I remember when that happened... I had just turned 15 the previous November, but I knew it would've been fruitless to seek my folks' permission to skip the first day at Latin after Christmas, so I didn't even bother... Never saw Led Zeppelin in concert either... or AC/DC with Bon Scott... or The Who with Keith Moon...
Keith Moon and The Who was another legendary Boston Garden event.
A year later The Who were playing at the Garden. We didn't get tickets in time and the show was sold out. Some of my friends and I decided to head into town anyways, on the off chance that we might find a scalper with too many tickets and not enough buyers.
We did find a couple of people selling but the prices they wanted were outrageous. We continued to wander around, already lubricated with some beers, and found ourselves behind the Garden. One of my friends looked up and saw the vertical fire escape ladders attached on the outer wall. Another recounted about how he had seen doors inside, way up above the nosebleed seats from previous visits to the Garden.
We agreed there was only one option: find a way to get to the bottom of the ladder, climb to the roof, and then let ourselves in through a door on the roof.
Brilliant!
Somehow we managed to pile some pallets and boxes high enough to reach the ladder. Somehow we scaled it without anybody falling off and breaking their neck. Once on top we found a door, yay, and... locked. Oh crap.
I looked over the edge. Getting back down looked perilous. We kept walking around; other doors were also locked. ****. We started banging on doors, hoping another music lover would hear us and let us in. Nope. As we were about to give up we tried one more door, and voilà. Shockingly, the door opened.
To say were ecstatic would be an understatement. We kept on telling each other to play it cool, but I was so giddy I couldn't suppress my smile. We were able to find some nosebleed seats that weren't being used and sat there, settled in time for the show to begin.
The Who started out with a couple of familiar hits. The crowd was going nuts. Before the end of the second song the drumming suddenly stopped. Keith Moon had passed out, taking a backwatds header off his drum stool. A few minutes later John Entwistle came to the microphone, said a few words, and basically said the show was over. Somebody, probably the concert promoter, said that the show was being postponed. "Hold onto your tickets until we have a date rescheduled".
HOLD ONTO YOUR TICKETS???? WHAT!!!!!!!!!! THIS CAN"T BE HAPPENING!!!!!!!!!!
I looked and looked and looked for a ticket on the floor somewhere. The problem was that I'm sure other people were as well. Nope, no tickets to be found anywhere.
Once again, from the thrill of victory to the agony of defeat in regards to my getting to see rock and roll gods at the Boston Garden. If I recall correctly the band came back and did a rescheduled show a month later. We decided to recreate our brilliant scheme, but this time there were cops scattered around the building - including where we had started our genius entry. Access denied.
Moon died two years later. Similar to led Zeppelin, I never saw the original foursome play live. Although at least with The Who, I did see them play a couple of times several years later, with a different drummer.
