1979-10-31 Bob Marley & the Wailers

Colgate University

For me and for many all over the world, Bob Marley and the Wailers were right at the core of the music I loved, and right there on levels beyond music, expressing so many timeless and important things poetically and beautifully.

This show was a Halloween spectacle, but no one in the band donned a costume, only some of the audience members. 

We drove the back roads of NY from Ithaca to Colgate, one small town after another with its civil war monument, each with the children out trick or treating.  On the way home we were happy to get a healthy dose of a Led Zeppelin's recently released "In Through the Out Door" on FM radio. 

I was amazed at how LOUD the show was; it seemed to peak during the guitar solo of "Heathen."

I had been a fan for years, listening to Marley and reggae and listening to Carribean radio in NYC , but my exposure to and appreciation for reggae would only expand during the next few years.

1980-10-01 Bob Marley & the Wailers (Cancelled Show)

Landmark Theatre

There was so much great music to listen to in 1980 and the new Bob Marley album, Uprising!, was high among our favorite choices.    

The show listed here was to have been been part of the balance of the 1980 tour, which was cancelled after the Pittsburgh show when Bob Marley fell ill.  It was of course a huge disappointment at the time, but not nearly as much of a disappointment as when we learned how sick he was, and ultimately in the following year, when we learned of his passing. 

Uprising! remains a timeless reggae classic.

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36 years later, I visited Nine Miles, JA, Bob's childhood home and his final resting place.... photos in the gallery below show the school built by Bob’s Mother there, a window on the outside of the Mausoleum, Bob’s childhood home. It was interesting to see the area after reading about it and seeing photos of the funeral procession and the Nine Miles area, e.g. in the Marley books “Catch a Fire” and “Reggae King of the World”.

Bob Marley’s framed gold record for the 1980 album Uprising!, on display in Nine Miles, JA

1985-10-04 The Wailers / Augustus Pablo

Beacon Theatre

2017-01-13 The Wailers

Capitol Theatre

What a great thrill to see members of the original Wailers, including Family Man and one of my old favorites, Donald Kinsey on the guitar, both of whom can be seen in some of the photos. See my Peter Tosh posts for photos of Donald with Peter Tosh.