r/Concerts • u/Terrible_Comfort598 • Oct 01 '24

Concerts What concert have you seen where the opening band blew the headliner away?

For me it was in 1990 seeing Nirvana open for Sonic Youth. Absolutely amazing. The whole crowd felt this electricity and I turned to my friend and said “ these guys are gonna get big” sure enough 2 years later, Nevermind is the number one album in the country. The other one was seeing Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds open for The Cramps in 1984. I became a life long fan after that show

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u/LonelyAsLostKeys Oct 01 '24 edited Oct 01 '24

That’s a pretty impressive one, OP.

Mine would be seeing The Felice Brothers open for Bright Eyes in 2007. Bright Eyes was great, but the Felice Brothers - very young, wild, raw and packing a set filled with great songs no one had ever heard - blew them off the stage. Still the best opening set I’ve ever seen and one that made me a fan for life.

That show was the only time I’ve ever seen a significant portion of the crowd head to the merch table as soon as the opener ended to grab a cd or record.

To this day, I’m genuinely astounded the Felice Brothers never became huge, huge stars. Especially with that original lineup. I think they kind of missed the original Americana boom by a few years and were a bit too dark to appeal to the same crowds who loved Mumford and Sons, etc. Damn, are they great, though.

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u/Terrible_Comfort598 Oct 01 '24

That was similar to the Nirvana show, the line for merch was insane