re: Did You See A Band Perform Before They Got Big?

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Nickelback

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Saw them in downtown Lafayette around 1999 or 2000.....they played at a small venue on Jefferson street and had just signed on with Roadrunner records.....maybe 75-100 people there....max

Seems like about a month or two later they were all over MTV.....

That's the best I got.

Alanis Morrisette at a coffee shop. There was a $3 cover or admission was free if you brought a non perishable food item. There were maybe a dozen people there. Six months later she was winning Grammys.

Paid $1.06 to see Green Day at a haggard backwoods dive bar.

The best one (not because of the music but because of the outrage it caused) was seeing Garth Brooks at a County Fair in 1989 or ‘90. The vitriol expressed in letters to the editor of the local paper are still a fun read. “We always have to settle for unknown wannabes and never willbes. Why can’t we get a popular act like Jan and Dean or Sha-an-na. Other nearby county fairs have them, why can’t we?”

Within a year there were TV specials with Garth Brooks being suspended above the crowd at a sold out Texas Stadium.

I saw Jason Isbell around 2004 right after his split from DBT in a corner of a tiny bar play to about 25 people there. His first solo album hadn’t come out yet I don’t think.

Saw Zach Top for $25. Hung out and took pics with him. He's a cool guy.

Was that Hootie show at Fitzgeralds?

Here’s a great vid where they got invited up on stage at a restaurant possibly a few hours before that show…

Hootie

Speaking of Fitzgerald’s, I saw Khruangbin’s first show there in front of about 7 people in 2011

Saw Nirvana, Melvins, MudHoney, L7, Hole all play free at Emos in Houston in the early 90s before they came back playing larger venues.

I saw 10,000 Maniacs at Tipitina's around 1985.

Saw Imagine Dragons for $10. Way before radioactive...

Saw Derek Trucks at Tipitina’s when he was 14 years old - wearing his Atlanta Braves ball cap pulled down low, never looking up at the crowd

Piper with Billy Squire on guitar and vocals. At the time, I just thought a solid act. Squire didn't hit until years later, and it was even longer before I realized that I had seen him in his earlier iteration.

Van Halen was seemingly opening for everyone back in the 70's. Ditto for Cheap Trick and AC/DC (before they crushed it in 1980 with Back in Black).

Zebra... at lots of clubs before their debut LP.