd booed.

• I saw 'N Sync at the Oakland Arena with my daughter and son. They were too young to drive or attend by themselves.

• I took my daughter and a friend to see Maroon 5 open for John Mayer.

• My brother and his wife (high school girlfriend at the time) took me to see The Osmonds. His wife's 7-year-old niece wanted to go, so my brother took me. I was also 7 years old. I guess you could say it was my first double date and my first concert.

This got me to thinking. How many bands have I actually seen? I thought I would try to list them all, but it's so hard to remember. Then I realized that I could use my list of artists in iTunes to jog my memory to compile my list. To avoid having to type all that, I simply fired up a DOS command window on my Windows PC and navigated to the iTunes Music folder:

dir >list.txt

I could then edit the list using the folder names as a reference. Using this time-saving approach, here is a list of all the bands that I have seen perform live and in-person:

'N Sync A Rocket to the Moon Aerosmith Air Traffic Controller Al Stewart Alice Cooper All About A Bubble Allen Toussaint Alternate Routes Amy Gerhartz Andy Frasco and the U.N. Barenaked Ladies Ben Rector Better Than Ezra Bill 'Sputnik' Spooner Blackberry Smoke Blind Boys of Alabama Blondie Blue Man Group Blue Oyster Cult Boston Brandi Carlile Brian Collins Brian Fechino and Friends Brian Jarvis Broken Anchor Bronze Radio Return Bryan Adams Buddy Guy Carbon Leaf Cheap Trick Clarence Clemons Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Cyndi Lauper Dexter Freebish Dr. John Dugas Edgar Winter Edwin McCain Elton John Emerson Hart Eric Clapton Ethel Firekid Fleetwood Mac Foreigner Francisco Vidal Freddy Jones Band Freddy Omar con su Banda Gaelic Storm Gary Wright Gavin DeGraw Genesis Green River Ordinance Gregg Allman Hall & Oates Harry Connick, Jr. Heart Honor by August Ingram Hill Indigenous Irma Thomas Jackson Browne Jeff Beck Jefferson Starship Jerad Finck Jill Sobule Joan Jett Joe Walsh Johnny Winter Jonny Zywiciel Journey Jukebox the Ghost Junior Doctor Kansas Kasim Sulton Kiss

Knox Hamilton Kris Allen Kristy Lee Larry Tagg Lionell Ritchie Loverboy Marc Broussard Maroon 5 Mathew Mayfield Matt Nathanson Melodime Michael Franti & Spearhead Michael Tolcher NEEDTOBREATHE Native Run Neil Diamond North Mississippi All Stars Parachute Pat McGee Paul Carrack Peter Frampton Peter Gabriel Preservation Hall Jazz Band Quarterflash Red Wanting Blue Randy Jackson and the Phoenix Symphony Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band Robert Palmer Robert Randolph & the Family Band Robin Trower Rod Stewart and the Faces Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers Saints of Valory Scars On 45 Shawn Colvin Shirley Horn Trio Sister Hazel Skid Row Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers Stephen Kellogg & the South West North East Stevie Nicks Sting Stokeswood Swear and Shake Tab Benoit The Alternate Routes The Beach Boys The Brevet The Cars The Currys The Dunwells The Mowgli's The New Cars The Osmonds The Rocketboys The Rolling Stones The Roosevelts The Shadowboxers The Trews The Tubes Tina Turner Todd Rundgren Tonic Tony Lucca Tower of Power Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue Utopia Van Halen Vertical Horizon Vintage Blue von Grey Welshly Arms Wild Adriatic Will Hoge Wrenn Zebra ZZ Top

I probably have forgotten a bunch. The problem with this process is that it omits any artists that I have seen perform but never purchased any of their music. In this new world of Spotify cloud-based music on demand, that's a very long list. Music, like Autodesk software and application program interfaces, is rapidly moving to the cloud.

This Facebook meme has become so popular that now it's the meme that everyone loves to hate.

Reminiscing is alive in the lab.