Oddest Concert Pairings

I have always liked odd mixtures. Anything out of the norm and I pay attention. That is why I blog about the past more than today. I liked the 60’s and 70’s era because houses, cars, and music were for the most part unique. I couldn’t tell a Ford from a Chevy today. A lot of new houses look just alike in cloned neighborhoods.

I would have loved to have been at one of these concerts.

Monkees and Jimi

Jimi Hendrix / Monkees 1967 – This is number one on my list. Can you imagine the young Monkee fans hearing the sonic volume of Jimi Hendrix? Jimi had to play while a bunch of 12-year-old girls screamed “We want the Monkees” and “We want Davy. ” It was the sixties and Peter Tork said: “It didn’t cross anybody’s mind that it wasn’t gonna fly.”

The Who-Herman Hermits

The Who / Herman Hermits 1967 – Smash your guitar and drums. Hope I Die Before I Get Old and then Mrs Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter?… You can imagine Peter Noone tripping over shards of guitars every night.

LS-Queen

Lynyrd Skynyrd / Queen 1974 – This one is a head-scratcher. The theatrical Queen and the southern boys from Florida just don’t seem a great match. It was a European tour and Lynyrd Skynyrd got a lot of recognition from it. They were probably more popular in the UK than here at one time.

Springsteen - Murray

Bruce Springsteen / Anne Murray 1974 – This one is baffling. Anne Murray’s managers demanded that Bruce open the show for Anne in NYC! They argued she was more successful and she was…but this was New York and Bruce Springsteen…what a fatal mistake…halfway through Bruce’s set Anne’s managers regretted their decision. Many of the audience had left by the time Anne took the stage.

Toto-Ramones-1979

The Ramones/Toto 1979 – This one doesn’t make sense at all…what promoter thought this through? The laid-back ToTo fans sat through the Ramones but Toto singer Bobby Kimball came out and apologized to the crowd for the “horrible band” they had to sit through. Nothing against Toto but give me The Ramones!

Gregg and Cher

Cher/Gregg Allman 1977 – Yes they were married but what an odd concert to go to. You have Gregg who was one of the best blues singers at that time and Cher…who was Cher…Gregg Allman mentions in his book “My Cross to Bear” that the audience was mixed…some with tuxedos and some with denim jackets and backpacks and there were fights at each show on the tour between the two sets of fans.

Gregg Allman

“It was right after that—the tuxedos against the backpacks, because I think the Allman Brothers outnumbered the Sonny and Chers—that Cher came to me, and the poor thing was just crying. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me, “We’ve got to cancel the rest of the tour, because I can’t stand the fighting.” So we ended it right then, which was about halfway through it. We went home the next day, and that was the last time I ever played with her.”

Johnny Ramone.jpg

The Ramones / Ted Nugent, Aerosmith 1979 – Bottles and debris were thrown at The Ramones from the crowd as Johnny Ramone was shooting birds at the audience. 

Johnny Ramone about this concert…

“About five or six songs into the set, the whole crowd stood up, and I thought it had started to rain. Dee Dee thought the same thing, but they were throwing stuff at us – sandwiches, bottles, everything. Then, all of a sudden, I broke two strings on my guitar in one strum. I thought it was a sign from God to get off the stage, because I’d rarely break a string, maybe once a year. So I just walked to the front of the stage, stopped playing, and gave the audience the finger – with both hands. I stood there like that, flipping them off, with both hands out, and walked off. The rest of the band kept playing for another ten or fifteen seconds until they’d realized I was walking off, and then they did too. I wasn’t gonna stand there and be booed and have stuff thrown at us without retaliating in some way. We had to come off looking good somehow, and there was no good way to get out of that.”

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

53 thoughts on “Oddest Concert Pairings”

  1. Anne Murray and The Boss??!! Snowbird learned the hard way opening for Bruce on his home turf. I remembering reading about the Ramones show. I think that was in Toronto. One of the oddest pairings saw live was Kool And The Gang opening for VH back in 2012. On paper it looks bizarre but it actually worked.

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    1. By 2012 I could see things working a little better because both were classic acts by then. I wanted to see BTO open up for Van Halen during their prime.

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  2. Great post, Max. That Monkees tour was the one I took my little sister to. I had heard from someone that Hendrix was their opening act and I hope to see him, to hell with the Monkees. When the tour came to Dallas, Hendrix was kaput and a local band was the opening act. I did see him in 68 at the same venue, Memorial Auditorium, which is the worst bldg in Dallas for a concert, acoustics are not there. I still have 3 of the Monkees albums gifted to me from my sister.

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    1. I wish you could have seen him open for them… I guess they didn’t think a thing about it back then. Like you said…you got to see him anyway… although with bad acoustics.

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  4. That’s some weird pairings. Toto / Ramones almost equals the legendary Hendrix / Monkees (personally I’d sit through Toto more happily). One has to think the lineups were made by execs who had a roster but didn’t listen to the music nor gauge their fantasies…UNLESS they thought they’d increase sales by drawing two entirely different sets of fans and everyone would be happy.

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    1. Yea a lot of them don’t jive… yea they thought of them drawing separately instead of together and it made a huge difference.
      The poor Ramones were on the losing end twice.

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  5. Definitely weird pairings. The Fillmore was famous for unexpected lineups but that seemed to be more in a “broadening your horizons” or “honoring the roots” manner than “what were they thinking?”

    An odd pairing here was The Grim Reapers with Otis Redding. Odd both because of the name of the opening act (since Otis Redding died a few hours before the show was to start) and because The Grim Reapers later became Cheap Trick.

