Live Music: Always Do Your Stupid Check!

The only live music concerts I have really been to are the ones I’ve played at, the ones my friends have played at, and the ones my dad played at. I’ve basically never been to a gig where I didn’t know anyone on the stage.

Seen from the Inside

My dad took me with him to gigs from a very young age. I barely remember it, but he played at Stonehenge free festival when I was about 2 or 3 years old. As I got older my dad took me along as his roadie at first, and later as his drummer.

They weren’t massive festivals, some were small shows and some were bigger, but on the whole I spent most of my time helping set my dad’s equipment up. If there was time to sit down, I was either grabbing a drink or just resting, as lugging all that equipment about can be tiring and thirsty work!

We still managed to lose things at gigs, even though we tried not to. I’m sure some of the best bands in the world have. I think it happened to my dad’s bands too many times, before I was even born, so he imprinted this rule in my mind from the day I first started helping out:

Always do your stupid check!” – Roger ‘Smokey Joe’ Lewis

Never Seen from the Outside

I have never been to a festival or concerts of the size of Glastonbury or Reading (Carling) festival – those are two that I would definitely like to visit. The bands I would like to see include classics like Jimi Hendrix, The Who and Thin Lizzy. But some of them are dead, and even if they weren’t I don’t think that these bands could ever be experienced the way they were back in the day.

I’m guessing one of the reasons I like these bands a lot is that they were around the same era my dad was playing, and it reminds me of how my dad played. He had a classic Les Paul Gold Top with a Marshall Super Lead and a 4 x 12 speaker just like the one Hendrix used.

Of more recent artists, I wouldn’t mind seeing Dream Theater play live. Some of the people I know who have seen them said they are brilliant live and I’d like to see what they’re like when they perform instead of just hearing them on recordings.

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By the way, this is my first ever sponsored blog post! It was sponsored by Ticketamerica.com for exactly 1 American dollar, so I am now officially a blogger who makes money LOL.

Ticketamerica.com has tickets for Korn concerts and Robert Plant shows and all the Ozzy Osbourne concert dates. If you’re interested, check out these links:

• Korn rockstar energy mayhem festival
• robert plant tickets
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Image credit: Machiavelli Id

Other related stuff we posted:

1. Roger Lewis: A Great Guitarist (and my dad)
2. tw1tterband – making tweet music together (sorry)