Ten Years Ago Today

My brother and I experienced the coolest graduation present I could ever have been given. Just recently having returned home from UCSB, I was given a party by my parents. One of my presents was a gift certificate to Ticketmaster by my cousins Lisa and Rod. Rod, ten years older than me, and I are huge music buffs. We've seen several shows together and this year, he gave us $50. My brother and I then traveled to the TM outlet the day before the Allman Brothers Band played the Concord Pavilion, the coolest little shed in the world. The morning we showed up, the venue opened up the pit for sale. We scored in the pit. The day of the show, Eric and I were able to cut out of work early and make our way to the pavilion. Tickets in hand, we were excited about seeing the band. I had seen them two years prior and become a die-hard ABB fan. My brother listened to them but had yet to see them. As we walked into the venue a half hour before Booker T and the MGs were to open up, we handed our tickets to the usher at the last row of seats who then guided us to the usher at the pit. The person shone his/her (can't remember) flashlight on our seat, then directed the light to the entire pavilion, and told us that everyone here that night would want the seats we had. We were then ushered to our chairs which happened to be front row, dead center. Eric and I looked at each other in disbelief but since the tickets didn't lie and no one else seemed to want to take our seats, we opted to sit in them. I was able to rest my sweatshirt next to the monitors. How cool is that? This old venue (before its 1996 remodel) was the most intimate of sheds. Absolutely no barrier or space between front row and performer. I rested my arms at times on the amp cables and the monitors themselves.
Booker and the boys came out and just tore it up with their r&b classic sound. Even the ABB members watched from the wings. The band played an hour. When it came time for soundcheck, I noticed a man who was tuning Dickey Betts' guitars and I saw that one of them was a red Gibson ES-335, a beauty of a guitar. It wasn't until the band started that the guitar tech was Dickey himself, who had recently cut his waist-long hair and shaved his handlebar mustache.
The band ripped through two and a half hours of classic material. Eric and I went nuts as the band played just about all one could ask for. At one point in the show, Warren Haynes threw his guitar pick right at me and I dropped it!!! It was never recovered, but the band played "Jessica" as the jamming vehicle. Incorporation Mountain Jam as a tease and pegging fifteen minutes, I was in heaven. As the band cleared the stage for its obligatory encore return, drummer Butch Trucks handed each of his sticks to my brother and myself. Still have 'em. The band closed with Whipping Post, we left the parking lot shaking from excitement and it was this concert that truly does belong in my top-10 all time experiences. I've gone on to see them nearly twenty times in three states and the Allman Brothers Band still to this day remain my favorite band (Bruce counts as performer).

Date I've seen them:

5/29/93
6/30/95
8/6/96
8/23/96
9/26/97
7/30/99
8/3/99
8/11/01
8/12/01
6/10/02
6/11/02
6/12/02
9/5/03
3/20/04
5/7/05


How's that? I'd tell you venues, cites and other concert related experiences except I'm the only one who reads this thing.