The 500 Club Redux

Quite a few of you submitted your choices for your own personal 500 Club, so I guess it’s only fair that I pass on the original list. You can click on the link to see the full rules, but essentially, the 500 Club is an artist or band you would pay $500 at a moment’s notice to see in a 500-capacity club.

Now, before I get to the list, I should point out that what you’re about to see is not mine alone (mine would be uncharacteristically longer). It’s actually a list that I could agree on with two other music fanatic friends. One of them (G-Rob) is a jam band aficionado who also tends toward jazz. The other (T) is a straight rock and roller who tends toward blues. By now, you should know I am a singer/song writer nut who tends toward acoustic, jam-oriented hippie music. You should also know we were lubricated by a couple of beers and a guy’s night out, so we might have been a little more willing than normal to drop the $500.

All of that understood, here’s the list upon which we agreed.

*Full disclosure: Also appended to the list was Ozzy Osbourne, which now seems like a ridiculous idea and since I no longer agree with it, it’s off the list.

Among the others under serious consideration but unable to achieve unanimity: Robin Williams, Motley Crue, Bill Clinton, The Police, James Taylor, Iron Maiden, Metallica, and Bruce Springsteen. In retrospect, I think I might go back and substitute The Boss for Willie Nelson because I’ve seen Willie before (loved every second of it from my seat on the edge of the stage). However, present day, Springsteen has a new album, a fresh outlook, and some important things to say. Oh, and Willie’s latest offerings have sort of sucked. There I said it and may Hank Williams strike me down for the blasphemy.

I was more than a little interested in all the comments from the original post. Absinthe, who is no slouch when it comes to music knowledge, was finding it hard to pull the trigger on any band in a 500-person club, saying it was not intimate enough for him. Sure, 500 people isn’t romantic, but in the day and age when the legends can pull in $150 a seat for big arenas (think 18,000 seats), 500 is a reasonable level of intimacy as far as I am concerned. We all can’t be as lucky as KenP who could just pop down the street and see Lenny Bruce in a small club. Of course, to be so lucky would confer upon us a certain…experience…that would preclude wanting to pay $5 for soup, let alone $500 to see a legend up close and personal (just joshin’, Ken…sort of). I also tended to agree with a few of the other comments, including Van Morrison, Clapton, and J.J. Cale. For those who are sure to wonder, I left Bob Dylan off the list because I’ve not heard a single good thing about his recent live performances. Go back 30-35 years, though, and I’d pay a lot more than $500.

So, take your best shot at the list. To let you know how seriously we take ourselves, we also made another list. These are things we’d also pay at least a little money to see.

That’s right. A horse kicking a damned field goal. I’d pay to see it right now.