Artists you saw before you realized they were awesome

And they still haven't.

 

I don't like the term 'artist' for musician/performer.
Based on the intent of the thread, I saw Phish as the Chestnut Cabaret. The first of many times I saw them.
I was already a big fan, but I never would have guessed at the time that they would have enough of an audience for arenas and stadiums.

 

Saw Dave Matthews Band play the New Daisy in Memphis and then at Trees in Dallas, right before they hit it big.

I knew a couple of guys who were in Carrie Underwood's band when she was a teenager. We'd go watch her local shows, just to see them - not the kid singing.

 

Here's one i didn't see.

I hung out in my dorm one night rather than go to a free concert because I'd never heard of Jimmy Buffett.

 

Alamo blows Q out of the water but whatevs.

 

Anyway ... Radiohead at the old 930 Club in D.C., the one on F Street. Bandbox venue. Killer, killer show.

My first Isbell experience was right after Southeastern came out, at the Charleston Pour House in South Carolina. Another dive bar. Such a high energy show.

 

I don't know much about the Lawrence scene, but I was at a used record shop in my hometown (E. Lansing, Mich.) in 1995 and they were playing a really great CD over the loudspeaker. I asked who it was. They said it was a band from Lawrence called the "L.A. Ramblers." I bought the CD and played it a lot. But I lost it and I can't find many references to them online at all, much less any of their music. Are you familiar with them?

 

Somewhat current for the Canuckleheads on here given that Gord just died, saw The Tragically Hip about 40 times before they made it big.

I was bouncing in the Student Union pub at my university and they were playing all week. After the first night I called all of my friends and said they had to check them out.

GnR opened for The Cult and were terrible. I was in LA a year later and they had blown up. Buddy and I recognized Welcome to the Jungle and were stunned that it was big.

 

Seconded.

 

Hard to imagine the 930 Club being on F Street these days...

 

I recall seeing the Hip and Blue Rodeo around Toronto in their early days and the Barenaked Ladies were always playing somewhere. I saw the Gunners open for The Cult in Kitchener.

 

Not really familiar with them. By the time I was old enough to go to clubs there the local music scene was a shell of what it once was. When I was in college the Outhouse was a strip club, but a few years before that it was a music venue that was somehow getting bands before they got famous such as Nirvana, Green Day, Tool, Social Distortion, The Flaming Lips, the list goes on and on.