What bands did you hear/like before they became famous?
 

Bowling For Soup. They are from my hometown! (And I was in band with the drummer.)

Hmm lets see, I can remember seeing Pantera play the Troubador (at that time the troubador was a pay to play club) in Hollywood long before they got popular. I was watching Guns & Roses play little clubs in So. Cal. before they got big. I saw Nirvana play some little club in seattle before they got big (they sucked....bad). I went to a few Danzig shows back in the day as well.

i saw Mookie Blaylock play up here in Vancouver many times.

they were told that they weren't aloud to use that name so........


they changed there name to Pearl Jam.

I was into White Zombie before Thunderkiss '65 hit the MTV circulation, and well before the purported Beavis & Butthead deal.

Coldplay. I listened to them back when nobody had any idea who they were.

I second Coldplay. Great band.

I was infatuated with U2 in 1982 when they released their first album.

I was a Barenaked Ladies fan before they became real big.

They played a lot of clubs in the Michigan area and got a lot of airplay on Detroit radio stations before making it real big with the "stunt" album.



It would have been great growing up in this area when Bob Seger, Ted Nugent, Grand Funk and them were starting out. I have uncle who used to see them in local bars. Unfortunatley, I was too young.

ditto that...

I used to go watch Lou Gramm sing in some of the joints around Rochester, before he made it big in Foreigner. Dude could sure sing!

Actually, their first album came out in 1978--Boy, which was followed by October in 1981 and War in 1983.

Travis would be mine...oh wait...no one in the United States remembers that they've heard Travis.

hmmm. Nirvana, Modest mouse (hated them) bad religion

Modest Mouse was hugely popular in the PacNW for a long time before hitting it big.

It seems that only yesterday they were playing the roller rink in Bend, Oregon.

pink martini......saw them a lot before the got famous..........swell stuff!!!

xoxoxoo

I don't care for them anymore, but I saw Dave Matthews Band play a frat party in Connecticut before they hit it big.

My understanding is that they played at a lot of colleges in the early 90s, so I suspect many people can say that.

I'm a huge Girlyman fan, so someday if they do hit it big, I'll have this as proof that I was there before they hit the bigtime. They still play mainly smaller venues and tickets are dirt cheap.

Gilda

my friend kathleen is the coolest person i know in this regard: she went to michigan state in the early 1970s and lived near a bar where the stooges were the house band.

anything i could possibly say pales in comparison.

Years back it was INXS.

I saw Ralph Covert (and his band the Bad Examples) dozens of times in Chicago in the early to mid 90's. He's not doing kids music and has videos on Playhouse Disney

i just remembered that i have another friend who is also much much cooler than me who knew the folk from the mekons when they were first starting out in leeds--apparently they would call his answering machine and play thei new tunes into the telephone. he says he still has the tapes. i tried to get him to break them out from time to time, but we were always in a bar when we would have the conversation and it never panned out.

and yet another friend who is childhood friends with folk from the flaming lips

and another who apparently taught the guitarist from interpol how to play.

i do not have such cool stories, because i am less cool than these folk.

One of my best friends in middle school's oldest brother went to UGA and brought back an album by a local band. We thought that we were the coolest 7th graders ever because we were listening to college music. The band was REM and the album was "Murmur".

I was really into Sugar before they even came out with an album, but that's just because Bob Mould was fronting it. I drove 120 miles and bought "Copper Blue" the day it came out in 1991 or 92.

I saw a free show with the Lemonheads, the Smashing Pumpkins and some other band in 1990 in a dorm basement. Surprisingly, the Lemonheads were the best band.

I saw the Allman brothers in a junior college gym.

I saw the Sugarcubes on tour for their debut album, Life's Too Good, fronted by the inimitable Björk Gundmundsdottir. It was a great show!

I used to design and make posters for a guy named Stevie Ray Vaughn in Dallas when his band played at the Greenville Bar & Grill. He said I could get in free & drink on his tab. It was great and as you know SRV was a terrific musician. His brother would sit with me & hubby when he wasn't playing with his bro then and take a break out back to smoke a j. Great times.

Dallas used to rock BIG time.

311, The Faint, Bright Eyes are a few that you've probably heard of.

Keep your eyes and ears open for Cursive and Echobliss.

White Zombie, GnR, Metaliica, Faster Pussycat, System of a Down

Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, MXPX, NoFX, Weezer, There's more, just can't think of them...

I almost got into a fight with Axl Rose before GnR hit it big. Does that count?

