1981-1983

25. The Outlaws and Lisa Gilkyson. $8.10 (service charge was now 60cents!)Tingley Coliseum, Albuquerque, New Mexico 1/18/81

I did not know that much about the Outlaws but they used to play Green Grass and High Tides on the radio and that was a great song so we decided to go. We also liked a lot of other southern rock bands like Blackfoot, Molly Hatchet, Point Blank, and Lynryd Skynryd. Lisa Gilkyson was some country rock chick. I don't think we cared for her much. The Outlaws were a bit boring at times but they did have some awesome jams!!

26. Molly Hatchet and Commander Cody. $8.60
Civic Auditorium, Albuquerque, New Mexico 2/22/81.

I don't recall much about Commander Cody at all. Molly Hatchet were touring the Flirtin' with Disaster tour and played more than half the lp. They once again were very loud with all those Pevey amps cranked up! They sure did know how to jam!!

27. RUSH and....... $9.60 Tingley Coliseum, Albuquerque, New Mexico 4/5/81

We got to the show early and had a great seat on the left side in the section right off the floor. I had my tape recorder this time!! I don't recall if there was an opening act or not? They had a lot of trouble with people being crushed on the barrier and Geddy even had to say something about it and sort of stop the show for a few minutes. Rush were quite good again even though I did not really like Moving Pictures all that much. A lot of Gilbert and I talking on this tape... Quality of the tape was really good though.. They had a better visual show this time than last but musically were not as good.

Set List: 2221, Freewill, Limelight, Hemispheres-Prelude, Beneath between Behind, The Camera Eye, YYZ Drums solo>YYZ, Trees, Xanadu, Spirit of Radio, Red Barchetta, Closer to the Heart, Tom Sawyer, Vital Signs, Natural Science, Working Man-Blues, Hemispheres>By Tor and the snow Dog, Epiloque, In the Mood, The Grand Finalle, La Villa Strangiato

28. Nazereth and Krokus. $8.10 Civic Auditorium, Albuquerque, New Mexico 5/15/81.

Krokus were touring the Hardware lp which was a great lp. We went to the show mainly to see them. I had heard that Nazareth were ok the year before when they came with Frank Marino but that Frank totally blew they off the stage!! I am still bummed I missed that show.... Anyway, back to Krokus.. They were really great and energetic.. The Hardware songs were really good and the ones from Metal Rendezvous jammed as well. We were hooked on Krokus after that show!! I recall Nazareth has some cool songs but were not that good anymore...

29. Judas Priest, Humble Pie and IRON MAIDEN!!! $8.50 County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 6/5/81

At this point in time we were totally into Maiden. I remember when we bought the Sanctuary 7" and a few weeks later picked up the first lp at Natural Sound on Menual. This was awesome stuff!! Now Killers was out and this was the closest Maiden was coming so we had to go to the show. We found the Holiday Inn which was only a couple of miles from the Country Coliseum and sure enough Maiden was staying there!! I met and got Steve Harris's autograph!! He was very cool. We would go back to this hotel on many occasions and get Def Leppard, Krokus, and others autographs in 1982! Anyway, we were totally psyched for maiden and they were fuckin' great. It was hot as hell in the Coliseum. It was a great 35 minute set. Humble Pie were a bit out of sorts on this bill but they jammed a couple of heavy rockers.

Judas Priest were touring the Point of Entry lp. I remember that the band came up from behind the stacks on risers with a lot of smoke. They played some great new songs like Heading out on the highway and Solar Angels.... They were great again and did not disappoint. It was well worth the five hour drive from Albuquerque.

30. Ozzy Osbourne and MOTORHEAD!! $8.50 County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 6/5/81

We just got lucky that we got to go to this one. Gilbert and his dad and me and my dad went down to Las Cruces, New Mexico for the summer orientation before we started at New Mexico State University in August. We knew about the concert and wanted to go really badly. It turns out that we met this cool guy named Robert Fowlie that day who was also at the orientation and from Albuquerque. Well, the orientation let out at 7 pm and the show was to start at 7:30 so we hauled ass down there. When we arrived and found parking you could here Motorhead from about 1/4 mile away. It was that loud!!! We ran up to the ticket gate with the tape recorder in my hand. The music was so loud that you could not talk at all to the ticket person and we went in straight away. We only caught the last 5 songs by motorhead but I think we heard 8 total. Fucking great!! After they were over we went to the side of the stage and spoke with Philthy and Lemmy. I got Lemmy's autograph but I can't find it now.... We were really psyched as we had been playing Ace of Spades and No Sleep til Hammersmith to death!!

This was Ozzy's first tour with Randy Rhoades and Ozzy was awesome!! He only played about 70 minutes but we really liked it. We had been listening to the blizzard of OZZ a lot also so we were familiar with most all of the songs he played except the ones that would be on the 2nd lp. Randy was great. It would be the first of three times getting to see Randy Rhoades play live. I recorded this show and it came out quite well.

