Legendary bands playing to tiny audiences...

CaseOfAce

Beatles playing to 18 people in '61...


and these lucky boys and girls enjoying Abba at a funfair:

ABBA - Waterloo (BBC Seaside Special 1975) (youtube.com)

blobb

I don't see what's so special about playing a one off gig at The Flying Horse, of all places.

You didn't let the dog in free did you?

CHRISB50

I saw Metallica at the Ministry of Sound in 1997. 

Not sure how many people but can’t have been more than 2-300. 

It was fucking awesome. 

Revolutions

I went to a couple of the secret Foo Fighters shows.

randella

In the space of nine months I saw the Darkness play to about 500 people at Big Day Out in Australia, then a sold-out MEN in Manchester (about 24,000 from memory)

randella

And whilst Oasis are fresh in everyone's minds, wasn't their first gig at the Boardwalk playing to about 30 of their mates?

Bet getting tickets for that was a piece of piss

Philly_Q

What was the capacity of the Marquee, back in the '80s and early '90s?  Many of the best gigs I ever went to were there, in Wardour Street and later Charing Cross Road.  No really big/legendary names though.

Cols

90’s stadium-filling rock gods Extreme playing the Spring and Airbrake in Belfast.

Philly_Q

Cols said:

90’s stadium-filling rock gods Extreme playing the Spring and Airbrake in Belfast.

Were they ever really stadium-filling?  I'm not so sure.  I saw them at the Astoria.

Cols

Philly_Q said:

Cols said:

90’s stadium-filling rock gods Extreme playing the Spring and Airbrake in Belfast.

Were they ever really stadium-filling?  I'm not so sure.  I saw them at the Astoria.

They were, in their Pornograffiti/Three Sides To Every Story heyday.  Here they are rocking the shit out of Wembley Stadium in 1993.

https://youtu.be/fywDu4GenrE?si=SP917Wr6f5jA77YI 

Philly_Q

Cols said:

Philly_Q said:

Cols said:

90’s stadium-filling rock gods Extreme playing the Spring and Airbrake in Belfast.

Were they ever really stadium-filling?  I'm not so sure.  I saw them at the Astoria.

They were, in their Pornograffiti/Three Sides To Every Story heyday.  Here they are rocking the shit out of Wembley Stadium in 1993.

https://youtu.be/fywDu4GenrE?si=SP917Wr6f5jA77YI 

Supporting Bryan Adams though, weren't they (sorry, I know I'm being nitpicky...)?

HAL9000

Thin Lizzy to a hundred or so in The Red Lion in Fulham Palace Road. I’d guess about ‘73 or ‘74.

scrumhalf

The Groundhogs (or they may have still been the Tony McPhee Band) playing to an audience of less than a dozen at a pub in Childs Hill because someone at the pub hadn't publicised the gig.

ftumch

blobb said:

I don't see what's so special about playing a one off gig at The Flying Horse, of all places.

You didn't let the dog in free did you?

Burning looting raping and a shooting.....it's political in intent innit

inewham

Did Nottingham boat club count as small, I'd estimate maybe 200? I recall seeing Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Motorhead there. Heaven knows who else it was a long time ago. I didn't see it but apparently Led Zeppelin played there.

Cols

Philly_Q said:

Cols said:

Philly_Q said:

Cols said:

90’s stadium-filling rock gods Extreme playing the Spring and Airbrake in Belfast.

Were they ever really stadium-filling?  I'm not so sure.  I saw them at the Astoria.

They were, in their Pornograffiti/Three Sides To Every Story heyday.  Here they are rocking the shit out of Wembley Stadium in 1993.

https://youtu.be/fywDu4GenrE?si=SP917Wr6f5jA77YI 

Supporting Bryan Adams though, weren't they (sorry, I know I'm being nitpicky...)?

Ah, you may be right.

Even so, in the early 90s it was big arenas at least.  So seeing them at the Spring and Airbrake, which holds a few hundred at best, was somewhat incongruous.

An honourable mention goes to seeing Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones playing to a tiny (but packed and enthusiastic) crowd at Manchester Student’s Union in 2001.  Bass, mandolin, keyboard, lap steel bass, the works.  Incredible.

Philly_Q

Cols said:

An honourable mention goes to seeing Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones playing to a tiny (but packed and enthusiastic) crowd at Manchester Student’s Union in 2001.  Bass, mandolin, keyboard, lap steel bass, the works.  Incredible.

With Nick Beggs in the band?  I think I saw him on the same tour (or maybe the one a year or two earlier, I'm not sure), at Shepherd's Bush Empire.  Fucking incredible, that bass lap steel has such a powerful sound.

Roland

Genesis at my school “dance” in about 1971. King Crimson, Mott the Hoople, and loads of others that I’ve forgotten at Friars club in Aylesbury in the 70s. UFO at some small club outside Stuttgart in 2007.

FelineGuitars

Philly_Q said:

What was the capacity of the Marquee, back in the '80s and early '90s?  Many of the best gigs I ever went to were there, in Wardour Street and later Charing Cross Road.  No really big/legendary names though.

Philly_Q said:

Cols said:

90’s stadium-filling rock gods Extreme playing the Spring and Airbrake in Belfast.

Were they ever really stadium-filling?  I'm not so sure.  I saw them at the Astoria.

I saw Extreme at the Marquee, And Ozzy, Kiss, Motley Crue, Yngwie, 

Didn't see them but Metallica, Aerosmith  and others played there too 

Petepassion

We supported the Stone roses in Portsmouth just as they were on their rise to fame, maybe 200-300 people there.

stufisher

I was born and bred in Dumfries but I wasn't in attendance at this, although it's a famed gig.

If you read the comments and background detail contained within then it'll become clear why it's regarded as a bit of a legend.