Most people can recall the first concert they attended. For musicians and music lovers, it can be a milestone event in their life. Below, 15 musicians discuss their first concert.
Do you remember your first concert? We’d love to hear about it in the comment section below.
6. Ben Yarbrough – Young Buffalo
“My first concert was this contemporary Christian band, Audio Adrenaline,” says Yarbrough. “I saw them with this church group back when I was 10. I remember not liking it at all.” Yarbrough says the first concert he really enjoyed and bought tickets for was Modest Mouse in his hometown of Oxford, Miss at the Lyric Theater.
“That was such an incredible show and watching it all I could think was ‘I want to do that for the rest of my life.’” Yarbrough recalls an episode from the show: “At one point Isaac Brock said something like ‘someone flip me off,’ and our friend Tyler obliged him. That pissed him off a good bit, so he stopped the show and said ‘make a space around that motherfucker, I’m gonna fucking hit him with this microphone.’ Tyler loved it.”
“My guess is he was just fucking around,” he continues. Yarbrough had the opportunity to meet Brock last year, but didn’t mention the show.
“We met him at Modest Mouse’s studio in Portland. We got to go because our friend Clay Jones was working there so he gave us a tour. I definitely didn’t mention that concert. I tried to be the least fanboyish I could be. It was hard though.”
7. Andrew Nelson – Great Peacock 
“My first concert was Lynyrd Skynyrd at Lakewood Amphitheater in Atlanta. They had Peter Frampton and 38 Special opening for them.”
“I grew up in such a strict, conservative home so going to see Skynyrd was like opening Pandora’s Box. My parents made my older brother and sister go with me so I would be safe.” Additionally, he credits the band for sparking his interest in music: “The whole reason I even started playing the guitar was because I heard ‘Free Bird’ one night when I was about 14 or 15 years old.
“The main thing I remember about the concert was that I danced my rear end off the whole time. So much so that these older college aged girls came down and wanted to dance with me. I was so clueless I didn’t pay them any attention. Now I’d probably would forget about the music and offer to buy them a drink, but not then, I was dancing, man.” He adds, “I still dig on some Skynyrd to this day … A lot of people are turned off by their fanbase, and it keeps them from listening to what the original band’s lyrics were about—gun control (‘Saturday Night Special’), the plight of veterans (‘Four Walls of Raiford’), environmental issues (‘All I Can Do is Write About It’). Anyway, they had the best guitar riffs hands down.
8. Blount Floyd – Great Peacock
When asked about first concert, Floyd mentions several “firsts.” He says, “The first concert I remember going to that affected me was seeing George Jones at the Ozark Civic Center in Alabama. My family would go to a bunch of country shows in Ozark in the late ‘90s, because it was so close to Dothan and my pops probably had some connection. I can still vividly remember how when he sang, the whole place just shook. When he would hit low notes I felt it resonate inside my little body. To this day I think he has the absolute best voice ever.”
Floyd notes a venue where he gained early experience performing. In 2002, he attended his first club show: “It was at The Cow Haus in Tallahassee, Fla., with a bunch of my friends.” He still remembers the order of the bill and notes that he doesn’t run from his emo past: “Rocking Horse Winner, Seville, Further Seems Forever and Dashboard Confessional. I felt like the coolest dude that night, even though I’m still pissed at Chris Carrabba for not singing ‘New Year’s Project’ when FSF asked him, but I’m sure he had his reasons.”
He continues by saying, “Funny story. Recently, I ran into Mike Marsh, the drummer for The Avett Brothers, and formerly for Dashboard and Seville, and totally fanboyed out about this show.”
He continues, “No concert list of mine would be complete without mentioning my ‘first love’ show. Cursive at The Social in Orlando, May 6, 2004. I met my future wife at this show. Funny enough, I held her hand for the first time during ‘A Gentleman Caller.’”
9. Anastasia Dimou – Feathers 
Dimou’s first concert experience was the 50th birthday party David Bowie threw for himself in January 1997 at Madison Square Garden. Her mother won tickets at work for the performance: “I got to see him, Lou Reed, Dave Grohl, Robert Smith and Billy Corgan all in one. I just remember seeing Bowie walk on stage. He made such an immediate impression on my brain. He was small and thin, but you could feel his presence even up where our seats were, which were kind of nosebleeds. He seemed powerful and magnificent. He was electric. I remember feeling that and awe.”
10. Cole Furlow – Dead Gaze
When Furlow was five, his parents took him to see Crosby, Stills and Nash in Jackson, Miss. “I was super young so I don’t remember very much. But I do remember thinking they were such great singers … My father explained to me who Neil Young was and why he wasn’t there. I really didn’t care that much then, but later was really bummed my first concert experience didn’t involve such an icon like Neil.” The concert was at the Mississippi Coliseum: “At the time it was decorated in orange, red and yellow paint. It looked like a huge circus.”