Top 10, finally. Good effort, not too great results.

For quite awhile I have wanted to do a slide show so I could more easily and efficiently compose lists, perhaps even with music. Well today I started with the Top 10 concerts I have attended. It was neither an easy nor efficient use of my time and that of my alternative ego, Mr. Smith, who was kind enough to let us make use of his You Tube account.

The slide show may or may not have music. If it does, it may eventually creep into songs played in the concerts I attended, although once the music gets going the slide show stops until you decide to run it again. Or so it went when I tried it out. Well, no one said I nor Mr. Smith were techno-whizes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxlMvvCaW4Q&list=HL1378159071&feature=player_detailpage

A word about these concerts. Some are listed with other times I saw the act. For instance, I saw Fleetwood Mac as part of the ZZ Top extravaganza in New Orleans. This was around the time they released the self-titled album. It was likewise just after Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the group. Then they were the featured act at another City Park show in New Orleans in, I believe, June 1977. I know it was just before I departed Gulfport for sea duty in the Western and Southern Pacific. That particular show in the late Spring of ’77 was pretty much my favorite concert ever. That had more to do with the friends I went with to the concert. We had a blast, Danny, George Jim, Rene and his friend, whose name slips my mind, and myself. The music was really good as well. It seemed every song from “Rumours,” was producing hit after hit from the spring through past the end of the year.

Also, another very popular album at that time was Bob Seger’s fantastic “Night Moves,” another hit machine. Starting off the concert was the melodic and soulful Louisiana Leroux, which has been a.k.a. “Leroux.” The performance was rounded out by Kenny Loggins, who had not long before split with his longtime musical partner, Jim Messina.

About a month before stopping off at our first liberty on our New Zealand and Australian “tour” on board the old destroyer we were given word by the XO that Fleetwood Mac would be playing in Auckland, N.Z., while we were to be there. There were a limited number of tickets available for, I think $7. Not a lot of money but when you were grossing about $535 — $7 would be worth about $27 these days, according to the BLS — then it was a little bit of cash to think about. But I wanted to see if concerts in the U.S. were different than the ones in New Zealand. It was a little different. You didn’t see people smoking reefer as was prevalent at concerts in the USA back then. Other than that not much difference at all. Plus, it was really good music.

So, thinking about “back in the day,” while trying to work with Mr. Smith on movies or slideshows. Here is hoping the ones I do in the future are much better.

Well, I played the video again and no music that time. Also, I noticed a slight error. The Superdome concert I attended where the Allman Brothers were headliners was the first rock concert (perhaps even Southern Rock) to ever take place. There were some other MOR people who played between the opening ceremonies in Aug. 3, 1975, and whenever the concert was … about a month later.