Best Opening Act of a concert you attended.

Blind Boys of Alabama opening for Tom Petty when I was in high school. I'll be damned if they didn't blow the room off the place.

 

I saw The Struts open for the Foos on that tour. Rogers Centre is a horrific venue, especially for a band like that, but I thought they were terrific, great fun, a fine throwback to the 70s glam era.

Some other opening acts I remember:

*I saw Steve Winwood open for the Allman in 2013 and he was great, perfect audience for him, brought the house down with "Can't Find My Way Home"

*Stevie Ray Vaughan with Dire Straits

*Georgia Satellites with Tom Petty. Keef has said that on any given night some band somewhere is the greatest rock and roll band in the world. That night, for 45 minutes, it was the Satellites

*Katrina and the Waves with Don Henley

*Motorhead with Alice Cooper

*Liza with Frank

*Roy Orbison with Alabama

*J. Geils Band with Bob Seger

*Vintage Trouble with The Who

*Omar and the Howlers with the Fabulous Thunderbirds

*Tears For Fears with Hall and Oates

*He wasn't technically an opener as it was a festival but Dwight Yoakum completely blew headliner Hank Jr. off the stage, Bocephus had no chance no matter how many times he played "All My Rowdy Friends" (at least twice as I recall)

*And to rip the heart out of @PCLoadLetter and stomp all over it here in locked down Toronto: Split Enz with Petty

 

Haha as I clicked on the Huggy alert, I remembered I saw Don Henley just before high school graduation in 1991 with opening act...Susanna Hoffs. I think we were all like, wow she's still a smokeshow two years after the Bangles' last hit. Thirty years after that, she is still a smokeshow.

And a week or two after that, a few days after we graduated HS, a bunch of us saw David Lee Roth with openers Cinderella and Extreme. At the time, it was weird enough that the band with the recent no. 1 single was playing the 30-minute opener to the opener. We had no idea that by our 10th reunion, Extreme and DLR would be connected by one degree of separation.

 

Georgia Satellites were one of my cornerstone bands in high school. For a kid who grew up listening to way more Waylon than Kiss, they were the sweet spot.

Dwight opening for Bocephus is a bit of an odd pairing. Dwight is going to purchase him every night.

As a Toronto guy you may appreciate that in 2006 or so I saw a very sober Wilcox open for Kim Mitchell in BC. They both ripped it up. Fun night.

 

I saw the Satellites three times, once as an opener, twice in clubs and they were always amazing.

I saw Wilcox a lot back in the day as he was always playing around Toronto, never saw him when either of us was sober. We saw Kim Mitchell a few years back and he was great. In the 80s it wasn't a summer if you didn't see Kim at least once.

 

Kim Mitchell! "Go For Soda" somehow became a go-to song for the Islanders a few years ago. Or maybe it was a go-to song for them in the '80s and it came back (the first time) they left the Coliseum.

 

Jon Langford, opening for Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Jon is a punk pioneer who was one of the leaders in morphing punk into alt-country. Here's a sample, backed by a Toronto band called The Sadies.

 

Compared to y'all, I have lived a much too sheltered life.

Bests I can remember: BOC opening for Rush, Robert Cray opening for Huey Lewis and the News.

Best: Bottle Rockets opening for Wilco.

One more: Counting Crows opening for Cracker. Both were great that night.

I saw so many club shows at The Blue Note during the early to mid-'90s, I can't remember many of the openers.

Best show: Morphine at the Blue Note. I drove in from three states away to see them.

 

I have not seen a lot of big stadium shows, but I've seen a couple of interesting openers at smaller venues. The best was a guy named Har Mar Superstar, who opened for the Afghan Whigs on a Monday night at the National in Richmond. Had never heard of him at all. Venue was maybe half full at best. Dude is built like Brett Gelson pre Peleton commercial. No matter, guy has an incredible voice, rips his shirt off and walks through the crowd singing to basically everyone who was there. That show stuck with me and had me seeking out some of his albums. Whigs were good, but not memorable.

I also went to a UB40 show when I was a kid specifically to see the Gin Blossoms open. They were fine. Did not stay for the whole UB40 set, which was meh, meh, meh.

 

Pretty sure Robert Cray was the opening act when I saw Huey on the Fore! tour. The tour before that, their opening act was Tower of Power.

I saw Crash Test Dummies open for Bryan Adams in a show that ended with Adams and Sting singing "All For Love." Don't see that everyday.

 

Now that I think of it: Elvin Bishop opening for Lynyrd Skynrd. Little Richard opening for Johnny Winter.

 

Billy Conway recently passed, RIP.