I have in the past bought a ticket to see a band on the hope they will perform a specific song, the last being Manchester Orchestra- The Silence , but what about just an intro? Death Cult have a pension top up tour/possible naming rights issue just announced and after consideration I have worked out I only want to hear the 15 second intro into ‘She sells Sanctury’ and thats because it marks the start of the interesting sections of most club nights of mine and mrs deeg’s youth.
Anyone else attended a gig to hear a single song performed live?
My sister saw PJ Harvey at The Metronome in Folkestone.
She played one song threw a hissy fit and walked off - that was it.
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Jethro Tull and Thick as a brick (about 45 minutes long!)
Otherwise, the first time I saw Twelfth Night I’d actually gone to see their support band, called Liaison. 1981, New Merlin’s Cave in London IIRC. Twelfth Night were OK but I wasn’t sure I’d be bothered to see them again - until the end: At the beginning of the encore they played a little ditty: to the tune of the Cadbury’s Flake advert, Geoff Mann sang “Only the crumbliest, flakiest skin remains on your body after nuclear war”. That hooked me. They were on at the music pub, the Target, in our home town of Reading a week or so later - we went to give them another go, primarily driven by desire to hear that ditty again. They didn’t play it. I tried another 20 or 30 times after that, but to no avail! (OK, I did fall in love with the rest of their music, so those other times the flakiest skin would just have been a bonus, not driver for going.)
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When iTunes appeared and the iTunes Store was a new thing, the first iPod delivered the capability of having 1000 tracks of acc128, for sometime purchased a lot of individual hits of the time that are still present in my purchases today on the Mac.
But after sometime started acquiring the whole album, most of the time the cd, today space is not an issue anymore, and streaming made huge steps that less and less I purchase cd’s.
I can understand that for most people having only tracks they like is perfect, and cheaper than acquiring the full album, but they loose a lot of work from the artist, it’s an option. Their library is like a big personal playlist of favorite songs.
I used to go to a huge number of gigs as a teenager. I remember going with a group of friends to see Jeff Beck at Portsmouth Guildhall. Several of them were perplexed by the set list as they only wanted to hear Hi Ho Silver Lining. 
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Whilst I didn’t technically pay for the one song, the fact that Iron Maiden were finally playing “Alexander the Great” in their set, 40 years after it appeared on “Somewhere in Time” tipped the balance for me to see them in Birmingham recently.
It was definitely worth it.
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I went to see the Handsome Family on the back of their theme music to the True Detectives TV series. They didn’t play it…
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The concept of buying a live performance for a single song has never even occurred to me.
Ditto buying music downloads. Though I think the latter is a generational thing and the former is just simply something I’d never even considered… until now.
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Often, I “collect” songs I love live so I’ve seen quite a few bands for one song and some have been surprisingly good. Next one is Depech Mode
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Hawkwind, in the '80’s at Guildford Civic Hall. The only thing I knew by them was “Silver Machine” and they didn’t play it! Even worse I thought they were dreadful. There was a Spanish metal band called Baron Rojo supporting them, who were superb, so good I bought two of their albums on vinyl. Still got them, need to have a relisten.
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I saw Roy Harper at the Old Bull Barnet in the mid-‘80s. He came on stage in a somewhat over-refreshed state, struggled to tune up for some time, then lurched off stage never to return that evening. (I’m pretty sure it was Roy, there is a nagging thought that it might have been John Martyn, as there was no music played I don’t have any other reference in my memory.)
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Not me personally, but I went to see Rainbow live just after they had the big hit with the melodic track Since You’ve Been Gone. The audience was still largely their metal audience, long hair, denim, leather. In the row behind me when I took my seat were a mother with her 13-14 year old daughter looking somewhat confused, presumably expecting to see a nice melodic band with respectable audience. The band started up, Blackmore’s guitar was turned up to 11, I looked round after a few songs, they’d left, so sadly they never got to hear Since You’ve Been Gone.
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Looks like we have one contender
Roy Harper - November 14, 1986 Old Bull Arts Centre Red Rag Club, Barnet
Now if you can remember where you were on 14th November 1986 we might be there.
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Sounds about right, as I struggle to remember what I did yesterday I’ll definitely struggle to remember exactly what I did 37 years ago. That’ll be the one.
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It does sound like a John Martyn gig I went to in Bath. Although he can be superb live,he was so drunk it was a complete waste of time and money. I also saw The Fall, and Mark E Smith was drunk but luckily they were only supporting The Magic Band, who were brilliant.
Maybe we need a thread on artists too drunk or wasted to perform - name and shame!
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I remember seeing very little of Status Quo who were riding high at the time in the charts with Paper Plane. Drunk got up on stage and the bass player and drummer had a fight with the idiot. We all got shown outside, waiting, waiting to see the rest of the gig that never happened.
Sorry, I think I hijacked the thread accidentally, the original question was (paraphrased accurately I hope) what gig(s) did you see to hear just one song.
In a similar vein, was at a Neph gig a few years ago when they were supported by H.I.M, the audience was a field of elder goths apart from one younger lady who could have walked off of the set of ‘pretty in pink’. She stood up and held one hand aloft all through H.I.M’s ‘Wicked Game’ cover and then sat down again… She did at least stay for the Nephs though. Hope she enjoyed the set 
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Did she not even get up for Funeral of Hearts???
I can’t say I have. I don’t think I’d ever pay to see an artist if I only liked one song of theirs.
Wait. I did go to see The Knack. I only knew My Sharona (natch). But I went to see them on the hypes and the promise that they had other stuff and would turn out to be huge. Wrong.
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