This morning, the 2nd of April, I couldn’t decide on which music I wanted to listen to whilst having my mid-morning coffee. I therefore went to my vinyl collection, shut my eyes & picked an album at random. It was Genesis - Duke. I bought the album when it was first released but hadn’t listened to my vinyl copy for at least 25 years.
The album cover was thicker & heavier than I remembered. I was sure it was a single album but it felt more like a double. Feeling in the sleeve I was surprised to find my programme from the first Genesis concert I saw, in Great Yarmouth, in 1980. I was even more surprised when I opened the cover & found my concert tickets sellotaped inside.
Wow, and that was 46 years ago! Where has that time gone? I saw them on that same tour in Brighton, but 12 days later. I was 19 then and I’ve no idea why I booked to go, as I was very much into post punk at that time and couldn’t abide Genesis’s early work, though I did like Duke. I remember enjoying it though. I used to tape my concert tickets into my albums. I sold all the albums; I don’t miss them but I miss the tickets. I had Fleetwood Mac at Wembley, the Specials in Worthing, all sorts.
I remember the evening well. My late wife was not a fan but I persuaded her to go & she thought they were wonderful & became a big fan.
The concert was just as they hit the mainstream big time thanks to the Follow You Follow Me & Turn it on Again hit singles. I believe it was also the first time a laser light show had been used for a tour of smaller venues, previously only used for one off events at large stadium type arenas. I also recall the usherettes (just the normal cinema usherettes) being so taken by the performance that they were dancing up & down the aisles!
My wife & I were lucky enough to have booked a holiday in New York in 2007 which coincided with Genesis playing the New York leg of their World Tour at Madison Square Garden. It was a real night to remember. Three Brits on top form, taking NY by storm!
Sad to say, I still keep ticket stubs with any concert I buy a programme at. At 70 I suppose I should start to grow up a bit. Also, without my wife, like so many things since she died suddenly & unexpectedly, it seems pretty pointless, having no one to discuss memories with.
Writing about this tonight has been difficult but is also a reminder of very good times past.
Hi mate you are only 70 you have plenty of time to grow up as for the memories if the good times out way the bad then you’re doing everything right if they don’t then it’s time to make some more good times
Thank you, then, for sharing those memories with us. We weren’t there with you, but those memories are relevant and meaningful to a lot of us, too and this is a great thread.
And what sticks was how without lasers etc the show was, just walked out on stage, Don Felder plugged the double neck in and the opening arpeggios of Hotel California rang out, and they just played their best stuff for 2 hours. Now Henley is having to mime at c$300 per ticket!
My parents deferred their honeymoon a short while (in the ‘50s) in order to see Louis Armstrong play (in the UK). I have the (rather splendid for the day) programme, together with the ticket stubs and the concert announcement cut out from the local newspaper.
With it, I also found the programme for a Mahalia Jackson (“Queen of the Gospel Singers”) concert in 1952.
On the subject of ticket stubs, if you decide not to keep them, don’t throw them away!
I’ve made quite a lot of money selling stubs on EB - for Queen examples I have regularly exceeded £50 and sometimes significantly more! All helps the Hi Fi pot!
Could be very useful to know the next time I contemplate filling the car up!
I suppose it takes all sorts, but I had always assumed that the reason for keeping concert/theatre/football tickets etc. was to preserve memories of events/times you had personally enjoyed.
I can understand the desire to obtain, say, a genuine 1966 Word Cup final programme or similar, but why anyone would want a ticket from an event they didn’t attend is beyond me.
I started my first job in July 1973 & had never heard of them until late that year or early 1974, when a girl working opposite me in the motor department of a major insurance company, learning of my musical tastes, suggested I might like Genesis & lent me their new album, Selling England by the Pound.
I was hooked as soon as I heard it & have been a fan ever since.
I used to feel that keeping the ticket stubs and programmes was really important to me but they just sat in photo albums, rarely looked at. It was clearing out my Dad’s property, and then moving ourselves, that made me realise that many of us keep a lot of ‘stuff’ with good intentions but it is really just things to store. If someone else can enjoy it, then why not sell?
We did keep a copy of the personal ad. from Sounds which connected my wife and I after we had ‘met’ at a concert though; but that is another story altogether!
