You Went To A Concert To See The Support Act...

[interbellum]

Allan Holdsworth opening for Stanley Clarke (if memory serves me)

Yes, that's right. I saw this couple too in Amsterdam on June 15th 1987!

I also went to a concert where I was very curious about the support act.
It was Silent Running, which had combined the best elements of Simple Minds and U2 on their debut-album.
The first gig I hoped to see them was cancelled, so I went for this one.
But the support act wasn't allowed to perform...
Well, thank god the headliner was Talk Talk, who had just released their second album. (This was October 18th 1984.)

[interbellum]

Kevin Gilbert -- headliner: Jonatha Brooke & The Story
Kevin Gilbert -- headliner: Linda Perry

I guess it wasn't a surprise Gilbert recorded with these headliners before or after the gigs.

[JKL2000]

Not quite fitting the mold for this thread, but when Porcupine Tree and Opeth toured together and took turns playing first and second I saw them in NYC. I found PT’s show pretty boring and had to wait through them to hear Opeth, which I was much more into at the time.

[DocProgger]

Porcupine Tree actually opened up for Coheed and Cambria in 2010 which was absurd---PT was 50 times the better band.
I've seen both Kansas and Yes open up for Styx at outdoor shed concerts. Ridiculous. Kansas and Yes opening up for Styx?? I couldn't believe it.
Cheap Trick opening up for some lame hair metal band from the 80s that I can't even remember and didn't stay for, another outdoor shed concert. There's more examples like that if I sat down and thought about it, but those come to mind off the top of the head.

[mogrooves]

Johnny Winter opening for George Thorogood

In what bizarro world did this occur?!

[spacefreak]

Van Der Graaf opening for Porcupine Tree
Monster Magnet opening for Metallica

[oilersfan]

Most of the times I've seen Blue Oyster Cult was when they were opening for an act that I wasn't particularly interested in--Boston, Peter Frampton, etc.

[Progatron]

In all my years of concerts, I can't think of a single occasion where I went specifically to see the opening act, even though I've loved a lot of them.

When I saw VDGG, they had The Church opening for them, and some of their fans were clearly only there for them, as they left either before VDGG started, or not long into the first song.

[Lino]

Here's some gossip:

A few years back, a local promoter brought in VDGG.
In order to insure he filled the venue, he also booked the very excellent The Church as a kinda co-headliner. But not really. lol

As my radio show has been running in that city for many years, he asked me to introduce VDGG. Awesome. So towards the end of a very cool set by The Church, the promoter comes to my table and beckons me backstage. He was going to take me in to meet the band and get that intro all worked out with their stage manager.
I had to sit and wait for a few minutes. At that time, The Church have just left the stage to a very boisterous applause. My chair is right outside their dressing room, and when they entered, they left the door open. We can hear the audience cheering like crazy for an encore. However, that was not apparently in the plans, due to a tight schedule and city closing times and shit. The Church were visibly pissed. As the promoter walked by to come get me, they barked at him from in their room..."comon, we gotta do one more!" He just looked at them and looked at his watch and politely said "sorry guys, not going to happen, can't do it". One of the band yells back "This has never fucking happened to us anywhere we've ever played in the world" The promoter just looked back and smiled "yeah, but you've never played Hamilton, Ontario" The promoter just gives me this look like...this is what comes with the territory.

In fairness to The Church, I would say the crowd was probably 60-70% there for The Church, who unlike VDGG actually had a hit record up here at one point. But this promoter guy is such a loving music fan, there was no way he was going to put VDGG first. He himself probably knew more of The Church's music than that of VDGG...but he understood the awesome once in a life time opportunity to book living prog legends.

[Lino]

wow, that was some mind sync there.

[Gruno]

I guess it wasn't a surprise Gilbert recorded with these headliners before or after the gigs.

For Jonatha Brooke, he had already recorded with her, and he was on the same record label. With Linda Perry, he was in the midst of recording her album. Kevin, along with NDV, opened for Linda. Then, Kevin and most of Tuesday Music Club were Linda's backing band for her set.

[mogrooves]

Van Der Graaf opening for Porcupine Tree

This is just wrong.

