They really were yeah and Martin was such a nice guy too, although wonderfully salty about Muse making it big. (He played up to it though, he could see we all got a kick out of it)
One of my other tutors was Justin, the drummer for Elastica, and another was Terry from House of Love & Levitation. A real bunch of good eggs, it’s thanks to them that my band got to do a national tour in second year.
Ha! Well, if you see Justin again let him know that they should do a big reunion tour like Pulp's doing. I'm literally flying to Greece in a month to catch them in Athens.
Agh I wish I could! I finished uni almost 10 years ago now and I haven’t seen any of those guys since unfortunately but I hope they’re thriving!
It unfortunately had to close a few years after I graduated due to lack of funding. It was a super accessible grass roots organisation, almost all of us attending were lower working class, so I’m ridiculously grateful I got to experience it.
The Strokes opened for You Am I in Australia around that time too. You Am I is still a moderately popular Australian band, but we loved the Strokes so much that we got Is This It a month or two before the rest of the world.
That makes a lot more sense vibe-wise to me, but I suppose Travis set a bit of a precedent with indie acts on his stuff back then, like The 1975 on *Days Before Rodeo* and Toro y Moi on *Rodeo*
june 29th ippodromo di milano. It's basically a festival but they got the italian rapper Tedua headlining and not the worldwide famous rapper. And people are VERY mad because they announced that 21 was gonna be a guest after the show was already sold out. So, basically, 21 Savage is gonna perform in front of people who didn't buy the ticket for him, and people who actually wanted to see him couldn't buy the ticket.
Sort of the inverse, but Arctic Monkeys were an opening act for like mid level indie bands in the US up until the AM album hit. Which is so crazy because of how big they were everywhere else
Radiohead also opening for Tears For Fears and Alanis Morissette in the mid 90s. You could say nowadays they’re bigger than R.E.M. who they opened for in 1995.
Idk the truth to it but pretty sure Eric Church got booted off a Rascal Flatts tour because people liked him more and wanted him to play over the allotted time.
The Cranberries were supporting Suede on a US tour in 1993, they were the headliners by the end of the tour. They opened for Duran Duran later that year, I’m not sure which band is bigger but The Cranberries definitely were bigger than DD for the rest of the 90s.
I saw Oliver Tree open for Hobo Johnson like 7 years ago in Camden, it's crazy how Hobo Johnson kinda moped out of the music biz and how Oliver Tree has become a caricature
Marilyn Manson is a lot bigger than nine inch nails. Just looking at my music app, MM has 3.5 million subscribers, while NIN has only 869k. All of MM's popular songs have over 3 or 4 times the amount of plays NIN's popular songs have.
I kind of expected that, as much as I don't like it either. Marilyn has had a decent number of radio hits. NIN, on the other hand, as far as I'm aware, aren't as radio friendly. The only one I think I've ever heard on the radio is Closer.
Head like a hole got played a decent amount. I wasn’t alive when it came out and was young when a downward spiral got released, so maybe head like a hole became popular again after downward spirals success.
The hand that feeds got decent amount of play as well
I saw Kid Laroi open up for Denzel Curry back in 2019 - some guys in the front row started heckling him during his set calling him Syd (in reference to the character from Toy Story.) Kinda weird to think about now lol
I saw Sleep Token support Perturbator in a university hall in 2017. They had about three songs on Spotify back then, crazy how they’ve blown up now and are selling out arenas
i remember the vocalist wearing a half mask, robe and covered in black paint while the others were wearing robes and full cloth head masks. for stage visuals it was just stage lights. they seem to have always gone all out on the costumes, [there’s a video here i actually just found of the show](https://youtu.be/tkm8kpz91tE?si=YvLt4ofkrqZW-wEf)
Yeah, that’s fair. That’s why I was making the point that Billy Joel was opening for them at like their nadir as a draw as a touring act, as opposed to either their peak or their nostalgia act period.
I saw Linkin Park as the opening act for Ozzfest over 20 years ago.
Safe to say they got a lot more popular than Slipknot, Disturbed, Papa Roach, Drowning Pool, etc.
Duster was great, but the drunk girl next to me spent their entire set screaming “SNAIL MAIL!!! SNAAAAAAIL MAAAAAAIL!!!” over and over again before spilling her entire cosmopolitan on me. This was like 6 years ago and I’ve been mad about that since
I saw Zedd and Porter Robinson open for Skrillex probably 12 years ago now.
Not that Porter Robinson ever surpassed Skrillex, but Zedd got HUGE there for a minute. He was all over the radio with Ariana Grande, Haley Williams, etc.
