Grateful Dead at Buffalo Memorial Auditorium — May 9, 1977
The Grateful Dead played Buffalo Memorial Auditorium during what many fans consider the band’s finest touring year. The spring 1977 tour — which produced the legendary Cornell recording just two days later — found Garcia’s guitar at its most fluid, the jams cohesive yet exploratory, and the audience and band locked in rare communion. Buffalo […]
Reverend Horton Heat at Bridge Street Music Hall — May 8, 2003
The Reverend Horton Heat tore through Bridge Street Music Hall in East Syracuse on a tour that found the psychobilly kingpin at the height of his live-show powers. Jim Heath’s band blended rockabilly fury with punk energy in a way that still sounded dangerous in 2003, and their Syracuse fans knew every word. Bridge Street […]
Bonnie Raitt at SUNY Albany — May 7, 1978
Bonnie Raitt played SUNY Albany on the same night the Grateful Dead were across the river at RPI in Troy. A tough choice for Capital Region music fans — Raitt’s slide guitar and soulful blues on one side, Jerry Garcia’s jams on the other. Raitt was still a decade away from her commercial breakthrough with […]
Foghat at Mid-Hudson Civic Center — May 6, 1977
Foghat hit the Mid-Hudson Civic Center at the peak of their commercial power — “Slow Ride” was still working its way through rock radio and the Fool for the City album had cemented their place as FM staples. The British boogie-rockers were a ferocious live band, leaning hard into extended blues jams that turned their […]
Chubby Checker at Lucifer’s 3 — May 5, 1975
The man who started the Twist craze took the stage at Lucifer’s 3 in Utica — a small club setting that offered an unexpectedly intimate look at one of early rock and roll’s genuine legends. Chubby Checker had ridden the dance-floor revolution he sparked in 1960 through more than a decade of touring, and by […]
Rush at Rochester Community War Memorial — May 4, 1994
Rush rolled through the Rochester Community War Memorial on the Counterparts Tour — the album widely considered their heaviest, most stripped-down record since the early ’80s. Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart had always been technically unparalleled, but Counterparts stripped away the synthesizers and returned them to a rawer rock sound that electrified longtime […]
Third Eye Blind at SUNY Plattsburgh — May 3, 2003
Third Eye Blind brought their post-grunge sound to SUNY Plattsburgh in the spring of 2003, when the band was navigating the music industry changes that had upended their post-“Semi-Charmed Life” trajectory. College campuses had become the band’s natural habitat, where students who’d grown up with “Jumper” and “How’s It Going to Be” packed the hall. […]
George Carlin at Landmark Theatre — May 2, 1993
George Carlin brought his razor-sharp social commentary to the Landmark Theatre in Syracuse during a period when he was experiencing a late-career creative renaissance. His stand-up had grown darker and more philosophical since his 1970s heyday — less wordplay, more cultural dissection. The sold-out audience at this grand downtown movie palace got one of the […]
Sam Cooke at Palace Theatre — May 1, 1963
Sam Cooke brought his unmistakable voice to the Palace Theatre in the spring of 1963, just a year before his tragic death. At the height of his powers, Cooke was redefining what soul music could be — part gospel, part pop, all feeling. Albany audiences got to witness one of the most important voices in […]