Bands you saw ascend into popularity

Black Magic Putin · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 9:42 am

The National thread got me thinking...I think the first time I saw them, it was in Chapel Hill and they were opening for a band called "We Are Scientists". This was probably around the time right before Alligator came out, or maybe right after, but it still seemed silly for them to be opening for this comparatively shit band. Actually, Two Guns put a song on a mix of his YEARS ago, and while I liked it it never occurred to me that they'd be as big as they are, or one of my favorite bands, if not my ultimate favorite one overall. We then saw them a number of times over the years in progressively larger clubs, and now they appear to be kings of all the world.

I also saw this sorta happen with Elliott Smith in college. he had a song I really liked on a K or something compilation with a big lemon on the cover, and then I saw him open for rose Melberg in a bar called the Cave in Chapel Hill. The Cave was in a basement with that kind of spray-on insulation for walls and a ceiling, and the singer from Two Dollar Pistols was the bartender. A few years later I had become a bigger fan and I saw Elliott open for (I think) Pavement, and a few years after that Good Will Hunting had come out and he was headlining a terribly large venue in Raleigh (coincidentally I think Pavement opened for him that time).

Share similar stories here.

PopTodd · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 9:48 am

I've told this story many times before, but...
When I was in school at Mizzou, there was a local band that used to play about once a month at the local club. I never had any desire to see them, although I had heard that they were supposed to be good.
One Halloween, they were opening for fIREHOSE at said local club, so I went to the show and got there early enough to check them out. They hit the stage -- the only 3 people in the place NOT in costume -- and within the first 10 seconds, my jaw had hit the floor. They blew me away.
It was 1989 and it was Uncle Tupelo. No Depression came out a couple of months after that show, and I bought it on the day that it came out. Bought every subsequent record as they each came out, too.

Dalen · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 10:17 am

Saw the Descendents in the early days, and they were so incredible live. Infectious energy. Next thing I knew, every skater/punk kid was talking about them and wearing their shirts.

Caught Blur right before their debut album was released. They were pretty raw live, which I was into. NME then hailed them as the saviors of the UK music scene.

Too early to think of any more right now.

Cap'n Squirrgle · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 10:28 am

Black Magic Putin Wrote:

and the singer from Two Dollar Pistols was the bartender.

John Howie was a bartender? Actually that makes sense.

PopTodd · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 10:37 am

Another one, not really my type of music, but...
A good friend of mine has a friend who was the singer in a metal band... I knew the guy a bit, too. Partied with him a bit and hung out a couple of times. He's a really good guy.
Anyway, both my buddy and this guy were raised in orthodox Jewish households and the friend had a very good voice and was even the cantor at his local synogague. I knew that he had a band and that they were busting their asses for gigs. One day, I went to my friend's place and his friend Dave came over, very excited that they had their first gig at Metro, a big underground club in Chicago... right across from Wrigley Field.
I told him how jealous I was and wished him luck.
Now that band is headling Ozzfest and selling millions of records -- Disturbed.

Cap'n Squirrgle · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 10:47 am

this thing you do where you withhold the name of the band til the very end of your post ... I can only read it in "Behind The Music" voiceover guy voice.

PopTodd · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 10:48 am

Cap'n Squirrgle Wrote:

this thing you do where you withhold the name of the band til the very end of your post ... I can only read it in "Behind The Music" voiceover guy voice.

That's kinda the point.

toots · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 10:50 am

spent 3 weeks on the road with My Chemical Romance playing to <100 kids a night in 2002

PopTodd · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 10:52 am

toots Wrote:

spent 3 weeks on the road with My Chemical Romance playing to <100 kids a night in 2002

post/av

seafoam · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 10:58 am

I saw For Squirrels a bunch of times and use to talk to the the singer after some of the shows. Soon after they went national they had an accident and I think 2 members were killed.

I saw Kelly Willis back when she used to name drop Kevin Welch at Stephen's Talkhouse.

Not that they're huge or anything but I got on stage with the Subdudes banging a tambourine. I was also hugged by their former rhythm guitarist Willie Williams on New Years Eve.