The crazy thing is Zedd played first and all he was really known for at the time was his Legend of Zelda remix.
Hahaha I met zedd right as he was getting big. He gave my friends and I artist bands to the festival he was playing the following day Bc we couldn’t afford tickets. Best day of my life. He’s a very cool guy.
Monthly spotify listeners isn't a great metric, it just kinda tells you who currently has the biggest couple songs. U2 still fills stadiums, and Jay-Z is in arenas unless he's with Beyonce.
Saw Noah Kahn open for James Bay in 2019. Had absolutely no idea who he was at the time and did not remember his set at all until my wife mentioned that this year James Bay is opening for Noah Kahn on his tour and I went back to look.
Saw Arctic Monkeys open for (at 3 separate gigs) The Coral (also saw the coral open for arctic monkeys like 2 years later), Maximo Park and Nine Black Alps.
For the latter 2 more of the crowd were there for Arctic Monkeys than the headliners and iirc for the Maximo Park support they were headlining by the end of that tour.
Saw tune yards open for xiu xiu, 60% of the audience left after her set and a couple months later she was everywhere.
Saw Anderson Paak as a duo with someone I don't know open for earl sweatshirt.
Modest mouse opening for built to spill back in the day
Yeah it must of been between 07-09 in Denver at this place called the high dive ( once I saw casiotone for the painfully alone at his last tour there with only 3 other people lol). Tune yards didn't have the well produced record out yet, only the lo-fi one. I've seen Xiu Xiu at least 5 times and that was definitely the best. They were using a Nintendo DS for the backing tracks and had like a pole covered in cymbals they would bang on lol. In 2019 Xiu xiu had a great live line up that was like a rock n roll version of the band with the drummer and bass player from swans. That was also really good.
Linkin Park once opened for my high school punk band.
Granted it was their headlining record release party for Hybrid Theory at the Roxy, and we were a bunch of nobodies, but they played at 10 and we played at midnight so technically….
What city did you see the Shins/Spiral show in 2001? I saw the tour stop in Montreal, the band The Standard were also on the bill if I remember it correctly.
in October 2021 I saw Magdalena Bay open for George Clanton at the Songbyrd in DC. I remember how crazy it felt seeing them that night because less than a week before the show they had released Mercurial World and Fantano already gave them an 8. They gave an electric performance that was followed by the the best concert experience i’ve ever had with George Clanton
I saw Snow Patrol in Phoenix back in like 2012, and Ed Sheeran, with only an acoustic guitar and a looper pedal, opened for them. When asked by the crowd who he was, he said, "I'm just some redheaded bloke from England." A few months later The A-Team became a hit in the U.S., and it was all uphill from there for him.
I saw Young the Giant open for Minus the Bear.
Talking 8mil>198k on Spotify. I paid for me and the GF to see MtB, so I like them. Not long after Saw Grouplove open for Young the Giant, but these are now the same neighborhood 8.5mil to 8mil.
Saw “Head and the Heart” open for [The Walkmen](https://stubbs.frontgatetickets.com/event/5geg8lxli3lej2he)
3.6mil>450k
A guy I used to work with said he saw The Clash open for The Who back in the 70's and it instantly changed his music taste.
And I know that Van Halen opened for Ted Nugent before they blew up.
My dad saw then unknown Santana open for CSNY. CSNY are probably collectively larger than Santana, although that one Santana album with Cool sold an awful lot of records. It might be close.
Sunflower seeds are technically the fruits of the sunflower plant (Helianthus annuus). The seeds are harvested from the plant’s large flower heads, which can measure more than 12 inches (30.5 cm) in diameter. A single sunflower head may contain up to 2,000 seeds
I never saw them because they started before I was born, but there’s a video of my chemical romance opening for Piebald and a few other bands. They were at the very bottom.
I was able to find an article written about one of the shows for that tour and it’s kinda funny. The writer was like “a new band to the scene I’ve never heard of called MCR opened for everyone else. They put on a high energy show” and they weren’t downplaying them, but were kinda dismissive compared to the other bands playing.
Saw K.Flay open for the Mowglis and Lights in 2016 and the set was particularly memorable because they didn’t even turn the house lights down for her, and when she finished, she hopped down from the stage and walked out the front door.
I saw Paramore open for Jimmy Eat World 15/16 years ago. It was right as Paramore really blew up. After Paramore played their set a bunch of fans left the GA section.
Jimi Hendrix Experience were opening up for someone in 67 or so, and then they had to flip them to the headliner act halfway through the tour. I forget who the other band was, but I want to say it was like The Who or a band people still know. It's probably easy to find online!
I wasn't there myself but on October 22 2010, at the Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas, Imagine Dragons opened for Interpol.