The set list was:

I don't Know, Crazy Train, Believer, Mr. Crowley, Flying High Again
Revelation Mother Earth, Steal Away, Drum Solo, Suicide Solution
-guitar solo (randy), Suicide Solution, Iron Man, Children of the Grave, Paranoid

31. ZZTOP, Loverboy and Point Blank. Albuquerque Sports Stadium, Albuquerque, New Mexico 7/12/81

This was the first outdoor show I had ever seen. It started in the afternoon and we had got in a bunch of Moosehead beer. We had pretty decent seat in the stands straight back. Too far to see any details of the band though (this was the days before the big projection screens!!). Point Blank were quite good but played a short set. We hated Loverboy. It was that commercial rock crap. They were really popular with the women though, but we still hated them.

ZZTOP came on in the evening and were really great! This was the El Loco tour. We were quite drunk by this time but it was a good show. They had some cool green lasers that they shot off into the sky and over the heads of the crowd. No idea how long they played. Great show by ZZ TOP.

32. Jefferson Starship and 38 Special $10.10 Tingley Coliseum, Albuquerque, New Mexico 7/25/81

We mainly went to this show to see 38 Special as I had got the Rockin' into the Night lp as a promo and it was really good. Never did like the direction the band went after that lp though. They were quite good. We really enjoyed them and I got a great recording. This was my first recording with my new AIWA- TPS-30 stereo recorder. my friend Greg Anderson had bought one and it worked great so I had to have one also!! Was still recording shows with it up until 1996! Anyway, the set list was:

Jefferson Starship was a band I did not know much at all but they were playing Jane on the radio a lot and that was a cool song. They played some great songs by the Airplane and a lot of stuff of the new lp, which was the last lp I ever liked by the Starship, they got too commercial after that. Craig, the lead guitar player could rip it up if he wanted to and he did a few times. I only got about 60 minutes of the show. The set list was:

33. UFO and Iron Maiden. $9.75 Long Beach Arena, Long Beach, California 8/4/81

I was lucky to get to see this show, which turns out was the last show ever in the US of Iron Maiden with Paul Dianno! I was back in California visiting my friend Jon Tindel, whom was my best friend from California. We used to spend countless hours playing dungeons and dragons and he had made the most incredible worlds. We also played a lot of other role games.. Anyway, Iron Maiden were incredible and got to play a longer set than when I saw them in El Paso. They did a great version of Drifter, a tune that was never released in the US (at this time). We were way up in the rafters in the left had side but I had binoculars (and tape recorder!) and could see fine and the sound was quite good. It turns out this was the very last US show with Paul Dianno in the band.

The set list was: Ides of March, Sanctuary, Wrathchild, Killers, Another Life, Murders in the Rue Morque, Running Free, Phantom of the Opera, Iron Maiden, Drifter,

This was my first time to see UFO and this was the Wild, The Willing and the Innocent tour. A pretty damn good lp at the time but not as good as Mechanix! Anyway, I was really blown away. Pete Way was a mad man and Paul Chapman, although no Michael Schenker, really was great.
The set list was: The Wild the willing and Innocent, Only you can rock me, Long Gone, Lonely Heart, Cherry, No Place to Run, Love to Love, Makin' Moves, Mystery Train, Too Hot to Handle, Lights Out, Rock Bottom, Doctor Doctor

34. Foghat, Danny Joe Brown and The Rods. $9.50 County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 8/27/81

This was our first concert in El Paso after starting college! We were really amazed that the Rods were on the bill. We loved their first lp and they put on a great show! It was too bad that they only played 30 minutes. I recall that the guitar player acted a lot like Ted Nugent and jammed pretty hard as well. I recorded them and the set list was: Get Ready to Rock and Roll, ?, Crank it Up, Too hot to Stop, drum solo, Power Lover.

Danny Joe Brown had left Molly Hatchet and went solo. His new stuff was a bit country like and we did not care too much for him and were a bit disappointed. I did record them but I recorded over it at some point...

Foghat were touring the Tight Shoes lp which we had not heard but they were so good one the Boogie Motel tour.. Ends up the new material was crap and they played a lot of it.. They did play some great songs though proving the could still jam. My batteries died and so I only got 40 minutes of the set which was:

Stone Blue, My Babe, 8 days on the Road, Wide Boy, Fool for the City
Into the hot Zone, Honey Hush, 3rd Time Lucky

35. Triumph, Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush, and Riot. $8.50 County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 9/19/81

I was so psyched up to see this show. I had never seen Frank Marino and was still bummed about missing him the year before. We were jamming Power of Rock and Roll and were really psyched up. Riot was a band we were into since the first record and Fire Down Under was for sure their best one. Triumph had the new Allied Forces lp out which was not nearly as good as Progressions of Power but it had it's moments. I was a bit bummed that the microphone was turned off so all the recordings were really muffled. I was surprised it worked at all but I was able to salvage a recording for all the bands from the tapes.

