Buddy Rich and his big band or Cleo Lane with Dankworth & co - can't recall which was first - my parents took me - and it must have been 1970 or so. (My dad played trombone in a jazz band.)
The first concert I paid for myself (as a student who got pocket money from gardening) was in 1979 in Nice, France - Average White Band with Steel Pulse (as the opening band) - that was when my jaw dropped after hearing Steve Ferrone on drums - astonishingly musical performer and a superlative groovemaster. It was the same year that the Police "Message in a Bottle" came out and Copeland became a household name. Great stuff.
