What was your first real gig experience....

Just want to point out that generally speaking, when you use the term "gig" it's a performance that your band or act is presenting

 

OP is English, we use 'going to a gig' to mean going to see a band.... generally speaking.

... anyway, mine was

Showaddywaddy, Portsmouth Guildhall.

My friends parents took me, I was about 8, so..... it would have been about 1977-1978

 

that's interesting, and in some contexts "gigging" means going to catch frogs, I believe

 

Rolling Stones at MSG, 1975 - I was 14.

 

First big show was Bob Dylan in Buffalo in the late 70s, it was awesome!

 

Sha-na-na in 1980! Loved the tv show, so my folks took me to a show. Still dig it from time to time and even play a few of theirs

 

Pretty cool that a lot of these first gig experiences were for serious A-List artists and bands. Zeppelin? The Beatles? Dylan? Springsteen? What a show to see!

I think my first concert was James Taylor at The Royal Albert Hall. Would have been in the 90s.

 

First live concert event, Andres Segovia, Chicago 1982
First rock concert.... Rush, Chicago 1982

 

Outside of tourist trap shows my parents took me to on various vacation destinations (most of which I’d rather forget)...

My first concert was the Georgia Satellites at Six Flags Over Texas—Arlington Senior Night 1988.

They were much better and more talented than their only radio hit...great show.

 

Emerson Lake & Palmer, World Series of Rock, Cleveland Municipal Stadium August 4, 1974. Climax Blues Band & James Gang opening. I was 14. Went to several of these shows at the stadium, including CSNY, 88,000 people in attendance.

 

Back in the late 70's and early 80's, my father used to get us front row tickets to the local fair shows through his work. I can't remember the order, but we saw Eddie Rabbit, Ronnie Milsap, Roy Clark, John Conlee, Charlie Pride, and Lee Greenwood. Somewhere in that stretch, they also took me to see Johnny Cash and Alabama.

As a teenager, my first concert I attended with friends was ZZ Top in 85 at the Montreal Forum. Good times!

 

It was a Jefferson Airplane free concert in Los Angeles at Griffith Park back in the 60's. Lot's of smokin, tokin and trippin and then damned L.A.P.D. showed up and chased us all down the road.

 

My Dad took me to see the Dubliners when I was around 10 or 11. I loved the show.

 

Doobie Brothers, a week after my 10th birthday ('80), Reunion Arena, Dallas TX. Absolute magic.

As it happens I watched their induction video to the R&R HoF last night, and boy it was something. Still love those guys like few other bands.

 

Journey at the Old Waldorf right before they hit it big. They played for an hour and then introduced their new singer, Steve Perry. They then did the entire Infinity album which hadn't been released yet. October 28, 1977.

I was 14 and was with my mother and a family friend who took us to the show. My mom was a police dispatcher, and the people sitting next to us were doing lines.

 

Chicago (formerly Transit Authority), late 1970 ... my buddies and I were high school sophomores and my Dad dropped us off at my sister's college campus.

Over the rest of high school, saw Jethro Tull (Aqualung tour), Dizzy Gillespie Big Band, Jonathan Edwards, Seals and Crofts, J. Geils Band a few times. The day I got my driver's license at 16, my girlfriend and I headed down to Boston to see Cat Stevens, arrived right at rush hour and got a big wake-up call about driving in the big city, never even made it to the venue and finally escaped out of town headed back north a few hours later with my tail between my legs!

 

Mine was Black Sabbath - Mob Rules tour at Toronto's CNE stadium. There was a thunderstorm that night which made it all the more amazing... life changing

 

My Chinese friends visited and I showed them my rig and my playing, turning my SVT all the way up for the first time. Lights in the room were blinking with my playing. Need to fix that.

Doesn't count? You know that one is the loneliest number, but two make the world go round?

 

You mentioned this recently I think. So jealous. They were absolutely it for me for a few years there between Evolution & Escape (I saw them on that tour in '81, same venue as the Doobs). Hard to describe 'San Francisco' as a mental image for me as a kid. Bullitt, Dirty Harry, Santana, Doobs, Journey, and it never really let up.

 

going to some battle of the bands to see some really good blues player that was a former student of my guitar teacher when i was like 8.

otherwise i think either bucky pizzarelli somewhere in NJ, or les paul at the iridium in NYC.

but i guess if you want to get technical, shortly before i popped out of the womb i was at a narciso yepes concert in the 80s.