First live guitar influence?

[started with 1]

Seems like many of us are on the north side of.... 40? 50? I'm officially a boomer myself.

What early concert did you see and what age were you when you attended, that influenced your guitar/music loving ways?

I saw the Band and then Yes with Peter Frampton and Gary Wright both concerts in June of 1976 when I had just turned 15 and then The Grateful Dead in September of 76 and Little Feat in 1977 and 1978.

I can't say I listen to too much "Yes" these days but the other three, The Band, the Dead and Little Feat, are still among my favorites. When choosing a new song to learn these are often my go-to catalogs.

[J Patrick]

..John Martyn...saw him at the Cellar Door in Georgetown DC in the mid 70’s....

,,,actually my electric playing was influenced by Duane and Dickey when I used to see them play in the late 60’s/early 70’s....even played a show with them the summer of 1970...at a racetrack in Martinsville VA....shortly before they hit the bigtime....

[DebbieE]

That'd be Bonnie Raitt in 1976 at Wolf Trap.

[Guildman]

Originally Posted by J Patrick

..John Martyn...saw him at the Cellar Door in Georgetown DC in the mid 70’s....

,,,actually my electric playing was influenced by Duane and Dickey when I used to see them play in the early 70’s....even played a show with them shortly before they hit the bigtime....

Now this is something to tell right here....Duane was already gone by the time I had a consciousness of who they where.

[D41Fan]

I would have to say Johnny Cash back in 1977.

[bizango1]

My first concert was Carlos Santana in a small fairgrounds venue.
Second Bruce Springsteen at Winterland.
Third was Leo Kottke with my elbow resting on the stage by his boots.

I had a pretty good start.

[bil]

Early guitar influences for me were Marshall Tucker, Elvin Bishop(with Johnnny Vernazza in the band), and old ZZ Top (pre beard).

[reeve21]

I like a lot of the same stuff as the OP, especially The Band, the Dead and Little Feat.

The player who really turned my head around way back in 1976 was Nils Lofgren. He was finger-picking a strat with a thumb pick, doing bell like harmonics and had his own sound. I was not a guitarist at the time and had no idea what he was doing, but I liked it. Then he started playing a lot of acoustic shows between his outings with Springsteen, which I really liked and continue to attend to this day. Rumor has it he will go out with a full electric band this year for the first time in about a decade. I wish I could say he was an influence, but that would be way overstating my abilities

These days my guitar influences tend towards country blues and rags, but I'm still a huge fan of Nils, Jerry Garcia and Lowell George.

[DavyM]

The Beatles, Odeon Cinema, Llandudno, North Wales, August 1963.

I was 13 and already playing bass guitar with school friends, we did rather well in later years.

My overall memory of the event was the screaming girls, although I could see the Beatles I couldn't hear them.

Even at that age we were musical snobs, my buddy had a Blues Sampler LP which we played to death. Walking The Boogie by John Lee Hooker will go with me to the grave. Beatles were for kids???

[roylor4]

Angus Young of AC/DC.
Neil Schon of Boston.

Later in life:

SRV
BB King
Muddy Waters
Carlos Santana

[woodbox]

Going to go another direction here.

It was Summer of '65, Salem Oregon, four houses away, a buddy's big brother had a connection with a regionally popular band "The Sonics".
They were from Tacoma and were playing in town for some "battle of the bands".. whatever that was.
Hey, I was 11, what did I know?

Well, I heard a racket up the street and I ran toward the noise.
From out in the front yard, me peering in through the open front door, there was my first real "live" band, playing real loud!!

My eyes were fixed on the shiny drum set, until I heard the guitar player drop into something I actually recognized from the radio.
I know now it was a cranked up distorted barre chord, probably a G or an A, sliding up a half step and back.

It was the coolest thing ever!
Don't know who the players were, or exactly how/why they were at the Echtles house in my neighborhood,
but it was my first taste of "live" guitar and it was the highlight of the Summer.
It was not only what I saw, and heard... it was a feeling.
I can still feel it.

[jaymarsch]

I remember a folk festival concert that I attended in Grant Park in Chicago around 1967 or '68. Judy Collins, Gordon Lightfoot, Joan Baez, Mimi Farina, some others. Before then, the only live concert I had ever been to was a Peter, Paul and Mary concert in 1964. Seeing Judy up there with her big dreadnaught guitar made me realize that women belonged up there on stage and could hang with the guys.

But, honestly, the live concert that inspired me the most was probably in 1975 at the Holy City Zoo in SF, around the corner from my shared flat on 6th Avenue. I heard Reilly and Malone, a Seattle-based duo. There was such intimacy and connection between the performers and the audience – that is what truly inspired me. Both Ginny and David were fine musicians and sounded great together, but it was their musicianship coupled with that living room feel that captured something that I wanted to keep experiencing and be a part of.

Best,
Jayne

[mdhttr]

The Gatlin Brothers, Six Flags Over Texas, 1978, was the first big name, and I loved their guitar/mandolin/bass and three part harmonies, but before that I have a distinct memory of being hooked by a local band playing a cover of Pure Prairie League's "Amie" in a gazebo in the Mexico section of the park.

[Johnny K]

My first concert was Ted Nugent and Alcatrazz at Merriweather Post Pavillion.

Cant really say I was influenced by either Ted or Yingwie.

I started playing before I had a real influence, but I was really into Pink Floyd as a yout, so maybe David Gilmore but I didn't do much with it.

However in 1983 I first heard Stevie Ray Vaughn on the radio. And that was it for me. Pride and Joy was OK, but it was hearing the song Texas Flood that got me hooked. The next album really cemented it as when i first heard the intro track, Scuttle Buttin, I was blown away. I had to learn to do that. I took the instrument seriously and I then went backwards from him and his influences and started a lifelong love affair with the blues that remains to this day.

[JayBee1404]

First live show where I noticed the guitarist? Cliff Richard and The Shadows at Lincoln ABC, UK, in (I think) 1961. Hank Marvin, The Shadows' lead guitarist. Set me on a road which has cost me a lot of money, and from which I've never recovered!