Question of the Week: Who’s the most surprising artist you’ve seen live – a performance you loved but didn’t expect?

Local Spins’ Question of the Week (May 12, 2022)

Who’s the most surprising artist you’ve seen live – a performance you loved but didn’t expect?

This week’s winner: Email subscriber Sarah Keen, who responded to the Question of the Week and was entered into a drawing for a Local Spins gift pack. Sign up for email updates and the weekly newsletter here: https://localspins.com/subscribe-local-spins-mailing-list/

THE READER RESPONSES:

Terry Oosterhart – Glen Campbell opening for Kenny Rogers at Wings stadium many years ago. Phenomenal performance… especially when he brought out his electric 12 string and played the living daylights out of the William Tell Overture!

Michael J Vizard – February 1969, Fountain Street Church: Steppenwolf. As I remember they put on a crummy show but Brownsville Station opened and they blew me away. After the show we stopped for pizza at the pizza/sub place on Michigan down the hill, east of College and BS were there…We told them they were great and we loved their sound..they invited us to their house in Ann Arbor which we did visit later that month.. 2 months later I was in the Army…a year later I was in Vietnam…

Bruce Vanderkooi – Steve Earle opening for Dylan. Wasn’t thrilled with Dylan but Earle blew me away!

Sarah Fairbanks Keen – Rayland Baxter opening for Grace Potter; Goodbye June opening for Whiskey Myers.

James Rick Savino – Yellow Brick Road tour, ‘73, (taking my new girlfriend-now wife of 45 years- to our first show together). Sutherland Bros. & Quiver beautiful sibling harmonies blew us away.

John Sinkevics – I’ve been smitten by opening acts — especially when I’m not overly excited about the headliner. Alejandro Escovedo, The Jayhawks, Mark Knopfler have all impressed me as openers for other artists. As for one of the most surprising: The Odds from Canada who opened for Warren Zevon at The Orbit Room (and also backed Zevon).

Jim Shade – Mark Knopfler opening for Dylan at VanAndel, the one to which you may have been referring. The only problem was the vast majority of “patrons” streaming in at their leisure and gabbing loudly while doing so. Show up on time and appreciate, please.

Brian J. Bowe – Seeing “Weird Al” Yankovic was a surprisingly sublime performance that I wasn’t expecting. I saw him open for the Monkees at Castle Farms in Charlevoix in 1987, and I was expecting a cheap novelty. I guess I didn’t realize ahead of time that having the ability to pull off so many different genres faithfully required real musical skill. And, that’s the thing — his gags wouldn’t work if the musical setting wasn’t right. I’ve seen many shows over the years, and that’s one that sticks with me as a great show I wasn’t expecting.

Ernie Clark – The Avett Brothers in 2006 opening for BR549 at The Dame in Lexington, KY. Within the year they were THE AVETT BROTHERS and guesting on Conan. I hadn’t heard of them to that point, and I had never seen that many broken strings on a banjo during a set. Bloody marvelous and so kind.

G. Kendall Kiel – The Chambers Brothers opening for Vanilla Fudge, c. 1970.

Darlene Cooper – We went to see Stephen Stills and Manassas, no opener advertised. It was Joe Walsh and Barnstorm kicking off the Rocky Mountain Way tour. Wow, they rumbled the ground at Pine Knob.

Isaac Powrie – Bright Light Social Hour opening for Umphrey’s in KZoo in 2012; Butcher Brown opening for Galactic

Roger Kintner – Joe Ely opening for Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble. Val-Du-Lakes. The Stray Cats were supposed to be the opener. I’m glad they didn’t play. Been a huge fan of Joe ever since.

Stephen Aldrich – You said “most surprising,” not best, so I will pick Australian band, Daddy Cool, opening for Fleetwood Mac, GVSC, ’71. Labelmates with FM, but completely unknown here, this quirky band totally won over the crowd, so big, that Dome Productions asked them back, not long after, for their own headline show, saw both. Had you said best opening act, would have said, Rory Gallagher, no contest.

Greg Vadnais – Killer Diller opening for Bop Harvey at the Magic Bag. Had NO IDEA we had a band like that in Michigan. Still can’t believe they all fit on stage.

Rick Slachta – First time I saw XTC they opened for The Police and blew them away.

Gary Rosenberg – Rick Slachta: 100 percent. Andy Partridge lathered and shaved Sting while he sang in Detroit.

