The other night Calvin and I saw the Pet Shop Boys perform at the Shrine Auditorium. The memories of my 1980s clubbing days flooded in. This music was always easy to like, and based on the cheers that rose with the first notes of “Always on My Mind,” “It’s a Sin,” “Being Boring” and “Suburbia,” I wasn’t alone in relishing the experience.

A lot of people consider themselves “into music.” I don’t, though now that I think about it I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s that the stuff that interests me most is rarely what’s popular at the moment, and my music-listening is usually the equivalent of sitting in the corner at a loud party. The Pet Shop Boys concert prompted me to think of other live performances I’ve attended over the years, and seeing the list all in one place impressed me. Maybe I am a “music person.”

In no special order, chronological or otherwise:

Pet Shop Boys (3 times)
Depeche Mode
Erasure
New Order
Duran Duran (twice)
Terence Trent D’Arby
The Clash (w/ guest Joe Ely)
The English Beat
The Go-Go’s (opened for the English Beat)
Triumph (my first rock concert, where I made the mistake of wearing a wool sweater, which absorbed many strange, new odors)
Frank Sinatra (5 times)
Count Basie (3 times)
Ella Fitzgerald (with Basie)
Woody Herman
Joe Pass
Glen Campbell
Yes
Rita Coolidge
David Bowie
U2 (twice – at one of these concerts I kicked Maria Sharapova and Sasha Vujacic out of our seats)
The Alarm (opened for U2 c.1983)
A Flock of Seagulls
Black-Eyed Peas
The Chieftains
Enrique Iglesias
Barbra Streisand (oddly, on the same bill as Enrique Iglesias)
Rolling Stones (at Fenway Park, where I sat right behind Doug Flutie, thus ensuring my unobstructed view of the stage)
Liza Minnelli (phenomenal)
Sammy Davis, Jr. (ditto)
Oingo Boingo
Johnny Mathis (never moved six inches from the middle of the stage)
Dean Martin
Fats Domino
Peter Allen (met him on the street the day before – walking on it, not working there)
Diahann Carroll (opened for Jerry Lewis at the Sahara)
Dionne Warwick
Andy Williams (twice)
Bobby Sherman
The Osmond Brothers
The Jackson Five
Berlin (didn’t take my breath away)
Fun. (twice)
Third Eye Blind (twice)
Goo Goo Dolls (I fell asleep)
Tegan & Sara (affable ladies, catchy songs)
Human League
Belinda Carlisle (quite an energetic grandmother)
ABC
Naked Eyes
Modern English
Tony Bennett (3 times)
Diana Krall
Patti LuPone
Classical recitals: Andre Watts, Van Cliburn (twice)

I’m probably forgetting something but this isn’t too shoddy a list. I think it would have been interesting to see Sinatra with David Bowie, or maybe Andy Williams with the Clash.

(Update 4/10/14)
Pat Boone (San Antonio, 1971)

(Update 11/1/16)
Cher (Los Angeles, 2002)

(Update 4/26/17)
Lesley Gore, Little Anthony, The Drifters and Frankie Ford, in a Oct. 29, 1986, show at the Chicago Theater.)