2 Bands playing the same night. Which did you chose?

[Man In The Mountain]

Inspired by the "No Fly Zone" thread.

Did you ever have two favorite band playing the same night? Which did you chose? Or did you already have tickets to one of them?

2 years ago ARW were playing the same night as Ben Folds. It was a painful call for me, I'm a huge Folds fan, and a huge Wakeman fan. This was a case where I already had tickets to ARW so I had to stick with that. But the Ben Folds gig was in a cool small venue with a piano only. And was only 15 minutes from home. Would have been such a treat.

[markwoll]

Lucky for me some of the venues around here will give you either credit for or a tax deduction for an unused ticket.
Pat Metheny group Or Soft Machine...Soft Machine wins, and I got a credit for the unused Metheny tickets.
One night I had the chance to see some band named Beardfish or the Winery Dogs. Went to see the Dogs and regretted the choice a month later when I saw Beardfish for the first time.

[GuitarGeek]

Two come to mind:

Steve Howe played here the same night as Wishbone Ash. This was probably around 2006 or so. I recall asking on old PE about it, and someone said "Look, you know Wishbone Ash is gonna come back again next year, you don't know when Steve Howe is going to do another solo tour". Both points were true (and indeed, Wishbone did come back a year or so later), and I had seen Wishbone Ash a couple times by then anyway. So I went to see Howe. Besides finally getting to hear my favorite Yessong live (To Be Over, albeit in a somewhat truncated, but still awesome, acoustic instrumental form), Steve played the lot of other cool things, and there's also my "favorite" unruly audience memory connected to that show.

The other was Zappa Plays Zappa playing the same night as a local based Pink Floyd tribute called Wish You Were Here. So it was down to which tribute act one wanted to see. This was around the same time as the above, as I believe WYWH were paying homage to the 1975 US Floyd show (I remember one of the disc jockeys on WNCX saying it was "The Floyd show that didn't play Cleveland!"), they were doing it in a big venue (something like 8 or 10,000 seater), with visuals (e.g. a pig, airplane, films, etc), apparently playing the same list as Floyd did in 75 plus a few other goodies.

Zappa Plays Zappa, however, were I believe doing their second or third tour, something like that, and I was anxious to see the show. They were playing a smaller venue, but it had the benefit of literally within walking distance of home. And at the end of the day, that's what tipped the scales in the favor of Dweezil and company. They had Ray White guesting on a few songs (I don't remember if I knew that beforehand or not), and the show was really cool. Yeah, they did some of the humorous stuff, which I'm not always a fan of, but one thing they did was Dumb All Over, with the band playing live to a video/audio of Frank doing the vocal, which was pretty cool. I think they did that also with one of Frank's guitar solos later in the show, but I can't remember which one. I was hope like a half hour after the houselights came on.

I never did figure out how true to the 1975 show the Wish You Were Here concert was, i.e. did they actually play the songs the way they played them in 1975. Did they do Dogs and Sheep, or did they actually play You Gotta Be Crazy and Raving & Drooling, and did the other songs sound like their studio incarnations or did they sound like they did 1975? I have no idea. I've never heard a recording of a show, and my experience teaches me asking people about details of concerts they've been to is pretty useless. Nobody seems to have the clear memory for this stuff that I do, for some reason. (shrug)

[Shadow]

Years back Steve Howe and Steve Morse. Don't these people look at each other's schedule. I went to see Steve.

[GuitarGeek]

. Don't these people look at each other's schedule. .

I hope you're being facetious. It's hard enough to put together a tour schedule without worrying about whether or not someone else is playing in a given city on the same night. Besides, I imagine there's no way to find out what someone's schedule is when you're putting together your schedule, short of ringing up every single conceivable group or performer who are could possibly touring at the same time as you, and something that's not gonna happen either.

[mozo-pg]

My son bought me tickets to The Musical Box (which I've seen countless times since the mid-90s but still enjoy) on the third weekend of May this year. Also coincided with Marillion weekend (both in Montreal). I had a great time at TMB but definitely missed seeing one of my favourite bands.

[moecurlythanu]

Yeah, I missed Marillion on the Sounds That Can't Be Made tour because it clashed with Nearfest. That sucked. I recall a time when it seemed like every time a Prog-Rock or Folk artist came to Cleveland, it clashed with another tour in those genres. And there weren't that many coming, so it started to look like a conspiracy.

[GuitarGeek]

Yeah, I missed Marillion on the Sounds That Can't Be Made tour because it clashed with Nearfest. That sucked. I recall a time when it seemed like every time a Prog-Rock or Folk artist came to Cleveland, it clashed with another tour in those genres. And there weren't that many coming, so it started to look like a conspiracy.

Mmm, you remind of the Queen tribute band that played here the same weekend as NEARfest one year. They were called Almost Queen, and I had seen them twice before and thought they did a great show. So I was mildly bummed I didn't get to see them a third time, but I had already made my plans for NEARfest. I forget which year that was, 2007 or 2008, I think.

And I'm also reminded that the first time I saw King Crimson, in 1995, The Orb were playing the same night. It seems strange to me now that I was bummed about those shows coinciding like that, because I was never really that into The Orb, but I remember it being a mild dilemma. I say mild, because I suspected that Fripp might have one of his epiphanies that make sense to him and him and alone and decide to break up the band. Again. So I knew I had to see King Crimson, because who knew if I'd get another chance.