I'd love to hear this story...

Not much to tell really. I was a senior in high school in a small Iowa town (Burlington) and GnR were playing at the Civic Center. On the day of the concert, a couple of friends and I went to Hardee's for lunch. While standing in line to order we saw this guy sitting by himself near the counter. He looked like he hadn't bathed in a week and had long, stringy, greasy hair with ripped clothes and tattoos all over his arms. Now with us being idiot punk high schooler's we started making comments about his appearance loud enough for him to overhear. Of course he doesn't take kindly to this and he gets up and gets right in my face. Words were exchanged and then he pushed me. I pushed back and he wound up and took a swing at my head but I stepped back so he missed. Before it went any further a guy steps between us and announces that he is an off duty Police Officer and threatens to arrest us both so my friends and I decided to leave at that point.

I had no idea who he was at the time but not more than a month or so later I saw the video for Sweet Child 'o Mine (or was it Welcome to the Jungle? Whatever thier first video was) on MTV for the first time. I recognized him right away and seeing as they were in town the day it happened I have no doubt it was him.

this is the only good band mentioned in the thread.

Lets see.... ummmmm, Its a local band here in my town , a punk band, I listen to one of their song in the practice room was lil craappy at first but when they did recording studio... nominated for best new song of the year.....( its like a grammy)

The Cars.
A group of us trendsters went to Bogarts in Cinncy, right when their first album broke. We liked them so much we all wore buttons we'd made with a snazzy new button making machine :rolleyes: (Buttons were big in the punk/new wave late 70's! :lol: ) We used pix's of the guys from the album sleeve.
They were just starting to get airplay, and to see actual people (that they didn't know) wearing buttons of them really surprised them :D ....it was fun. :)
So a couple years later, when they played their "big" concert at Market Square Arena, in our hometown......the Cars threw an after set party for the loyal fans at the Hyatt. That was kind of nice.....



This sounds great! I loved the Fab T-birds......

Ahhh! Raw power!:thumbsup:

All of them.

I saw Korn at Roseland open up for Biozhard and then House of Pain (which nobody stayed for) Before the show the band was in the same pizza shop as us. They stuck out like a sore thumb but we just figured they were there for the show, needless to say we were surprised when we saw them on stage. The first song they played was "blind" and I just happened to be near a speaker when the first BOOM went off.

I remember seeing Marilyn Manson long before they made it big. Marilyn and Daisy opened up for a few bands and then came out and stood in the crowd behind me drinking beer and watching some of the next band.


I also saw Korn early on. I had no idea who they were and but went nuts when Jonathon Davis came out with the bagpipes to start Chutes and Ladders. I can still remember most of that concert. I was blown away. I went to the mall to buy their album the next day and nobody had heard of them. I had to wait almost another year before their debut album came out.

Another band I saw that really left an impression with me was at a club in chicago. They were the 2nd of 3 bands and they wheeled the lead singer out onto stage use a dolly and he was wearing a straight jacket and a Hannibal Lecter like restraint mask. The lead singers vocals absolutely blew me away. I'm not as big a Disturbed fan anymore, but was really impressed by their early shows.


I also saw the precursor to Godsmack prior to them making it big. I saw Sully Erna's first band Strip Mind and have 1 of about 50,00 copies of their only release. I thought they were pretty good, but obviously I was in the minority. So when Godsmack came out I was pretty psyched after I heard from my roommate that "the drummer from Strip Mind has a new band".


I saw the GWAR knock-off band Green Jell-o prior to them changing their name to Green Jelly and before they became a bit weel known with a few minor hits.


I know there are a few more, but can't remember them right now.

Like roachboy I have many friends who are cooler than I. They have some great stories (though I am not sure that anything short of having the Stooges as your house band will be good enough).

One friend tells a great story of going to this small bar in St. Catherines to see The Police on their first tour. They weren't doing any gigs in Canada but managed to get invited to play this tiny little bar in a tiny little town. They drove up from Buffalo and put on a kick ass show.

Another tells of seeing U2 in Ottawa at Barrymore's (a locally famous concert hall). The guy who booked them was very in the know about what was cool. He was on of the first North Americans to book them. They were generally unknown at that point except to a few cutting edge types. By the time they started the tour though, they had their first cover on Rolling Stone (when being on the cover meant something). Suddenly they were huge (by independent music standard).

This same guy caught REM at the same place. The band went over to Hull (Quebec bars are open later and were way cooler) with a bunch of people from the audience and hung out.