[Ten Thumbs]

1971 - first concert was a one day fest and I went for Three Dog Night, Black Sabbath headlined
1973 - Gentle Giant open for Wishbone Ash
1977 - went to Iggy Pop because Bowie played piano in the band
- Todd Rundgren's Utopia open for Blue Oyster Cult
1978- Max Webster open for Ian Thomas Band
1992 -Lenny Kravitz open for ZZ Top
2011- Strawbs Acoustic open for The Zombies
2013 - folk festival, went for Loudon Wainwright III, Waterboys and Devotchka played later
2016 - folk festival, went for Moulettes vs anyone else

[Mister Triscuits]

1971 - first concert was a one day fest and I went for Three Dog Night, Black Sabbath headlined

That surprises me; I would have thought Three Dog Night was bigger than Black Sabbath in 1971. Their albums were charting about the same, but TDN had been around longer and had a shit-ton of hit singles.

[StarThrower]

You saw WHAT?! Talk about a mismatched bill!

I was wrong about the Yellowjackets. It was Sun Ra opening for Spyro Gyra.

[spacefreak]

This is just wrong.

Indeed.

[arturs]

Weirdest opening act for me:

Stevie Ray Vaughan opened for the Moody Blues in 1983. I won't say he blew them away; the audience was clearly there for the Moodies and they delivered. But I think most people went away very impressed with SRV.

Another odd one: Alvin Lee opening for Black Sabbath.

[GuitarGeek]

I was wrong about the Yellowjackets. It was Sun Ra opening for Spyro Gyra.

Still a way mismatched bill, but then again, that was when Ra was sort of "coming back down to Earth", making music that sounded more like his Chicago era albums of the 50's (which were a lot more conventional sounding than what he would do in the 60's and early 70's). I've got a few of those 80's era albums, and they almost sound like straight bebop and big band records. Then again, I used to know someone who said he saw Ra's last two Atlanta era performances, and one of them was just as "all the way out there" as ever, while the other was very "in".

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

Oh, just remembered. Gamma opening for Utopia. I love Utopia, but I was mainly there to see Ronnie Montrose.

I saw him on the same stage as Rundgren a couple of years later, at a benefit concert for the Ethiopian famine. The opener was ... Robin Williams?! ... and the headliner was The Tubes. Rundgren played a pretty cool solo set, including "Honest Work" from the A Capella album; then The Tubes came on and played for about a half hour, and Ronnie Montrose, to my disappointment, came on only as part of The Tubes's set. They played two songs together, a killer "Town Without Pity" and the blues version of WPoD.

[bill g]

Weirdest opening act for me:

Stevie Ray Vaughan opened for the Moody Blues in 1983. I won't say he blew them away; the audience was clearly there for the Moodies and they delivered. But I think most people went away very impressed with SRV.

Another odd one: Alvin Lee opening for Black Sabbath.

I guess another similar was Robin Trower opening for Jethro Tull. Nobody knew who Trower was, but he was definitely good. Though Tull were, of course, amazing.

[GuitarGeek]

That surprises me; I would have thought Three Dog Night was bigger than Black Sabbath in 1971. Their albums were charting about the same, but TDN had been around longer and had a shit-ton of hit singles.

Didn't Fripp once suggest that Crimson sometimes played shows where the bills were the exact reverse of what was in the charts at the time? Something to the effect of Trower, followed by Crimson, followed by...Ten Years After? Anyway, he said if you looked at the Billboard album charts that week, of the three then current albums, Trower's was in the top 20, Crimson was in the top 30, and TYA (or whomever it was), was at number 52 or something like that.

[Zappathustra]

This is just wrong.

Still waiting for my saviour, I opened for PT, the crowds were silly bozos, who never heard of H to He.

[Buddhabreath]

Still waiting for my saviour, I opened for PT, the crowds were silly bozos, who never heard of H to He.

My fingers feel like seaweed. I'm so far out I'm too far in!

[Zappathustra]

My fingers feel like seaweed. I'm so far out I'm too far in!

[SteveSly]

Weirdest opening act for me:

Stevie Ray Vaughan opened for the Moody Blues in 1983. I won't say he blew them away; the audience was clearly there for the Moodies and they delivered. But I think most people went away very impressed with SRV.

Another odd one: Alvin Lee opening for Black Sabbath.

Saw SRV open for Robert Plant before anyone knew who SRV was..........they all knew who he was after the show. One of the best opening act performances I have ever seen.