# Concerts I managed to miss. Grrrrrrrr!



## Guest (Nov 3, 2015)

First up:

Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Had a ticket to see the great man but it was cancelled at short notice. It was his last set of gigs in the UK, before his untimely demise.


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

I won't mention the no of times I thought I'll see Count Basie next year. Doh!

Or the time The Stiff Tour came to our University. Considering ourselves cool we decided there was time for a swift one in "The Pot of Beer" first. When we got in a mate told us we'd missed an extra band who'd been added unannounced. It was the Police and they had just released Roxanne.

NO the one I really regret is:the penultimate night of The Proms always used to be Beethoven's 9th. circa 1989(?). Got lucky in the ballot and won a box for 4 when it was being performed by The Vienna Philharmonic(?check) conducted by Leonard Bernstein. I was there, but I missed it. Our business was less than 5 years old and if I needed to get up at 4am to get things done, there was no other option. Shortly after the lights dimmed my eyes closed. Despite many digs in the ribs from my wife they didn't open again until the thunderous applause at the end. I have never booked to see the 9th since.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Gawd - bad memories...

Led Zeppelin - Rotterdam 1980.

Stood in Worcester city centre at midnight waiting for the coach to come back from a Rush concert in Birmingham as the same vehicle would be heading south to Harwich to catch the ferry to the Netherlands for the Zep gig. Got on the coach only to be told that I didn't have a ticket for either the ferry or the gig despite having given a deposit to my mate to pass to the organizers some weeks before. To add insult to injury it was too late to get a bus or train home so I had to spend a tenner on a taxi (double rates after midnight). Led Zeppelin split up later that year after the death of drummer John Bonham. Oh well - at least I had managed to see them at Knebworth the previous year...


Joy Division - Malvern 1980

Was offered the chance to go but had to sadly decline because I already had a ticket to see Genesis in Birmingham the same night. Never got another chance as Joy Division were history a few months later after the suicide of singer Ian Curtis.


Ramones - Birmingham 1992 (I think)

No excuses here - I stupidly got drunk in the afternoon and couldn't be woken. One bloke who I was going with got into a ruckus with a Ramones roadie that night for 'standing in his way'. The roadie promptly decked him heh heh...


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## Guest (Nov 3, 2015)

Sorry. Think of it as cathartic.


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2015)

ATP.

A somewhat obscure band, but they were (briefly!) a favourite. They released their debut album and went on tour to promote it. So we turn up at the college union for the gig, tickets in hand, only to be confronted with a note pinned to the door, baldly stating "AFT cancelled."

They never made a second album and disappeared off the face.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Page/Plant Wembley arena, November 1998. 

Was going to go but was struck down by flu.


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

I think this is s a great idea for a thread and am glad to get these off my chest. 


Another one. When Wynton Marsallis arrived on the scene in the early eighties he toured with the Miles Davis VSOP line up. I went to see him at the Festival Hall and it was brilliant.

Fast forward to 2010 and he announces a late PM free concert in my front garden, aka Victoria Park. I get back in good time and when I ask my wife if she was ready she confesses she’d forgotten I’d mentioned it and anyway who is Wynton Marsallis? I start to describe the concert and how much she, a non jazz fan had enjoyed it. Blank look. At that point I realised the person who had sat next to me nearly 30 years earlier was not the woman standing opposite me. I decided it was best to declare that I must be mistaken, I would have gone alone, after all why would she, another non jazz fan, have come? At this point I was informed the arrival of my brother in law’s family was imminent and dinner would be served in about 45 mins. I bet the concert was great.


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2015)

I missed Swans. Twice.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

It might seem a small thing in such august company, but when you're mad on French Baroque, like me, and support your local Baroque ensemble, of which your fiddle teacher is the director - it really hurt to miss this one, last year. We had the tickets too, but it was only a fortnight after Tag's big hernia op.


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Ingélou said:


> It might seem a small thing in such august company, but when you're mad on French Baroque, like me, and support your local Baroque ensemble, of which your fiddle teacher is the director - it really hurt to miss this one, last year. We had the tickets too, but it was only a fortnight after Tag's big hernia op.


No, it's perfect. We share your pain.


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## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

1978-£2.50p ticket to see Dire Straits (before they turned bad) and Talking Heads (they never turned bad) at Newcastle Poly but could not get from Durham where I was a student at the University because the van we were going in packed up....years later (just a few years ago) I missed Kenny Wheeler (with the great John Taylor in his band)at the Sage Gateshead because my appendix chose to explode!


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