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    2. Oh yea! I remember that song!
      I just think we had a better…what is the word? I guess “look” before the 2000’s where every single thing looks the same.

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  11. Ha! ‘Nobody likes us … And we don’t caaaaare!’ What a bunch of philistines …. Good on Johnny! 😂

    I know that when they were starting to gain traction with the growing punk movement, it was hard for them to get any bigger shows with bands of a similar taste … coz they were few and far between at that stage.

    But some of these paintings look real mismatches.

    The only one I can personally recall being at was my first ever show …. March 1973 when Greenslade (Dave Greenslade from jazz / prog rock band Colesseum ) opened for Rory Gallagher in Glasgow.

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    1. You are right….they were one of a kind pretty much. Not anyone that comparable to them. The Toto one though…wow…that one I really didn’t understand. You would think the Ted Nugent one…they would have got a little traction at.
      I never saw a concert where it was this uneven…

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      1. One invasion band that I have no time for now. Except for ‘No Milk Today,’ but that was written by Graham Gouldman, so that ramps it up to a likeable level. Sorry Noone fans!

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      2. I’m telling you this…I can’t believe I am! But…there is one song that for some reason I actually like. That would be I’m Into Something Good…
        Their last big hit as well…sounded also a little more “sophisticated” for them…A kind of Hush or whatever it’s called.

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  14. At some dates, although not all, Peter Gabriel donned the famous fox head and his wife Jill’s red dress, which stunned the Lindisfarne audience somewhat.

    —-Colin Dodd [on Genesis opening for Lindisfarne in the early 70s]

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    1. I can’t imagine Genesis or Gabriel opening up for Lindisfarne in any way.
      I dont’ know them a great deal but I love Meet Me On The Corner.

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  15. Those are all crazy pairings! I’ve been to a fair number of concerts, but can’t remember any pairings that were terrible or baffling. Perhaps the one that might come close involves Cher, ironically. Friends from Chicago had bought four tickets to see Cher in St. Louis in July 1999, where we lived at the time, and were treating us to the show. Cyndi Lauper was scheduled to open for Cher, but Cher came down with laryngitis and had to postpone that and a few other concerts. When she scheduled the make-up show for early September, Lauper was apparently unavailable, so they tapped Michael McDonald as the opening act. Even though his style of music and overall vibe was way different than Cher’s, I was a fan of his so enjoyed his set. Not so much a lot of Cher fans in the audience, who weren’t at all pleased to have to sit through his 45-minute-long set. Thankfully, no one booed or acted rudely.

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    1. That is pretty odd…McDonald is closer to Gregg Allman than to Cher as far as their soulful singing. I wouldn’t have minded seeing him either.

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  17. Wow those are some strange pairings. Springsteen/Anne Murray is smh. Hendrix/Monkees also damned strange. I also think Jack White/Loretta Lynn and Johnny Cash/U2 were also strange, but they worked.

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  18. Fun idea for a post, Max. And these are indeed bizarre pairings that make you wonder what were the organizers thinking. That said, I actually would have loved to see some of these shows like Hendrix and The Monkees, The Who and Herman’s Hermits, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Queen, as well as the terrible band and Toto – sans fights, of course! 🙂

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  20. Pingback: Oddest Concert Pairings – MobsterTiger

  21. hilarious examples there 🙂 didnt know about Anne Murray/ Bruce, I’dve been very happy seeing that one, I like both. Actually I’d def go see any of those gigs given the chance! 🙂 There’s a photo of Anne out on the town with Micky Dolenz, Alice Cooper, and other party-hard LA types of the early 70’s, so maybe it wasn’t so mad as it seems…. Snowbird, Danny’s Song, You Won’t See Me following maybe an early version of Born To Run? Yeah, count me in!

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    1. I would have loved to see any of these as well. Oh yea she fit in but opening up for Bruce….is not good for any one in New York….maybe somewhere else.

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  23. Uk gigs in the 60s particularly were very fond of these sorts of pairings – and not just two different bands/acts, but often several. I went to a Walker Brothers concert at the Finsbury Park Astoria (which later became The Rainbow) and they were supported by Jimi Hendrix. It was the gig at which he set his guitar on fire – and a little man rushed on with a fire extinguisher and put it out!! I remember that still very clearly, but sadly can’t remember any of his playing. None of the fans were there to see Hendrix – including me, though later on I’d have vastly preferred to see Hendrix than the Walker Brothers) which was a shame for him.

    The Roundhouse and Lyceum gigs had mixed bills, too – often with some very strange choices of act, playing one after the other. I presume the philosophy behind it was to attract as many people as possible because they all had different tastes. I loved the Roundhouse gigs for their diversity.

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    1. I would have added that one if I would have known. Well Val…at least you got to see him which is really cool. My graphic Arts teacher in high school would tell us about going to see him in nearby Memphis.
      I love the mixed bills like this… I never saw one that was really strange like that.

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      1. Yep. But I still wish I had taken more notice of Hendrix than the Walker Bros!

        There’s a site that I found recently that – amongst other things – has lists of venues, who played at them and when, and it’s got some interesting combinations of bands. Have a look: https://www.45worlds.com/live/

        In London, I went to gigs from the mid-1960s until about 1975, mostly at the Finsbury Park Astoria (aka Rainbow, later on); The Lyceum, The Marquee and The Roundhouse (in Chalk Farm – not to be confused with the Dagenham Roundhouse),and the Royal Albert Hall. Those should bring up some interesting combinations!

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      2. I just bookmarked it and I will be back to it! I’m looking forward to that. The Marquee….Everytime I think of it I think of Townshend in that famous picture.

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