POX: Bands/Artists you never got to see live before they stopped performing....and wish you did.

Also Scream! Oh, Dead Kennedys, too.

Nirvana I wished for a while ago, but not anymore.

My choices are:

Husker Du
Smiths
Joy Division
XTC
Chrome
Maked City
Joni Mitchell (pre-Jazz)
Pink Floyd (maybe circa 69/70)
Gang Of Four
Rain Parade
Thin White Rope

I was between {-13, 6} years old for six of these choices, so seeing them was a literal impossibility in my lifetime, but I'm allowed to dream.

I would however give my eye teeth to have seen: Buzzcocks with Howie, The Doors, The Heartbreakers, Richard Hell & The Voidoids, Magazine (just can't understand how I managed to fail to see them!) MC5, Charles Mingus, NY Dolls, Pink Floyd with Syd, The Stooges, Television with Richard Hell, Velvet Underground, and most of all CAPTAIN BEEFHEART.

Art Bears
Bothy Band
Miles Davis
Gang of Four
Henry Cow
Joy Division
Led Zeppelin
Malicorne
Plastic People of The Universe
Soft Machine (with Robert Wyatt)

Black Flag
Opal
Devo
Pixies
PiL
Roxy Music
Bauhaus
Gang of Four
Gun Club
The Clash

Old enough, but not my fault:
Joy Division

----------------

Band I feel lucky to have seen:
Minutemen
Replacements
Husker Du
..(The holy trinity)!
fIREHOSE
The Who
Scrawl

Bands that I better go see before someone dies:
(none)

- Red Hot Chili Peppers with Hillel (on the Freaky Styley tour)
- fIREHOSE
- Julian Cope circa Peggy Suicide
- The Wedding Present (too many times)
- Cop Shoot Cop (likewise)
- The Damned reunion with both Brian James and Capt. Sensible onstage.
- My Bloody Valentine circa Loveless
- Beastie Boys/Run-DMC circa Raising Hell/License to Ill
- Public Enemy (opening for Sisters of Mercy at Radio City Music Hall)
- Husker Du
- Black Flag
- Guns'n'Roses (I was at the "You Could Be Mine" video shoot at the New Ritz)
- Devo three times

But there are definite benefits to being old. I saw the Clash in 1982 -- and they were wired to the max! Naa-naa-naa-naa-naaaaaa-naa!
Dave, OTM about the Holy Trinity. I too was fortunate to have seen all three (the Mats still being the best show ever for me), including D. Boon only a month before he was killed.
Other memorable acts I was happy to have seen: Violent Femmes, Aztec Camera, Johnny Cash; Talking Heads "Stop Making Sense" tour; X; the Feelies; Warren Zevon; Beat Farmers in a hell-raising show where Country Dick got banned permanently from the club; the Blasters; Del-Lords; Black Flag; Pixies; Police; Ramones; Squeeze; the Pogues with Shane; the Pogues with Strummer; Let's Active; etc, etc.

(one of the support acts were The Nips with Shane McGowan)

I tried to go and see Roy Orbison at the Mean Fiddler in North London many moons ago but, after getting a tube all the way up there from Clapham, it was sold out and I said to a friend of mine on the way home "I bet he bloody dies now"

i don't know that i'll ever get to with things the way they are now for the band.

I guess I POIII'd - I can't think of ten...

Can I make you jealous and say I saw that show? Both opening for Soundgarden? It was the A&M rockfest that spring.

-Minutemen on their final tour; the Dead Kennedys were playing the same weekend in Chicago (different night), but I was in college in Indiana at the time and so could only afford to drive in once and I ended up seeing the DKs. D. Boon died just a month or two later.

-Jeff Buckley at the Green Mill in Chicago. I loved his dad's music, but hadn't yet heard him.

-MBV @ the Metro on the Loveless tour.

Bands in this thread that I was lucky enough to see, or not:

GG Allin
Slint (several)
The Clash (twice)
Black Flag
Butthole Surfers
Scratch Acid
Nirvana
The Who (twice, on their first "final tour" in '82)
Roth-era Van Halen
Big Black (several)
Rapeman (ditto)
Pavement (tons)
'Mats (several)
Nation of Ulysses
Jesus Lizard (several)

Those mentioned that were a disappointment:
Led Zeppelin (one of my faves but their show at the Capital Center in the late 70's was a dud)
Minutemen
GG Allin (he's still dead after all these years)
fIREHOSE

I saw them twice, on the tours for Doppleganger and Cuckoo. They were fine, but not earth-shattering.