Riot were amazingly great!! Excellent set of tunes from all their lps but mainly focusing on the new one. The set list was: Swords and Tequilla, Fire Down Under, Alter of the King, Don't hold Back, Overdrive>drums solo>Overdrive, Outlaw, Road Racin', Rock City

Frank Marino was incredible and played for about 70 minutes. Turns out he played longer than Triumph who played a wimpy 65 minute set. Frank just jammed so hard.. It was amazing to watch him. We were on the balcony at the back of the hall but had binoculars and I was watching him the whole time. Awesome!!

The set list was: You got Livin', Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Play my Music, Running Wild, Johnny B Goode, Who do ya Love, Drum solo>guitar solo>
Electric Reflections of War, Church Anthem, Something's coming our Way, Roadhouse Blues

To the day this is still the only live Frank Marino tape I have from the Power of Rock and Roll tour. If any one out there has more please let me know as I think it was one of this all time best records as far as guitar playing.

Triumph played a really short set and most of it was quite excellent. Their first two records are still great classics of rock! It was a pity they got so bad after this lp. The set list was: Tear the Roof Off, American Girls, Lay it on the Line, Allied Forces, Blinding Light show, Rock and Roll Machine>Guitar solo>Fingertalkin, Takes Time, Rocky Mountain Way, Hot time in El Paso Tonight.

36. Van Halen and G-Force. $10.50 County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 10/7/81

No, this was not Gary Moore's G Force, but some awful glam pop band. The crowd was not into them at all and I hated them. This would be the last time I ever saw Van Halen. They were touring the Fair Warning lp and I really did not care for it at all but Gilbert really wanted to see them and I figured they would still be pretty good, boy was I wrong.. The problem was that they just fucked around so much.. Tons of crap speeches to get the audience going and everyone in the band had a 5-10 minutes solo. Ends up they were on stage for like 105-110 minutes but only played like 12 songs. this is a band whose songs are like 3-4 minutes long.. I never liked Van Halen after this.... The set list was:

37. Pat Benatar and David Johnansen $7.00 Pan American Center, Las Cruces, New Mexico 10/18/81

This was my first concert at the university basketball arena. It was not a bad place to see a show at all. The smaller shows I would see in the future where they only used half of the place were the best though. Gilbert and I went to this one. This was back when Pat Benatar was still rocking pretty hard. As I recall we did not get into David Johansson that much at all. Pat Benatar had the crowd in the palm of her hand. They really loved it and were very loud. I got an excellent recording as everyone was really quiet during the playing.
The set was:

38. Blackfoot and Def Leppard $8.50 County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 11/17/81

This was a great show. Def Leppard were touring their 2nd lp (the last good one. I hated them after that) and were really excellent. We had loved them the year before and High and Dry was another really good lp. They played for about 45 minutes. I did not record shows at the Country Coliseum at first because there was a heavy search but I learned later on and would record quite a lot of shows there.

Blackfoot were touring the Tomcattin' lp still (I think) and were really hot. These guys were just great live. Not that many live tapes by the band exist it seems...

Anyway, after the show we headed over to the Holiday Inn and sure enough the guys in Def Leppard were there and we got to talk to them and get their autographs. I got the drummers (who would later loose his arm), Joe Elliot and Pete, but not Steve (who died of an OD). They seemed like cool guys, little did we know that they would turn really commercial and we would hate them.

39. Ozzy Osbourne and The Starfighters $8.60 Tingley Coliseum, Albuquerque, New Mexico 1/7/82

This show happened while we were back home in Albuquerque for Christmas break. The Starfighters, a band from England, I believe, were really excellent. Our friend John had their lp and I owned one of their 7" records, so we were familiar with their AC/DC like sound. Good band. They only played for 30 minutes though. The set list was:

Ozzy had a really cool stage set up and a huge light show compared to the first tour less than a year earlier. Ozzy's voice was showing the wear of the road though as he really had a lot of trouble on the high notes and was cracking a lot. Randy was really smoking. He was just a great guitar player. I feel very lucky that we got to see him three times. The set list was:

Diary of a Madman, Over the Mountain, Mr. Crowley, Crazy Train, Revelation Mother Earth, Steal Away, Suicide Solution
Guitar solo/Instrumental, Drum Solo, Goodbye to Romance, I Don't Know, No Bone Movies*, Believer, Flying High Again, Children of the Grave, Paranoid
* rarely played

40. Foreigner and Brian Adams. $11.00 Pan American Center, Las Cruces, New Mexico 2/10/82

Suprised to see Brian Adams opening for Foreigner. He of course would later become bigger than they ever were. I did not like him at all. The girls seem to really dig him though. Foreigner were actually quite good playing most of their best songs from the first two records. I got a pretty good tape of this show as well. The set list was:

