Since folks know I’ve been around the rodeo, I sometimes get asked about the earliest shows I saw. So here’s a quick (but not all-inclusive) list of the earliest gigs I attended in NYC. Thanks to the #5 train that I boarded at the Gun Hill Rd stop in my native Bronx, I was able to immerse myself in a whole other magical world.

📍 Grand Funk Railroad with Humble Pie (including Peter Frampton) opening, 1970, Madison Square Garden. 

I was 14 and can actually remember that the sound was horrible—not surprising since it was the very early days of arena rock. Imagine listening to transistor radio amplified through a sound system.

📍 Delaney and Bonnie, Mott The Hoople, Mandrill, 1971, Fillmore East.

The show was supposed to be headlined by Free, but visa hassles prevented them from crossing the pond. I scored front row center seats and was officially baptized by rock & roll when Mott slammed into “Rock and Roll Queen.”

📍 Poco, 1971, Carnegie Hall (early show—they sold out two shows in one night).

I was energized by the band’s tight musicianship and high-flying vocal harmonies—with string master Rusty Young completely captivating me. A few weeks after the show, I bought a Sho-Bud pedal steel guitar at the old Manny’s on 48th St (damn, it was so hard to keep the instrument in tune).

📍 B.B King, Albert King, and Edgar Winter’s White Trash, 1971, Fillmore East.

This was the venue’s penultimate show before sadly shuttering in June. The bill was supposed to be headlined by Johnny Winter, but he was sent off to rehab I would later learn. Seeing B.B. and Albert on one bill—with opener Edgar Winter’s powerhouse band—was absolutely unforgettable.

📍 Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, 1972, Carnegie Hall. This was during her “Blue” era, and I can still hear Joni playing her dulcimer in my mind. Browne did a short, but earthshaking, opening set. I hung onto every word he sang—these were songs that I had never heard before since his debut album had just come out a month before.

📍 New York Dolls, October 1972, Mercer Arts Center (their debut album came out in July 1973). 

This show, opened by the infectious Ruby and the Rednecks (another local fave), was definitely “a line in the sand” moment for me. The Dolls were ragged-but-right, as they say, with sparkling glamor a-go-go. I remember them sounding like a messier J. Geils Band—delivered in women’s clothes—and liking it. I loved metal, country rock and prog, but glam rock was way more fun in a live setting. Being there was very intimidating since the hipper-than-thou downtown NYC audience was dressed to the nines and I was clearly an outsider (hopefully I didn’t wear my hippie farmer overalls). The ticket price? It was the best $3.00 I ever spent.