On this Date: Gentle Giant at the Palladium, NYC.

On this date, November 5, 1977, I saw Gentle Giant at the Palladium.

As I’ve mentioned in several previous posts, prog rock was something my high school friends were into. We listened to the big names—Jethro Tull, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and Yes, of course—but Danny, in particular, had a fondness for Gentle Giant. They were a British prog band with three brothers in the lineup, and he played their music enough that it eventually started to grow on me. I even had a few vinyl bootlegs of the band, if you can imagine.

I was a year ahead of most of my high school friends, and by September 1977 I was already enrolled at NYU, starting my freshman year in college while they were still in high school. Being in Manhattan gave me quicker access to the Village Voice, the iconic weekly that was the main source of concert listings back then. I used to stop at a particular newsstand that opened early and always had a stack of Voices right up front.

One day, I picked up the new issue and saw a full-page ad for Gentle Giant at the Palladium. There was a Ticketron booth at a store nearby, so I rushed over as soon as it opened and bought a few tickets. Our seats: FRONT ROW!!!

I don’t remember exactly how many tickets I bought, and I can’t recall who else came with me, but Danny was the GG fanatic, so I’m sure I gave him one of them. The band were touring in support of their album "The Missing Piece", which I had heard, but didn't own. They had also released a double live album back in January of that year, when I was still in high school, and we played that album to death. I still have it.

I also don’t remember much of the concert itself, though I vividly recall one moment when two of the guitarists were quietly picking at their acoustic guitars, trying to match each other note for note. After a couple of bars, one of them looked over, smiled, and said, “Not bad.” The rest of the show has faded into a blur.

This was right around the time when punk was becoming my genre of choice, although I clearly wasn’t ready to let go of prog completely.

I haven’t listened to Gentle Giant for decades, but since I’ve been reliving old concert memories on this blog, I went back and gave them another spin. I can’t say it resonated the same way this time, but unlike my disastrous attempt to revisit Kansas recently, I wasn’t repelled. I still appreciate the virtuosity; these guys could really play. At the same time, the self-indulgent noodling that characterizes a lot of prog from that era still isn’t really my thing unless I’m feeling nostalgic.

Still, I’m glad I went to the show, and I’m pretty sure it remains the only concert I ever attended with assigned seats where mine were in the very front row.