41. Ozzy Osbourne and UFO $9.50 County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 2/23/82

We were really happy to see UFO opening the show, as we loved the Mechanix lp. It was a great record and really let Chapman show off a bit. UFO's sound was less than ideal this night and Phil Moog was really pretty fucked up! He even screwed up the words on one or two songs that night. The set list was:

OZZY played nearly the identical show to what we had just seen except he did not play No Bone Movies. I think his voice was maybe a bit better in El Paso but the show was very similar. Great again though. Ozzy was such a great performer. I was never disappointed with any of his shows. The set list was:

Diary of a Madman, Over the Mountain, Mr. Crowley, Crazy Train, Revelation Mother Earth, Steal Away, Suicide Solution
Guitar solo/Instrumental, Drum Solo, Goodbye to Romance, I Don't Know, Believer, Flying High Again, Children of the Grave, Paranoid

42. Molly Hatchet and Lightning. $9.50 County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 3/11/82

This was the first time for us to see Molly Hatchet without Danny Joe Brown and I thought that they were better than ever! I really liked the new singer a lot and thought and still do, that Beatin' the Odds was the best lp that they ever put out. It was a great show. I don't remember anything about Lightning at all. Molly Hatchet really jammed hard tough and the new songs were great live. The set list was:

43. KROKUS and Presence. $8.75 County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 4/19/82

This was the first time to see Krokus headline and they were quite excellent. We had good seats on the left side of the place and I bought a cool Krokus leather studded wrist band! This was the One Vice at a Time tour and they played a good selection of the old and the new. The set list was:

44. BLACK SABBATH and the Outlaws. $9.50 Tingley Coliseum, Albuquerque, New Mexico 5/9/82

This was the first time for us (Gilbert and I) to see Black Sabbath. They had put tickets on sale in Albuquerque in 1981 at the Civic and we had tickets but the show was cancelled because Bill Ward quit the band. They were even in town, as I was told by a friend that worked at the Firehouse that he saw some of the band head up to the Sandia Peak on the tram!

Anyway, we were really psyched as Mob Rules was a great record and we liked Heaven and Hell a lot as well. The Outlaws were not really in place at this show but had a good following in Albuquerque as southern rock was pretty popular with most people into rock music.

We had a seat on the left hand side towards the back, which was not great and Tingley often had sound problems before the renovations in 1988. The show was really muddy sounding and loud as hell. They were really good though but we wanted a longer show.
The set list was:

45. UFO and Aldo Nova. $8.50 Civic Auditorium, Albuquerque, New Mexico 5/27/82.

I remember being bummed because neither Greg or I got our tape recorders into the show. The search at the Civic was really unreal. I remember they put everyone up against the wall and made you spread your legs and did a heavy police type search so it was nearly impossible to get a recorder into this arena.

Aldo Nova was Aldo Nova. He was not that great but not that bad either. He had a couple of songs that he really played some good guitar but was nothing special.

UFO were great! Phil did not seem as fucked up and we had great seats on the balcony. They were able to play more songs than when they opened for Ozzy. They played one or two more new ones and then all the classics of course! Too bad we did not get a tape of this one.

46. 38 Special, Prism, and Franky Miller. $9.50 Tingley Coliseum, Albuquerque, New Mexico 5/9/82

I don't recall who the hell Franky Miller were. 38 Special were alright but not great. I did record this show but I never did figure out the full set list. This was at a time when 38 Special had a couple of commercial hits out so they drew a crowd. The singer actually fell off the stage at one point into the barrier area and it ended up we heard afterwards that he sprained his leg pretty good. I also know some people who partied with these guys after the show and I they party pretty hard, lots of booze and drugs.

47. TED NUGENT and Blackfoot. $9.50 Tingley Coliseum, Albuquerque, New Mexico 7/25/82

Gilbert and I went to this show together and it was a great show. Blackfoot were really great and the new songs Good Morning and Fly Away were excellent. Blackfoot always got a good crowd response in Albuquerque. I think it was right before Highway Song that some people were starting up a fight near the stage Rick Medlocke would not put up with it and yelled for them to stop it right now or the show would not continue. It was pretty intense for a few moments. They did continue of course. Their set list was:

Gimme Gimme Gimme, On the Run, Wishing Well, Everyman Should Know, Fly Away, Good Morning, Too hot to Handle, Train Train,
Highway Song

Ted was really great also. He had a lot of energy and played most all the classics that we wanted to hear as well as some interesting new songs. Ted was and is still a great live performer! The set list was:

48. SCORPIONS, Iron Maiden and Girlschool. County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 8/18/82

What can you say about this show! It was fucking amazing and we were so psyched. Gilbert, John and I drove down to this show. We loved Girlschool and listened to their first two lps a lot. This was their first tour of the US and last one with kelly johnson on lead guitar. The band actually got a bit more commercial and went down hill after she left, but that is besides the point. They were great!!! They only played for 30 minutes though.

