I attended my first rock concert in about 1965...I was six when I saw the Herman's Hermits rocking the stage at the Houston Coliseum. Aunt Peggy took me, my sister Brenda who was fourteen, and another teenage girl, a co-worker's daughter. I was in love with Peter Noone (Herman) at the time.
Brenda noticed they were coming back to Houston on October 25 and thought it would be fun for us to go, for old times' sake. But one look at the ticket prices and that thought came to a screeching, SMOKING halt: the cheapest are $152 each! If we were really crazy, we could splurge and spend $388 each. Peter Noone was cute, but...are people really willing to pay that much for nostalgia?
I'll be content to replay my old memories...I wore a new outfit - all pink. Pink stretch ski pants (totally IN at that time), a pink shirt, and even pink Keds tennis shoes. I wish I had a picture.
Waiting in line outside to go in, we talked to a teenage girl in a wheelchair who had seen the Beatles. I wasn't that impressed - my favorite groups at the time were the Beach Boys and Herman's Hermits, and here I was about to see Peter Noone himself - Peter was SOOO cute and I had such a crush on him. I loved his shaggy bowl cut and his cute British accent. (I still refuse to pay $152 to see him today - the crush has cooled off a little...)
The warm-up group was the Animals, but...(again)...I was too excited about seeing Peter Noone to be impressed by them. Brenda and I were a little surprised that the Animals would have been the back-up group, even though that's what we both remembered, but she communicated with a music buff named Tom Tannahill at Rice University who told her even the Who and the Rolling Stones frequently back up Herman's Hermits during that time.
Tannahill has a really cool website called Houston Rocks, all about the live music scene in Houston in the '60's, '70's, and '80's. Looking over it brought back so many memories for me. Tannahill has listed many of the concerts of those years, but there are a LOT he has left out.The Herman's Hermits were the only rock group I saw in the '60's (except for Elvis Presley in 1968 or 1969 at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo with Daddy), but starting in 1975 I went to zillions...well, it seems like it....Humble Pie, Lynyrd Skynyrd (he listed that one), Ted Nugent (Ted Nugent, Ted Nugent...he came to Houston a lot), KISS, Black Sabbath, the Eagles, the Beach Boys :), the Turtles (who sing one of my all-time favorite songs "Happy Together,") Billy Joel, Linda Ronstadt, Cheap Trick, Bad Company, Pat Benatar, Bruce Springsteen...I can't remember them all...
I'm going to drag out my scrapbooks where I have taped bits and pieces of my life, including ticket stubs (unless my alter ego came along and tossed them all after saving them for twenty or thirty years - I do that sometimes...) and shoot him an email so he can update his site with my memories.
And I guess on October 25, I'll settle for slipping in a Herman's Hermits CD to listen to Peter croon my favorites... "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter"..."I'm Into Something Good"...and of course, "I'm Henery the 8th"...