PS: Fripp did end up breaking up the band, sort of, with that show remaining one of only two times I ever got to see Bruford play live (the other was one of the BLUE shows in NYC a couple years later). And going across (almost) all subsequent configurations, I ended up seeing Crimson a total of seven further times since that 1995 show.

PPS: I also eventually saw The Orb...well, not really saw, I attended a rave, I guess it was, where The Orb were the headlining act or whatever, around 1998 or 1999, I think it was. Pretty boring.

[SteveSly]

Yeah, I missed Marillion on the Sounds That Can't Be Made tour because it clashed with Nearfest. That sucked. I recall a time when it seemed like every time a Prog-Rock or Folk artist came to Cleveland, it clashed with another tour in those genres. And there weren't that many coming, so it started to look like a conspiracy.

I had the same problem. It was Marillion's first U.S. tour in years and I did not want to miss it. It was also the same weekend as the final NEARfest and I had been to every one of them. I ended up with a crazy compromise. I drove 2.5 hours to Chicago to see Marillion on Friday night. Drove back home to Kalamazoo 2.5 hours after the show. There is a time zone difference, losing an hour, so got home about 3:00AM. Got a couple hours of sleep and caught a morning flight out of Kalamazoo to Detroit then Harrisburg. Got my rental car and arrived in Bethlehem mid-afternoon for the rest of NEARfest. By the end of the weekend I was exhausted, but it was worth it. The things we do for prog!

[moecurlythanu]

^ It was the Chicago date that I had to sacrifice. They didn't come to Cleveland, or I might have done something similar.

[pb2015]

A couple years ago John McLaughlin/Jimmy Herring and Jack DeJohnette/John Scofield were both performing in Chicago on the same night. Kind of unfortunate scheduling for jazz/rock fans. A friend offered me a ticket to the McLaughlin show so I went to that.

[ledsox]

April 27, 1969
Zeppelin in San Francisco at the Fillmore, Hendrix across the bay in Oakland. What a tough call. I chose neither because, well, I was 7 and I lived in VT. Zep played an amazing 18 min version of As Long As I Have You. Hendrix pulled out an astonishing 18 min version of Voodoo Chile. I often wonder what I would have done had I lived there and been of age. Fortunately the recordings reveal the brilliance in the Bay Area that night.

[viukkis]

Last Saturday I went to see Magma and skipped Dream Theater. I'm quite happy with my decision.

[Halmyre]

To be honest, it's a bit of a distance to either gig, they're both on quite late, and my back's giving me gip, and there's an interesting program on the telly...

[Vic333]

"Chance to see" would be #1. If it's a band's that doesn't play in the are often, or a farewell show, gotta rank order based on that.
Distance to gig, ticket price, and an estimation as to which band will give the best performance would also be taken into consideration.

[Mister Triscuits]

I'm sure there have been numerous others, but the only one I can think of is three years ago when the San Francisco Symphony put on an 80th birthday celebration for Steve Reich. I went, but it meant missing Pat Metheny, who was playing just down the street at SF Jazz. The interesting part is that the Reich concert included a piece that Metheny originally recorded ("Electric Counterpoint").

[GuitarGeek]

Last Saturday I went to see Magma and skipped Dream Theater. I'm quite happy with my decision.

Well, that's only common sense.

[Zeuhlmate]

Some years ago I had to chose between Magic Band (beefheart) and Korekyojinn.
I chose Magic Band, but fortunately it was a short concert, so I reached most of Korekyojinn who started a bit late.

A lucky strike - I liked Korekyojinn so much more.

[Garden Dreamer]

Never had to choose between two bands but once I had a choice to see Horslips at My Father's Place or play in my beer league hockey game... and I made the wrong choice..

[progholio]

One of my biggest regrets was going to see Sheryl Crow in concert which was a work related private corporate event that included free dinner, free booze, free show, more free booze, free hotel room - which was the same night as The Flaming Groovies on my own dime.

There are some things that are just worth paying for.

[loshammeros]

In 1974 and 1975 I chose the Sensational Alex Harvey Band over ZZ Top and Todd Rundgren. In 1976,whilst stationed in then West Germany I chose Golden Earring over Jane---(bad pick perhaps?)



.

[arturs]

We'll see if either of them actually happens, but this Sept 22 offers the choice between Robin Trower in Des Moines (2 hours away) or Wishbone Ash in Davenport (1 hour).

I've seen neither before but chose Trower because I think he has more musical depth. And as people said above, Wishbone has been around many times before and will always come around again. Though it always seems to be when I have a conflict.

[roylayer]

In 1976,whilst stationed in then West Germany I chose Golden Earring over Jane---(bad pick perhaps?)

I don't know. From a prog perspective, it would have been great to see Jane, but Golden Earring was a BIG band in Europe at the time and was supposedly great in concert.

[roylayer]

I've had to make a choice many times. San Fermin, my favorite new-ish band, played a small club in St. Louis on the same night that Rush played an arena show on the Clockwork Angels tour. I decided to do both. Saw most of the Rush show but left about 30 minutes before it ended to go to the San Fermin show. I've always loved Rush, but San Fermin seemed more vital and fresh. They were fantastic live! I don't regret the decision, but I am now sorry that I left during what turned out to be Rush's final tour. I missed them playing a number of their early songs that I would have certainly enjoyed. Oh well...

[loshammeros]

I don't know. From a prog perspective, it would have been great to see Jane, but Golden Earring was a BIG band in Europe at the time and was supposedly great in concert.

They WERE great in concert!!!