I remember that Iron Maiden came out and Bruce just said, "Hello El Paso, we are Iron Maiden", and they started right up. It was the Number of the Beast Tour and they were great. They played about 50 minutes. This was the bands last US show as they had to catch a plane to England to headline the Reading Festival (which my friend Greg was actually at and recorded a lot of the bands!!). Bruce did take enough time to sign a tour program that I sent off to my penpal Debs Johnson in the UK.

The Scorpions put on a great show as well. It turned out that we really liked the Blackout lp quite alot. It also turns out that this would be the last lp by them that I would ever buy as they took such a turn for the worse... Being one of my fave bands from the 70's to see them go the direction they did really pained me.. Anyway, the concert was great. And we would see it two more times as the Scorpions did not change their set at all. The set was:

BLACKOUT, Don't make no Promises, Loving you Sunday morning
Make it Real, Lovedrive, Coast to Coast, Animal magnetism, Holiday
No one like you, Can't live without You, He's a Woman, She's a Man
Dynamite, The Zoo, Another Piece of Meat, I can't get Enough

I was really disappointed that they only played He's a woman out of all their lps from the 70's. They could have at least played We'll Burn the Sky or Pictured Life.. I think this was the last tour anything from the 70's was performed.... They were quite heavy though.

49. SCORPIONS and Girlschool. Tingley Coliseum, Albuquerque, New Mexico 8/20/82

No Iron Maiden this time and pretty much the exact show by both bands but this time I recorded the show. We had a really good time as well. Robert went with us and from that point on he was a big Girlschool fan. Great show. Same set lists as above.

50. Scorpions and Girlschool. Veterans Memorial Stadium, Phoenix, AZ 8/28/82

You may ask why did we drive out to Phoenix to see this one? Well, the rumor had it that Saxon was the opening act, so we had to go! Gilbert, Robert and I piled into gilbert's white VWBug. I remember we had trouble with it overheating on the way back. Anyway, it was the NWOBHM that we were totally into and we had never seen Saxon. Their records were released here so it would have been a good time for them to play, but they were not at the gig. Girlschool, despite not getting as good as a crowd response in Albuquerque, came back out for an encore (to spite the crowd!) and did a song that they did not play either of the two times we saw them.

Again the Scorpions were good but I was getting a bit tired of hearing the same set. It did allow me to focus on other aspects of the band since I had seen them twice on this tour. As I recall the set was identical as the previous two shows.

51. Joe Perry Project Pan American Center, Las Cruces, New Mexico 9/1/82

Something tells me that this was a free show but maybe not. Joe had a new singer and a new lp which we did not have. Dave, who was a friend of ours who was involved in setting up the concerts at NMSU said that he had never seen anyone smoke so much pot backstage as Joe Perry, that the dressing room was a huge cloud of smoke! I don't think that Joe was nearly as fucked up as when we saw him at the Kimo theatre. We did not like the new singer much at all but they still jammed a great set of music. The set was something like:
Toys in the Attic, Arrogance, Heartbreak Hotel, Once a Rocker, Always.., Goin' Down, Buzz Buzz, Black Velvet Pants, I've got the Rock and Rolls, East Coast West Coast, Let the Music do the Talking

52. JUDAS PRIEST, Krokus and The Rods. $10.00 County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 9/3/82

This was one killer concert!! The RODS were touring their 2nd lp which was a killer (Wild Dogs) and were great but only played for 30 minutes. Krokus, we had seen headline only a few months back and they played a trimmed down set but were still quite good. We had brought some rum into this show so we all had a pretty good buzz going, especially Robert who was quite drunk! This was the Screaming for Vengeance tour and that lp totally kicked ass. It has some really heavy tunes on it. This would be the last time I saw Priest. I was a bit disappointed with all the records after this one. Anyway, they put on a great show. HEAVY!!!! I recorded the Rods and Judas Priest. The set list were:

53. George Thorogood and the Destroyers $5.00 Corbett Center Ballroom, New Mexico State university, Las Cruces, New Mexico 10/15/82

I don't recall what got us into wanting to try and make a fake ticket but we were able to replicate a pretty good version of the real ticket by making a photocopy and using a colored marker to get it pretty close to the right color. It was enough to get us in. This was a hot show. I remember that George just jammed what seemed like all night long. I am pretty sure he played for close to three hours and did a bunch of encores. A lot of Chuck Berry tunes and boy did he have Chuck's moves down!! We all had a lot to drink at the dorms before this show and just walked down the hill to the show. It was a good time.