Kanin Elizabeth – LP was amazing

Jamie Geysbeek – Secret Sisters opening for Nickel Creek in Chicago

Kerri VanderHoff – In 1996, while living in Albany, NY, there was a big international festival at the “Egg” Plaza, with a free show by Buster Poindexter (David Johansen), honestly I went for the food vendors and figured the music would be a walk by – as with the person who was surprised by the Weird Al show in an earlier comment, same reaction here – I expected a mildly amusing novelty act and it turned out to be one of my favorite experiences. Great showmanship and talent made for a very good time, enjoyed the whole show tremendously.

Rick Wilson – Saw Uriah Heep, White Trash and Long John Baldry on the same bill. Who opened for who?

Craig Carrick – Shovels and Rope, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Garrison Star, Marty Stuart were all great openers. Saw Rush open for Styx back in the 70s

Tom Slendebroek – INXS opening for Adam and the Ants, INXS just broke out in the States with big hit songs all over the radio. When ever Michael Hutchinson swiveled his hips the crowd went nuts. From my seat on the side I could see the reactions and screams in waves all the way from top to bottom of Devos Hall. The girl reaction reminded my of Beatle Mania.

Mick Williamson – Life, Sex, and Death opening for Lynch Mob. Perhaps Pantera opening for Skid Row.

Mick Williamson – The Nastys opening for anybody!

Lorraine Thibdaue Pickett – Shannon Curfman, opened for John Mellencamp at VanAndel

Tom Slendebroek – REO open for Kiss at the Welch. Kiss ,even with all their stuff could not energize the crowd after REO. A year before Kiss at Thunder Chicken rocked the place. Two years later Kiss at WMU got their mojo back and rocked but this time they had twice the smoke and fire.

Dave Adams – Most surprising for me was Macy Gray opening for Bowie.

Brad Vredevoogd – Leslie Feist opening up for Broken Social Scene. She’s an underrated talent, and singer.

Joshua Newman – Pearl Jam opening for Red Hot Chili Peppers and Smashing Pumpkins in 1991.

Steve Quick – Travis Shook & The Club Wow-opening for George Carlin

James R. Murphy Jr. – Hands down, the Gin Blossoms warming up Toad the Wet Sprocket at Club Eastbrook in ’92. I was working at LAV then, and I was escorting the “lucky contest winners” to the show that night. They came on, and we didn’t know who they were, but after their set, I was astonished, ran into Robert Chase, who was the Music Director at the time, just looked at him and said, “WTF was that?” He said, “I know, we’re adding them TOMORROW!” He did.

Sam Mendales – Ben Folds Five opening for Dave Mathews… Gatemouth Brown opening for Eric Clapton… both acts blew away the lead.

Buck McDougall – Luna which opened up for Lou Reed.

CT Revere – Crash Test Dummies opening for Elvis Costello were pretty cool.

Pete Owsianowski – Leon Redbone opening for John Prine at Meijer Gardens.

Jack Leaver – Focus

Susan Park – I saw Jim Croce and his Buddy, Maurice open for Biff Rose at “The Quiet Knight” in Chicago before he ever put an Lp together!-

Kate Barker – Just listen to Susan Werner. She opened for Joan Armatrading years ago and I’m now a devoted fan.

Cory Olsen – Stone Temple Pilots opening for Megadeth… Early ’90s… First album and it was fire!

Thomas Fouts – Roy Buchanan

Dave Palmer – Tauk opened for pigeons that play ping pong. Tauk is now my new favorite band.

Charles Honey – Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band certainly surprised me in opening for the Kinks at Detroit’s Ford Auditorium in 1972. I already liked much of his stuff but I wasnt prepared for his outrageous voice and dark charisma, along with the band’s virtuosity. Hopeless Kinks kultist that I was, I had to admit the Captain blew them away. Gary Rosenberg, anything else?

Daniel W Dawe – Stevie Ray Vaughn opening for George Thorogood.

Lance Hendrickson – The detritus will rain down on my giant head for this one, but at the LC Walker Arena in Muskegon a carload of us (“who’s got gas money?”) went and saw Whitesnake open for Quiet Riot in, like, 1983/4-ish. We had no idea who Whitesnake might be, but they set us all back on our heels.

Gary Rosenberg – The Band at the Grande Easttown —the opener was King Crimson on their first American tour, the same week Court of the Crimson King dropped! No one knew who they were. We expected King Curtis—some old blues sax player! 21st Century Schizoid Man— like whoa. That fancy unison playing with all the dramatic stops… felt like my heart was starting and stopping with the music.

Mike Ward – Recently Jade Bird open for Jason Isbell. She is amazing

Thomas Leonard Saxe – I saw J. Geils open for some other band. J. Geils Band was so damned good, I forgot who the headliner even was.

AJ Dunning – There’s a few of them- PJ Harvey opening for the band Live, Living Color opening for Soul Asylum, Cheap Trick opening for Journey.

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