The only two bands I can say I saw early on, and I'm not really a fan of either is The Barenaked Ladies and The Tragically Hip. The Ladies did a series of gigs in Ottawa at a small night club. This is when they were still just pushing their yellow cassette around and hadn't released an album.

I caught the hip twice. Once at the small campus pub (Gord Downie fell off the small stage while flinging his, at the time, really long hair around) and then they opened frosh week the following year.

I was given a lecture about how the Zutons have been subjected to Terry Wogan and having far too many old people watching them by the mrs.

Granted, i did see more grey hair than an old peoples home, and a few anoraks.

Does that count?


Or The Calling before they became big over here. Wherever you will go was the tune on the first trailer for Enterprise, so d/led that straight away, ages before it was released.

Alexisonfire is a fairly (recently) popular band (here in Canada) that's I've been listening too for a long.

I remember buying Depeche Mode's "Just can't get enough" vinyl import 12" (I still have it) and seeing them about a month later in a club in lower Manhattan. Who knew?

I also saw the Ramones at CBGB's before anyone heard of them.

Glad

I remember back in 1980 listening to this radio station in Buffalo interview this band called U2. The band was completely distracted by all the snow and cut the interview short to go outside and have a snowball fight.
I had just purchased "Boy" at the time and thought they were just the coolest band ever.

My friend met Jan Arden (after she was famous, I know not the point of the thread but a funny story) at a party and not knowing who she was, when she found out Arden was a musician politely asked "so do you make a decent living at that"?

I'm not sure if being a backup band counts as "before they were famous".

I saw Lynyrd Skynryd back up the Who, before they had released an album.

I also saw an unknown named Stevie Ray Vaughan back up the Moody Blues and again the next night in a dive bar.


A small bar near where I lived had a deal with the downtown blues clubs and would frequently feature weekday shows of artists that were in town. I saw Albert King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, and a mess of others in a place that seated <100.

Someone here's older than me? Aerosmith was a local band here in the early '70's.

For me, I was into, Fallout Boy, The Fray and Eskimo Joe before they became big. Same with a whole bunch of others. Infact pretty much all the emo stuff I was listening way before those sad ass emos were slitting their wrists in the mosh pit... I'm kinda bummed about the music I listen to getting such a bad rep because of the fans!

Maybe about a year and a half ago I was at Columbia University visiting a friend who is going to school down there. That night we went out, and I can't remember where, but she introduced me to this guy named Ezra, I told him he had a killer name, we sat down and talked for a bit, I mentioned I did musicals, he told me he did them growing up. My friend and I left and she told me he was in a rap group with a french name and I made fun of him behind his back because he was this baby faced white kid wearing a Fred Perry sweater vest and a pop-collared polo.

Maybe about a six months ago I started listening to this great band, knew nothing about them, because it was all blog stuff. I downloaded their album (don't tell on me) and fell in love with it. This week I go to the grocery store and I look at the cover of my favorite magazine and I think "Who is that guy, I recognize him... wow, he looks really familiar." So I pick up Spin and read it and it says "Vampire Weekend" and I think "I love those guys" but I don't remember ever seeing their picture. So I read the article. The lead singers name is Ezra Koenig. They all met at Columbia. He was in a white rap duo called Les Hommes.

I drove home, ran to my computer and looked up a picture of them. It was him. Holy crap. They are playing SNL this weekend. I met him.

EDIT: I realize this is totally off topic but it might be the "coolest" (quote/unquote) thing that has happened to me.

Circa Survive, Thursday, and Soul Coughing would probably be the three I could think off off-hand. I had started listening to Rise Against just prior to them releasing their first popular single/music video.

the list would be shorter if i listen the bands that i didnt listen too before they got "famous"

I saw Billy Joel play at Rutgers in either 1975 or 1976. Some friends dragged me along.

I saw Tres Bien, who was on the network Great American Band show this past fall and made it to #3, I believe. My girls wanted to get dressed up, but didn't want to do the mall or door knocking thing, so I found out about this downtown Halloween festival that was going to have small alternative groups playing on Halloween night. This was about two years ago. I know they're finally on tour and will hopefully have built a nice little fan base.

Reel Big Fish, Papa Roach, Skankin Pickle, and a few others. I have my eye on Brea right now. I suspect they'll hit it big before too long.

I also saw Reel Big Fish before they hit the radio, along with Cherry Poppin' Daddies. Both were opening acts for the same Bim Skala Bim show. They were both far better than the headliner.