54. Aprilwine and Uriah Heep $11.50 County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 11/5/82

This was our first attempt to make a fake Ticketmaster ticket. Since most of the tickets at this time were yellow, it turns out that the highlighters that we used for our classes were pretty close in color to the tickets. Well, I photocopied the real ticket and did my job. It worked!!! Uriah Heep were touring the Abominmog tour (great lp cover!) and were quite good. The guitar player, Mick, actually has a ranch in Las Cruces New Mexico with a large rod iron guitar in the front, so this was sort of a home town gig for him. I heard that there was a big party out there after the show! They were pretty good and really loud as I recall. Aprilwine, put on a good show. They had an interesting stage set up with the drummer way up top in the middle and two ramps running down the side from there in which the band would roam and play. Aprilwine were getting a lot of airplay with a few songs and played a good selection of stuff from Nature of the Beast and Harder Faster, as well as a few new songs from Power Play, which was disappointing lp after Nature of the Beast which was a great record. NOt a bad show for free!

55. ZZTOP, Tommy Totone and Rose Tattoo! $10.50 Tingley Coliseum, Albuquerque, New Mexico 1/1/83

I was amazed that Rose Tattoo had come to the US. John had turned us onto them and I really liked some of their songs a lot. They played a quick 30 minute set but were excellent! I remember that Angry Anderson drank 6 Heineken darks in their 30 min set and I don't think I had ever seen anyone do that! We dug them. Tommy Totone was awful and the crowd was not into him at all but he still hung in there and played 40 minutes. ugh.......

ZZTOP were still touring the El loco lp and put on another smoking show! As I recall, they played a similar set as when we saw them in the summer of 82', but we were not drunk this time and had a better view.. I still don't know why I never recorded the band any of the three times I saw them in the early 80's.........

56. HEAD EAST and Off the Wall. $5.00 Blondie's, El Paso, Texas 1/13/83

Off the Wall were a local El Paso rock band who were really nice guys and not too bad. I think they put out their own independent record at some point??? Not too bad. Blondie's was a small bar in El Paso and the smallest place I had ever seen a show at this point, except maybe the Kimo. I don't recall much about this one but I think they were pretty good.

57. Aerosmith and Pat Travers. $10.50 County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 1/14/83

During the 70's Aeromsith was one of my fave bands along with Ted Nugent, CCR, and Elton John. This was the first time for me to see them. Of course, Joe Perry was not in the band but I thought that they were still really quite good with Jimmy Crespo. Anyway, we had not seen Pat Travers since 79' and his lps were getting worse and worse. He still played a lot of the songs we really liked like Boom boom and Snortin' Whiskey, but some of these new songs with keyboards were pretty bad. Still Pat Thrall could really rip on the guitar...

Don't recall any details about Aerosmith except they were loud and the sound was less than ideal. They played quite a few of the new songs with Crespo off Rock in a Hard Place. Little did I know the direction that Aerosmith would head in the late 80's and 90's, yuck!!!

58. RUSH and Golden Earring. $12.50 Pan American Center, Las Cruces, New Mexico 2/26/83

At this point I hated Rush and really did not like the new stuff at all. The only reason I went to this show was to make a tape for Robert. I also made a fake ticket to get into this one (the last time I would to this). I thought that Golden Earring stole the show. They had a huge hit in the US, probably their only one since Radar Love, called .... something about a bullet.. Great song though. I thought they were quite good. RUSH were pretty boring. They played a ton of stuff off the new lp with all this filler type keyboards etc.. and only really played a medley of the good old stuff. I was quite disappointed. The set list was:

59. KISS and the Plasmatics. $11.50 County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 3/23/83

This was the Lick it Up tour with Vinnie Vincent on guitar and a the full make up still. Anyway, the Plasmatics... They had a great record out with Coup D'etat. We were very psyched to see them and they did not disappoint! Wendy O was wild as ever cutting up a TV with a chainsaw and throwing the remains into the crowd!! I think that they were a bit over the top for a lot of the crowd but I thought that they were great!! The set list was:

KISS were really good as well. This was the show in which some was throwing shit at gene or taunting him in some way and he jumped off the stage into the audience and pounded someone!! I can't remember what song it was but it was towards the end of the show. I will have to review the tape!! Quite a good show but not nearly as over the top with fire and explosions, etc,, as in the past.
The set list was:

60. THE RAMONES and the Victims Pan American Center, Las Cruces, New Mexico 4/19/83

I was not that into the Ramones but our friend in the dorm Ben O'conner really liked them a lot. It ended up being a fun show. I don't think at that time I had ever seen a band play so many songs in such a short amount of time. They had a lot of energy. Dave, our friend who was in charge of arranging shows had said that Joey Ramone was so fucked up that they had to help him off the bus and barely got him up on the stage. I do remember that during the first song he dropped the microphone and could not find it (those dark shades!). Don't recall the Victims at all..