Some pub(Micky's on VanNess in SF?) I happened to go into had this band Train always playing there. I remember the bass player trying to hook up with my wife's best friend once. They weren't my band to see but the wife dug seeing them.

Cap'n Squirrgle · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:04 am

seafoam Wrote:

Some pub(Micky's on VanNess in SF?) I happened to go into had this band Train always playing there. I remember the bass player trying to hook up with my wife's best friend once. They weren't my band to see but the wife dug seeing them.

Man, one snipped brake line and you had a chance to stop some serious future awfulness.

bort · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:06 am

Dalen Wrote:

Saw the Descendents in the early days

Wow, I didn't think you were that old.

Chrome_CW · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:15 am

Being just over 21 in the Portland area in the early 90's I saw Everclear really early on and kind of rode their wave to Popularity - seeing them grow from playing small clubs to increasingly larger venues.

A buddy saw No Doubt open on a tour for some now long forgotten band that he wanted to see and told me the next day that No Doubt was going to be huge - they were apparently a lot of fun and came out to the Imperial Death March played on horns. This was a national tour they were openning on, but in very small clubs.

Finally, I had a buddy who was really into Green Day and we went to a show that they opened for Bad Religion about 2 months before Dookie dropped - had such a good time that I saw them again a bunch over the next few years, again playing larger and larger venues each time.

toots · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:17 am

PopTodd Wrote:

toots Wrote:

spent 3 weeks on the road with My Chemical Romance playing to <100 kids a night in 2002

post/av

bahahaha... :cheers:

Cap'n Squirrgle · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:26 am

Chrome_CW Wrote:

A buddy saw No Doubt open on a tour for some now long forgotten band that he wanted to see and told me the next day that No Doubt was going to be huge - they were apparently a lot of fun and came out to the Imperial Death March played on horns. This was a national tour they were openning on, but in very small clubs.

This may have been on the tour where they opened for 311. I saw that show at the Fox in Atlanta. They were booed, and deservedly so. They sang a "punky" version of the abc's. A few months later they hit MTV and went big. :shrug:

........and that band's name ............. was NO DOUBT.

PopTodd · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:38 am

Cap'n Squirrgle Wrote:

Chrome_CW Wrote:

A buddy saw No Doubt open on a tour for some now long forgotten band that he wanted to see and told me the next day that No Doubt was going to be huge - they were apparently a lot of fun and came out to the Imperial Death March played on horns. This was a national tour they were openning on, but in very small clubs.

This may have been on the tour where they opened for 311. I saw that show at the Fox in Atlanta. They were booed, and deservedly so. They sang a "punky" version of the abc's. A few months later they hit MTV and went big. :shrug:

........and that band's name ............. was NO DOUBT.

much better!
:cheers:

Black Magic Putin · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:42 am

Cap'n Squirrgle Wrote:

Black Magic Putin Wrote:

and the singer from Two Dollar Pistols was the bartender.

John Howie was a bartender? Actually that makes sense.

yeah, I didn't even know he was in a band until a few years later. Or at least, in a band that I liked, as I guess every bartender in Chapel Hill is in a band.

Speaking of which, and I know that I've told this one a million times, I was sitting in the bar Hell in Chapel Hill one Sunday and realized that Buck Cherry, who had some reason taken up a practice spot there in preparation for their major label (first?) album, was all sitting next to me. I realized this because they started hollering at the bartender (don't know his band) to put the TV on 120 Minutes because they were going to be on that night. He just looked at them and said "look guys, you ain't the first rock stars that I've had in this place" and put on the Simpsons.

Cap'n Squirrgle · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:45 am

holy shit that rules.

Radcliffe · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 12:59 pm

Saw Neko Case's release party for The Virginian. Awesome show - she's never been that energetic and fun since.

Saw the Strokes before their debut was released, although there was already a fair buzz about them. Still didn't sell out a small room though.

Saw the Kings of Leon and Jet together in a small club touring their debuts.

Caught Whiskeytown with about 40 other people and witnessed a nascent Ryan Adams meltdown before he learned to do it big.

