The Cure at Knickerbocker Arena — September 11, 1996
On September 11, 1996, Robert Smith and The Cure brought the Wild Mood Swings tour to the Knickerbocker Arena in Albany, playing a sprawling set to a devoted Capital Region crowd. The band was more than a decade into its run as goth-pop’s most enduring institution, mixing new material like “Mint Car” with deep-catalog staples […]
Orleans at PER Ice Arena — September 10, 1976
On September 10, 1976, Orleans — the harmony-drenched rock band that formed right up the road in Woodstock — played the PER Ice Arena on the SUNY Cortland campus at the absolute peak of their career. “Still the One” had just climbed to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 that summer, an Upstate-born band […]
Bon Jovi at Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena — September 9, 1986
On September 9, 1986, Bon Jovi rolled into the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena in Binghamton on the Slippery When Wet tour — just weeks after the album that would turn them from New Jersey hopefuls into the biggest rock band in America hit shelves. “You Give Love a Bad Name” was already climbing the […]
Heart at Saratoga Performing Arts Center — September 8, 2016
On September 8, 2016, three Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acts shared one SPAC stage as the “Rock Hall Three for All” tour rolled into Saratoga — Cheap Trick opening, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts in the middle, and Heart headlining. Ann Wilson’s voice, four decades on, still detonated on “Alone,” “Crazy on You,” […]
Whitney Houston at State Fair Grandstand — September 7, 1986
On September 7, 1986, Whitney Houston brought her meteoric self-titled debut to the New York State Fair Grandstand in Syracuse — a night that found the 23-year-old singer already the biggest new voice in pop, on the road behind an album chasing history. “How Will I Know,” “You Give Good Love,” and “Saving All My […]
Sonny Rollins at Tralfamadore Cafe — September 6, 1986
By 1986, Sonny Rollins didn’t need to prove anything to anybody — the “saxophone colossus” tag had followed him since the 1950s, and he’d spent three decades as one of the last living giants of the tenor sax. That made his appearance at Buffalo’s Tralfamadore Cafe, the beloved downtown jazz room that had built its […]
John Fogerty at Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena — September 5, 1986
For over a decade after Creedence Clearwater Revival broke apart, John Fogerty barely toured — a self-imposed exile that became one of classic rock’s stranger footnotes. Then 1985’s Centerfield brought him roaring back, a surprise No. 1 comeback album that reintroduced him to a whole new generation. By the fall of 1986, with Eye of […]
Crosby & Nash at Rochester Community War Memorial — September 4, 1976
David Crosby and Graham Nash spent the mid-1970s proving they didn’t need Stills or Young to fill a room. Wind on the Water, their 1975 album, had become their commercial peak as a duo — a top-10 record anchored by Nash’s environmental title track and Crosby’s increasingly ragged, beautiful harmonies. When they rolled through Rochester, […]
Chicago at Saratoga Performing Arts Center — September 3, 1976
By September 1976, Chicago was riding the strange, transitional sound of Chicago X — a band built on horns and jazz chops suddenly scoring its way toward a very different kind of hit. “If You Leave Me Now,” the Peter Cetera ballad that would give the group its first-ever No. 1 single, was already climbing […]
Jeff Beck at Buffalo Memorial Auditorium — September 2, 1976
Jeff Beck spent 1976 proving a guitarist didn’t need a singer to matter. Touring behind Wired, he’d folded himself into the Jan Hammer Group’s jazz-fusion firepower — no frontman, no hits to recite, just pure instrumental combustion. When he brought that sound to Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, opening for the Beach Boys of all bills, the […]