61. Iron Maiden, Saxon and Fastway. $10.50 Tingley Coliseum, Albuquerque, New Mexico 7/13/83

This was one of the best concerts I had ever seen perhaps. All three bands were incredible!! Fastway, was Fast Eddie from Motorhead's new band and their first lp rocked! We thought that they were great. Gilbert even bought a cool checked Fastway shirt! Fast Eddie still could play, which was great to see. The set list was:
We Become One, You got me Runnin, Give it all you Got, My baby's left me, Give it some Action, Feel Me Touch Me, Far Far From home. Far Far from Home was the highlight for me. That is just a great song!!

Well, after being disappointed at not getting to see Saxon last year, we finally got to see them and they were excellent!! This was the Power and the Glory tour and it was a powerful lp. It was so nice to get to see all these British bands that we listened to so much. Saxon kicked some ass as well. It was going to be hard for Maiden to top these to, but they did!! The set list for Saxon was:

Next up was Maiden and we had been jamming Piece of Mind a lot and was totally into some of the songs on that lp, hoping they would play our favorites. It was a great show!! What a way to start the summer off in Albuquerque!! The set list was:

Where Eagles Dare, Sanctuary, Wrathchild, Trooper, Revelations, Flight of Icarus, Die with your Boots on, 22 Acacia Ave, # of the Beast, To tame a land, Hallowed be thy Name, Iron Maiden, Run to the Hills, Drifter

62. Blackfoot, Krokus and Twisted Sister. $8.50 Civic Auditorium, Albuquerque, New Mexico 7/24/83

This was another cool show. It was not very packed this one. We were really into Twisted Sister at the time with the 2nd lp, You can't stop Rock and Roll. They only got to play 30 minutes or so but rocked!! I had made a small poster that I was able to hand to them that they tried to hang up on the fence that they had running across the stage, which was cool! After their set they were hanging out on the side of the stage and I was able to talk with Dee and get his autograph. We was very cool and was telling me about how they almost did not make it to the show because their mobile home they were touring in broke down in the small town in New Mexico called Raton. He said that the people there had never seen anything like these folks, big men with long hair and spoke with a weird accent (NYC)! JJ French also told me a great story about when they were working with Fast Eddie Clarke who produced their first record over in the UK. The record was recorded in a barn studio in England and fast eddie actually played on one song and when they were recording that song that day he said that Fast Eddie always wanted to play louder and was drinking vodka or jack Daniel's or something and that in the time they did that session that he drank the whole bottle and was still doing fine and that he was quite amazed at his tolerance for both alcohol and volume, as he said it was loud as hell!!! Really great guys!

Anyway, Krokus again! They had a new lp out this time called Headhunter which was fucking heavy!! They played some excellent new songs. Great show again. We wanted to meet them again as we had last year in El Paso, but did not get to.

Blackfoot were touring the new lp, Siogo, which had Ken Hemsley from Uriah Heep on keyboards. This was a bit strange and I thought it did not really work that well. Maybe they just did not have a good night but I recall that after TS and Krokus we were a bit disappointed with Blackfoot, even though they still played a lot of great songs.

63. RAVEN and METALLICA! $5.00 Corbett Center Ballroom, New Mexico State university, Las Cruces, New Mexico 8/28/83

This was almost too incredible to be true that Metallica would come to play our school. Even more amazing is that we got to meet and hang out with them. Cliff Burton (RIP) even came up to our dorm room and signed Gilbert's copy of Kill 'em All and we listened to Pink Floyd Ummagumma, which is what he requested to hear! Pretty incredible. Little did we know how lucky we were or how big Metallica would later become. After the show we got to hang with them in their little dressing room and get full sets of autographs. They seemed like really cool young guys, just like us. They were all into the same music as we were, with Motorhead, Diamond Head, etc..so we had a lot in common with them. They were incredible live also. We stood right in front and I gave James a Journey Sucks fan club pin which he thought was pretty cool. He even handed the mike down to me to yell Search and Destroy to introduce that song. I was totally blown away by the raw power and energy of these guys. Phantom Lord was my favorite song by them at the time. Luckily, Greg Anderson was there to record it. The set list was:

RAVEN were also great! We were really big fans of Raven as well and had all of their records and 7"'s on Neat Records. The new record, All for One, was a great one and unfortunately their last really kick ass record. They were really excellent as well. They played most all of our favorite songs and again we were right up in the front and they were very surprised that we were so into their stuff from the first two records, which were never released in the US! It was a great show. After the show we got to hang out with them and I got the band to autograph all my early Neat singles as well as promo poster for their first record. We were a bit bummed that the tour had run out of T-shirts!! Their set list was:

64. Queenbitch and Gypsy Rose (backstage pass) Sub Ballroom, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 10/8/83

Our friend Billy, from NMSU, Gypsy Rose was his band and this was their first big show. The guys in the band were pretty young and inexperienced but having fun. We got into the show for free because we were their friends and helped them move the equipment etc.. Billy was rooming with Ben O'Conner in the dorms and we had a lot of fun that year!! Anyway, they put on a pretty good show. The set list was:

Queenbitch were the quote, BIG, local band in Albuquerque. Our friend John Johnson was good friends with these guys. They were into the glam sort of thing like Motley Crue etc.. Not a bad band. I really liked their demo tape a lot. They did eventually go out to LA and try and make it but broke into different bands and some of the guys actually did put out a major label record on MCA with a sexy singer from Albuquerque. They never made it though. I recorded their set as well which was:

65. Ronnie James Dio and Y & T. $10.50 County Coliseum, El Paso, Texas 10/11/83

We were quite psyched up for this show as well. My penpal from Ireland, Francis DeLaney was friends with Vivian Campbell of Sweet Savage (now in DIO) and we really liked the Sweet Savage single and BBC tape that I had at the time. This was DIO though and we really liked the Holy Diver lp a lot. Vivian totally kicked ass like he did in Sweet Savage.

Y&T were touring the Meanstreak record, which had a lot of great songs on it. They mainly played stuff from Meansteak and Black Tiger and were great. I remember being amazed at how many Marshall cabinets that they had. I think it was a stack of 3 by 3 on each side of the drum set. Their set list was:

DIO was really great also but only played for like 65 minutes which was a bit short. I remember the encore was the great B-side song called Evil Eye, which was probably my favorite song from the Holy Diver recording sessions. I also remember that DIO was so short that I had a hard time seeing him at times as I recorded from the floor at this show and usually we were at the back of on the sides so I could see better, not being that tall, but not as short as DIO! The DIO set was:

66. Eddie Money and Wang Chung $7.00 Pan American Center, Las Cruces, New Mexico 10/22/83

I went to this show with a friend Sherry Lynn, whom I liked a lot, more than a friend, but we never did become more. Very nice person. I had not really like Eddie Money that much at this point. I did like his first two records and I remember Stacey Thruston, my next door neighbor in California, she had the first lp and would play it. Anyway, Wang Chung had that one huge radio hit but really sucked! I really did not like them. Eddie Money was alright and he played all of his hits and seem to have a good sense of humor.

67. BLACK SABBATH and Quiet Riot. $11.50 Tingley Coliseum, Albuquerque, New Mexico 11/29/83

What a story do I have about this show.. We were driving up to see the show in the middle of the week and were going to drive back after the show to get back to school. There was no way were going to miss Sabbath with Ian Gillan. Ian was one of my fave singers and I thought Born Again (despite the poor sound production) was one of the heaviest Sabbath lps ever! To make a long story short, we have almost made it all the way to Albuquerque in my 1974 VW super beetle and some asshole did not see me turning off into the rest area and rear ends us and makes us spin around in 2 360's and totals the rear end of my car. He says it was my fault that I did not signal early enough....... blah blah..blah... His insurance did cover it in the end. Well, we had to call my dad (and we were not suppose to be doing this sort of thing in the middle of the week). i got to borrow my grandfathers car for two weeks while mine was towed and fixed. We made it just in time for the show. We caught the last 30 minutes of Quiet Riot, who were alright but we did not really like them much at all.

Now for Sabbath, they were amazing!! Again the sound was quite muddy but good enough. Gillan was quite a different singer from Ozzy or Dio and boy could he belt out a scream!! They played a lot of great songs and seeing Gillan playing the bongos along with War Pigs was great!! I love the way he and War Pigs. Anyway, the set list was:

68. Motley Crue, Axe and Heaven. Johnson Gym, University of New Mexico Pit, Albuquerque New Mexico 12/15/83

Heaven were a great AC/DC influenced band from Australia. They were really good live! We had been listening to their first record and were familiar with their stuff. The set list was short but here it is:
Take you higher, Suck city, Scream for Me, Where angels fear to tread, Love Child, Rock School, In the Beginning

As for AXE, I was never a big fan. John had played me a record by them but I did not care too much for them. I don't recall that they were that bad though.

Motley Crue was a big time concert in Albuquerque at the time. A lot of the girls were dressed to the T for this one and all the hair guys were done up as well. It seemed almost more of a place to just show up and look cool then for the concert. We had really liked the Shout at the Devil lp, as it had some great heavy riffs. They did put on a great show but Mars, the guitar player was just simply bad. That guy really sucks... Very sloppy... Anyway the set list for the night was:

69. ZZTOP and Nightranger. $13.50 Pan American Center, Las Cruces, New Mexico 10/22/83

ZZTOP had not peaked in popularity yet with the Eliminator tour, but they did have a big hit with Legs. It was a great concert. I was not a big fan of Nightranger but I was looking forward to hearing Brad Gillis live as he did alright as a fill in for Randy Rhoades before they got Jake E. Lee. Nightranger had a few good songs but I hated the shitty journey like ballads which were so popular.

ZZTOP put on an excellent show and I had a great seat nearly straight on. The new songs were quite good live. I still would have liked to hear a few more cool old ones.. the set list was: