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Originally Posted by frankbmd
I'm a horny guy (tenor sax), but seeing Chuck live was a treat.
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Frank, I couldn't agree with you more! Glad to hear you had a chance to see him live.
Got lucky enough to catch him at an oddball, late-afternoon/early evening performance at the Tower City complex in downtown Cleveland. In other words, in one of the lower levels of the Terminal Tower building on Cleveland's Public Square. (Cleveland - The only city in the world with a Tower that is Terminal, overlooking a Lake that is Erie!) That was on March 21, 1986, and was called the Moondog Coronation Ball II (held on the 34th anniversary of the original Moondog Coronation Ball emceed by Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed who is credited with first coining the term rock-n-roll in regard to the music being played) and was one of the reasons the Rock-N-Roll HOF ended up in Cleveland. About 3,500 people actually attended, and I was lucky to be one of them.
It was one of those concerts/performances he was so famous for where he just shows up and then pulls his guitar out of its case and jumps onstage to join the supporting backup band he's never met or played with before, and whose only prerequisite is to supposedly know Chuck Berry's greatest hits. Was just an open floor, with no seats, and a makeshift stage that was obviously just thrown together and quickly taken apart after the show was done. (And Eric Carmen of the Raspberries was the opening act.) No fancy venue or acoustics, and was more like attending a high school dance at your local school gym. But for all the things that were just slapped together and could go wrong with such a questionable location and backing band, damn, could that man play, perform, and put on a show. To really appreciate Chuck Berry, you had to see and hear him perform live. There may be faster, tighter, sharper, and overall more gifted and talented guitarists in the world, but when he's duckwalking across the stage while playing "Johnny Be Good", there is nothing in the entire history and realm of rock-n-roll that ever has, nor ever will, equal, let alone exceed it.......PERIOD!
I have never thought of or considered Elvis as the king of rock-n-roll. And forget Bill Hailey and the Comets, "Rock Around the Clock", and everything and everyone else being the first of anything. Rock-n-roll truly only began with one man, and one man alone.......Chuck Berry!
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