theoneandonlyzooid

...Speaking of which, how is Roy Thomas Baker not in the R&R HoF? Quincy Jones is in and he ain't? Look up his discography and Jones' and tell me whose is bigger and wider... I'm out, I promise.

...and The Cars at the Coliseum's collocated Music Hall to support their eponymous debut album, produced by the underappreciated Roy Thomas Baker (who also did Queen's "A Night at the Opera", amongst others)... The Cars were mesmerizing in the cozy confines of The Music Hall. Not so much a couple years later at the cold and distant Summit. Benjamin Orr was a god on vocals and bass.

...other great shows at the Agora others have not mentioned: Pat Benatar and Texas-boy Eric Johnson (strictly instrumental when I saw him, wearing a high school marching band jacket)...

I and a bandmate of mine (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) worked security at The Agora Ballroom for The Ramones show in 1980(?), opened by Legionnaire's Disease... The main thing I can tell you about Legionnare's was that their lead singer was dressed only in silver duct tape over raggedy-assed and ill-fit silver spandex pants, and spit into the open mouths of fans at stage front. Gross, but 'punk', I suppose... Backstage with The Ramones, Joey looked like he was about to keel over dead at any second. The funny-weirdest part was when their manager(?) appeared with a stack of ziploc bags containing their 'stage clothes'. So the guys all stripped down to their tighty-whities (literally), taking off their holey-kneed blue jeans and removing from each bag an identical pair of ripped-kneed blue jeans that they donned for the show. Weirdest shit I ever saw in 10 years of torture, er, my musical career. Still not sure it wasn't an elaborate prank on myself and my friend, two former Texas high school football safeties who got the job based solely on physique, not our willingness to do violence. As to the gig, The Ramones played at a break-neck pace, punctuated only by Marky's barked, "One, two, three, four!" between each number (Zippy showed up to Gabbba-Hey). I lost count at 33 "1-2-3-4"s in an hour-and-a-half set... The delirious mob (a.k.a, 'ticket holders') jumped up and down on the 5-foot tall tables in the club and wrecked the vast majority of them. The ensuing bleeding and various lacerations in the facial area were considered de rigueur at a punk show and roundly ignored. That show -- and Judas Priest at The Sam Houston Coliseum (in downtown Houston) in support of their "British Steel" album -- were the greatest live music shows I ever saw, for raw emotion and spiritual animalism; they were Herbertian Fremen orgies. I tell ya, music these days is the basest refuse compared to the greats I saw...