Missed the REM/ Dream Syndicate double bill in '83, but saw REM on the Lifes Rich Pageant tour a couple years later.

Saw DEVO in '78 when they seemed like a grimy avant-punk band, touring the debut.

Oh shit, the Boomtown Rats, Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, XTC, DOA, around that same year.

And, in shame, I'll admit to seeing Supertramp on their Crime of the Century tour and Kiss in '76.

Way more if I could only remember.

PopTodd · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 1:03 pm

I saw Pearl Jam opening for Red Hot Chili Peppers (and Smashing Pumpkins) in 1991 at the American Theater in St. Louis.
PJ stole the show and played a set that forever ruined their albums for me. If there is such a thing as a band having a live show that is too good, that was the case that night.

discostu · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 1:17 pm

Off the top of my head: Drive By Truckers, My Morning Jacket, Kings of Leon

Senator LooGAR · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 1:21 pm

Wilco - I bought Being There based on a 4 star Rolling Stone review...doesn't that sound quaint?

Then Summerteeth came out, and Bloor and I discussed the review, and I told him that I had Being There from years ago.

We both picked that up, and in turn everyone else we knew, and Kurtz played in a band with became fans.

Cap'n Squirrgle · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 1:26 pm

Senator GAR in 2010! Wrote:

We both picked that up, and in turn everyone else we knew, and Kurtz played in a band with became fans.

Clear memories of Kurtz pointing at me at 860 N Chase and saying something to the effect of "you are GOING to like this band, you just don't know it yet." And in typical SquirrgleFail fashion, 2 short years later I was hooked!

rogneeb · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 1:07 pm **Posts:** 12618

saw Radiohead play this now defunct Portland club called La Luna right when Pablo Honey came out. i believe it was Super Deluxe that opened.

Flying Rabbit · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 2:24 pm

Quote:

I was there in 1968.
I was there at the first Can show in Cologne.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids whose footsteps I hear when they get on the decks.
I'm losing my edge to the Internet seekers who can tell me every member of every good group from 1962 to 1978.
I'm losing my edge.

To all the kids in Tokyo and Berlin.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Brooklynites in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties.

But I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge, but I was there.
I was there.
But I was there.

I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge.
I can hear the footsteps every night on the decks.
But I was there.
I was there in 1974 at the first Suicide practices in a loft in New York City.
I was working on the organ sounds with much patience.
I was there when Captain Beefheart started up his first band.
I told him, "Don't do it that way. You'll never make a dime."
I was there.
I was the first guy playing Daft Punk to the rock kids.
I played it at CBGB's.
Everybody thought I was crazy.
We all know.
I was there.
I was there.
I've never been wrong.

I used to work in the record store.
I had everything before anyone.
I was there in the Paradise Garage DJ booth with Larry Levan.
I was there in Jamaica during the great sound clashes.
I woke up naked on the beach in Ibiza in 1988.

But I'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent.
And they're actually really, really nice.

I'm losing my edge.

I heard you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody. Every great song by the Beach Boys. All the underground hits. All the Modern Lovers tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Niagra record on German import. I heard that you have a white label of every seminal Detroit techno hit - 1985, '86, '87. I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and another box set from the '70s.

I hear you're buying a synthesizer and an arpeggiator and are throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Yaz record.

I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables.
I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars.

I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.

But have you seen my records? This Heat, Pere Ubu, Outsiders, Nation of Ulysses, Mars, The Trojans, The Black Dice, Todd Terry, the Germs, Section 25, Althea and Donna, Sexual Harrassment, a-ha, Pere Ubu, Dorothy Ashby, PIL, the Fania All-Stars, the Bar-Kays, the Human League, the Normal, Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Monks, Niagra,

Joy Division, Lower 48, the Association, Sun Ra,
Scientists, Royal Trux, 10cc,

Eric B. and Rakim, Index, Basic Channel, Soulsonic Force ("just hit me"!), Juan Atkins, David Axelrod, Electric Prunes, Gil! Scott! Heron!, the Slits, Faust, Mantronix, Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines, the Swans, the Soft Cell, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics.

Bands you saw ascend into popularity

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