Ha! I can imagine they were.

It's too bad swing came and went so quickly. Cherry Poppin Daddies had a good sound.

Try their other albums. The Cherries weren't just a swing band.

Westlife.

Saw them at the begining of their career when they sang at a Miss World Pageant. Been buying CD's and DVD's ever since and went to both concerts they had here in Port Elizabeth on their world tour.

I just remembered that I saw Organized Rhyme (Tom Green's rap group before he was famous) open for furnaceface (a great Ottawa band).

i remember seeing eskimo jo, stereophonics & the living end at the one gig for about $15 - back before eskimo jo became pretentious & wrote crap music.

wolfmother is another that springs to mind - saw them about 8 times before they really took off.

My band was playing a full week at Fern Park Station (1983) in Orlando FL. Some new band that was working on their first album named Anthrax was going to do a show on Friday using our PA and lights. We played a set and turned it over to them. The most memorable moment was when the lead singer cut his head after jumping off the stage and nicking himself on one our PAR cans (lights). They really didn't sound that great that night, but look who's still together after several albums and much acclaim.

Prefab Sprout

My dad used to go and watch The Who play pubs and really small venues around Brighton when he was a teenager, before they even recorded 'My Generation'. Actually he was probably too young to get into any of the venues legally, but he managed to anyway.

Way, way back, my uncle gave me some albums marked "For Demo Play Only" or something to that effect-a friend of his worked at a NY radio station and they were cleaning out their samples. Among the stack was an untitled album from some group called Three Dog Night. Excellent album. Another was from a group called Rotary Connection-a cross between Sly and the Family Stone and 5th Dimension. (I can hear all the 20-somethings saying WHO?????). One of the female singers in the group was a young girl named Minnie Ripperton, hitting notes like you wouldn't believe. She later had a short successful solo career before cancer took her.(and her daughter, Maya, was a regular on SNL).

I also heard Bruce Springsteen on a bootleg locally made album in 1973 and thought he was the quintessential NJ rocker.

Anyone ever hear of R.L. Burnside?
 

Mindblowing blues innovator. This was pre-internet days when I ran across his work, called a number on the back anticipating a record company catalog. Told 'the operator' the album I just heard and wanted earlier work if it was available. Guy tells me, "Let me clear off my coffee table".

It was Mr. Burnside himself, and everything he ever recorded held up the slab that was his living room coffee table. He said "I still own all but about 300 albums of everything of mine ever printed".

I'm glad he finally 'hit it big' before he died, toured the world a couple times, set up his family. Made some money, and 'a name' for himself.

There was a song writer by the name of Tim Hardin. He wrote quite a few successful tunes recorded by others such as Rod Stewart(Reason to Believe).
Three of Hardin's albums were included in the stack my uncle gave me.
The most amazing beautiful melodies and Reason to Believe and If I Were a Carpenter were among them-several years before Stewart and others fucked them up....
Hardin died in 1980 of a heroin overdose, his own singing career never being the huge success his songs were.
I still have those 3 lp's-they are priceless.

I stayed with Peaches and Feist in their apt. in T.O. before they were famous. I'm not all that crazy about the music, but oddly enough, Peaches and i listen to similar stuff -- or at least we did back then.

I remember I saw a FREE Nickleback concert in a parking lot way back int he day, they kicked ass, then they went mainstream and well there suck now. first 2 CD's where good after that blah.

oh yeah, saw several times in the late 70s - a weird guy named Joe Walsh who used to play guitar with his band at the Water Street Saloon in Kent, Ohio for $2 bucks at the door, - He would later go on and be a member of the Eagles.

Nothing big, mind you...LOL!

Not sure if this counts, but I was big into Muse before they were famous in America. I saw them live at some shithole near my University. I'm pretty sure they were already big in Europe though.

Snow Patrol when they were still playing tiny Irish clubs here. Although I am not such a big fan anymore now that they're gone more to the pop side.

Same would go for MUSE and Placebo, but still like them.

Damien Rice when he was still broke and had only a guitar to his name.

Glen Hansard of the 'Once' movie fame. He plays with a band here called The Frames, fantastic stuff and still are today!

I'm really into B.o.B.and Playboy Tre...they haven't blown up yet.

Jolli Boi
lil boozie
Stewy Rock
Riskay (the drama queen)....why you commin home ...4 in the mone... what's been goin on lemme smell your dick !
Tigga Bounce...

many others I can't think of atm.