Some more: The La's, Kitchens of Distinction, Ride, Seefeel, Nirvana, Johnny Cash, John Lee Hooker (had a ticket once, but the show was cancelled - he died the following year)

my lucky enough to c's

P-Funk at the Apollo w/ Bootsy(80)
The Clash (five times 78-82)
Gang of Four (three times 80-82)
Sonic Youth/Swans (multiple 82-83)
Sonic's Rendezvous Band (12-15 times 77-80)
Cheap Trick (in a bar 77)
The Who w/ Keith Moon (75)
Echo & the Bunnymen (81-84 always superb)
Flipper (until Jim Fouratt pulled the plug 82)
Black Flag
Minutemen
Sun Ra
Glenn Branca w/ Thurston & Lee
Art Ensemble of Chicago (77)
DNA (multiple 81-82)
Trouble Funk (at the Roxy 82 w/ Zulu Nation DJs)
Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five
Run DMC/Beastie Boys/LL Cool J/Whodini MSG 84 (85?)
Public Enemy at Riker's Island 88 (press pass!)

Never saw the Pixies, or Cheap Trick. Would've liked to 've caught Gram Parsons...a bit too young for him too.

Can, definitely.

Patsy Cline (way too young for her).

Hendrix, Miles Davis, Sly...Joe Tex.

I did get to see Beefheart once, though, in Nashville, which is an experience I'll always treasure. And Del Shannon.

I also treasure my Beefheart memory, in Detroit 1980.

As for me, The Smiths was a near miss of a lifetime. And Jeff Buckley, but then he almost goes without saying.

I've seen Throwing Muses more times than any other band ever.

I saw them twice - once in Fresno in 1988 when I was only maybe 10 or 20 rows back from the stage and they were awesome, and then a few years later at a big ampitheater in LA for one of their annual Halloween shows, from high up in the cheap seats.

Also, another vote for the Birthday Party, and Big Black. Also Cows, and Circus Lupus.

I did see the last Swans tour (rather by accident, we went to see Low open, but one hell of a show..), and saw the Afghan Whigs as well, though I wish it had been circa Congregation/Gentlemen.

Bands I could have seen but didn't:
Black Flag, on their tour with Venom, my ride flaked - he kicked himself for years about it
Flipper / Bad Brains, same story
The Residents, '89, stupidly didn't buy advance tickets, but I did see Penn Jillette walking around outside Alice Tully Hall
PJ Harvey, CBGBs, first US tour

Bands I saw but wish I had seen prior to '87:
The Fall
Swans
Sonic Youth
Live Skull

Bands I'm glad I saw:
Butthole Surfers, the '88 - '90 shows in NYC were craazee, those shows have never been topped
Suckdog & Costes, various '88 - '90
Cop Shoot Cop, probably as many times as Alex in NYC
Public Enemy, opening for N.W.A. on the Straight Outta Compton tour, although my enjoyment of Ice Cube et al was disturbed by the riot that broke out
Rhys Chatham, final performance of Die Donnergotter @ CBGBs, 1989
My Bloody Valentine, '89, then missed them on the Loveless tour, sadly
Monster Magnet, many times between '90 - '93, saw them on my 21st birthday at The Brighton Bar in Long Branch, NJ performing "Tab" as MM25
Johnny Cash, '92, before Rubin got his hooks in, like listening to a bottomless well croak Americana, he came out to the merch table after the show and became the only musician I've ever asked for an autograph
Huggy Bear, '94, final tour, a fierce godless racket
Dog Faced Hermans, '94, final tour, what depth, on every level... a fucking incredible band
Patti Smith, '96, after Fred Sonic Smith's death when she came roaring out of retirement
Wu-Tang Clan, '97, opening for Rage ATM of all people
P-Funk, '97, funk like a punch to the solar plexus
The Butchies, '98 in a garage in Murfreesboro TN, made me think maybe punk's not dead after all
Uzeda, '98, brutal + unyielding, Albini wishes Shellac was this hard
Portishead, '98, rare for an electronic act to come off as good (if not better) than their albums
Cat Power, '99 - '01 saw her several times and she never freaked out, just lucky I guess, though I missed her tour w/ Tim Foljhan & Steve Shelley
Lightning Bolt / Six Finger Satellite, Y2K @ Fort Thunder, Providence RI, a weird and wonderful evening, Fort Thunder we hardly knew ye...

Bands I saw before they hit the big time:
Nirvana, opening for Tad at Maxwells in '89, interviewed them even
Live (the band), at the Brighton Bar in '92 or '93
The Offspring, '93, Trenton NJ
Outkast, '97, Nashville TN

Legends I found disappointingly blah live, sometimes in spite of loving their music:
Diamanda Galas
Foetus
Killdozer
Sonic Youth
Galaxie 500
Rapeman
Jesus Lizard
Sleater Kinney

Do The Ex still tour?

-- peepee (citywideva...), February 6th, 2004.

I saw one of these since!
(And hopefully another later this year)

Who?

Yay! Hope they play here.

Plans to see Zeppelin in '77 were foiled by near-riot at mall when tickets went on sale & lack of connections / $ thereafter, and I am permanently furious that I skipped MBV in '92; but having gotten to see bands like Slade, the Knack, Big Black, and Dead C (not together) takes the edge off the chagrin some.