Pandemonium wrote:The first "Free" concert I saw was some radio promotional thing for Nightranger, a pop hard rock band doing a free show at the Santa Monica Civic in early '84. The only reason I went was to the see the guitarist Brad Gillis who had replaced Randy Rhoads in Ozzy's band right after he was killed in '82. I'm glad it was free.
I forget if the Janes reunion show at the El Cid at the end of 2008 was free or not for everyone although I didn't have to pay as someone I used to know at Warner Bros publicity got me in. I do remember paying a $10 cover for the Echoplex show a month later in early 2009. The July 2nd, 2010 Roxy show which was Duff's last gig with the band was free.
I saw Social Distortion play a short set (as in about 3 songs) at someone's back yard keg party in the Summer of '83 before they recorded their first record. My buddy and I were more or less cruising around Huntington Beach off PCH looking for a parking spot a few blocks away to go bar hopping on Main Street and stumbled on this rowdy house party spilling onto the street. We found a spot to park, walked into this party in this tiny house crammed with probably over a hundred people like we belonged, squeezed out to the back yard where the band was already playing. We were there maybe 15 minutes and Huntington Beach PD came swarming like the riot goon squad breaking up the party. LOL, people were jumping over the rickety fence into the back alley and neighbors yards to get away. Game over, man. Game over.
I wouldn't call this a concert, but it was free. At the beginning of '83, my friend and I walked into a film shoot at the Troubadour club in West Hollywood for some cheesy sci-fi flick called (I think) Dungeonmaster. We were going clubbing later that night but we were driving around Sunset Blvd in the afternoon and saw some "event" going on at the Troubadour and decided to check it out. They were filming a segment that included metal band WASP doing their silly Alice Cooper style theatrical show and wanted people off the street to fill the club for the shoot. It was more or less WASP miming to pre-recorded music and long periods or waiting for the crew to set up the next shot. We stuck around for a couple hours, got bored and left.
Although not quite free, I paid $5 to see The Cult play a show at the seedy Olympic Auditorium about 3 weeks after 9/11. They were shooting a live concert video that was announced only a week before the date and understandably due to the circumstances of 9/11, no one was going to shows so soon after those events and they were desperate to fill the place. I think the auditorium only held about 4,000 people and they barely filled half of the venue. The atmosphere in the building was really weird and subdued. On the plus side, I show up a lot in crowd shots on the dvd....
Thats how the guy from The Cult dresses? He looks like a gangbanger or something. Or like Mike Muir.