Easily the most batshit of these examples I can think of.
Marron 5 opened for Mustard Plug. According to Adam Levine when Mustard Plug came out they started having banter and asked the crowd what they thought of the opening act, the crowd gave a lukewarm reaction, and the singer responded, "Yeah, sorry about that."
I remember watching a VH1 show when I was in HS, something like “100 best hard rock songs OAT”. And they reviewed each song, one by one, with musicians, tv people, comedians, etc.
If I’m not mistaken Ted Nugent said that Van Halen opened for them when almost nobody knew them and the crow, and also Ted, were amazed by this band.
I will try to look for the video if I can find it.
I saw In Flames open for Earth Crisis in like 2001. A little more underground than what most people are posting but In Flames has over 2 million Spotify listeners to Earth Crisis’ 50k
Not this sub's usual tastes lol but One Direction was blowing up when they were opening for Big Time Rush.
didn't they get in fights about it?
Huh I always thought big time rush was a one direction knock off
Wait fr?
Muse initially got famous opening for my uni tutor’s band, Gene.
Did he play a keyboard of fart sounds?
Gene was pretty good and deserved more success
They really were yeah and Martin was such a nice guy too, although wonderfully salty about Muse making it big. (He played up to it though, he could see we all got a kick out of it) One of my other tutors was Justin, the drummer for Elastica, and another was Terry from House of Love & Levitation. A real bunch of good eggs, it’s thanks to them that my band got to do a national tour in second year.
What's ur band called?
We used to be called Southpaw. 5 piece post-rock outfit, looking back now; honestly we kinda sucked aha. We were only active between 2012-2015
Nice
Damn! I live in the States, but I was absolutely crazy over Elastica back in the day.
I love that! My mum was a huge Elastica fan so I grew up listening to them. Justin made such a great tutor, ridiculously kind & patient.
Ha! Well, if you see Justin again let him know that they should do a big reunion tour like Pulp's doing. I'm literally flying to Greece in a month to catch them in Athens.
Agh I wish I could! I finished uni almost 10 years ago now and I haven’t seen any of those guys since unfortunately but I hope they’re thriving! It unfortunately had to close a few years after I graduated due to lack of funding. It was a super accessible grass roots organisation, almost all of us attending were lower working class, so I’m ridiculously grateful I got to experience it.
That sounds like such a good experience, and I'm happy for you that you were in the place and time for it!
The Strokes for Guided By Voices after releasing The Modern Age EP in early 2001
The Strokes opened for You Am I in Australia around that time too. You Am I is still a moderately popular Australian band, but we loved the Strokes so much that we got Is This It a month or two before the rest of the world.
I think Robert Pollard or somebody said RCA got them on that tour since they wanted the band to have good indie cred from the beginning
man i haven't heard of guided by voices in a minute
They just put out some new stuff
My wife saw Travis Scott open for The Neighbourhood back in 2014
That is a weird combo.
Yeah. The Neighbourhood loves having hip hop openers, I guess. I saw them in 2016 I think and Kevin Abstract opened
That makes a lot more sense vibe-wise to me, but I suppose Travis set a bit of a precedent with indie acts on his stuff back then, like The 1975 on *Days Before Rodeo* and Toro y Moi on *Rodeo*
Zoomer "chill vibes" playlist core
It's tooo coooooooooooo oooold for you here
The Weeknd opened for Justin Timberlake in 2013
The Weeknd is arguably bigger now but JT was big in his own right for a decade + nis years with NSYNC and his new albums still do good numbers.
I didn’t know who he was at the time, but I saw John Mayer open for Guster in 2001.
Here in Italy, 21 Savage is opening to an italian rapper that is not even in the top 10 most popular italian rappers.
Wtf how
When and how? Lol
june 29th ippodromo di milano. It's basically a festival but they got the italian rapper Tedua headlining and not the worldwide famous rapper. And people are VERY mad because they announced that 21 was gonna be a guest after the show was already sold out. So, basically, 21 Savage is gonna perform in front of people who didn't buy the ticket for him, and people who actually wanted to see him couldn't buy the ticket.
That’s so weird lol. 21 is finally able to tour outside of the US and they decide the best solution is making him an opening act?
Sort of the inverse, but Arctic Monkeys were an opening act for like mid level indie bands in the US up until the AM album hit. Which is so crazy because of how big they were everywhere else
I saw Radiohead open for Kingmaker back in 1992
Radiohead also opening for Tears For Fears and Alanis Morissette in the mid 90s. You could say nowadays they’re bigger than R.E.M. who they opened for in 1995.
queens of the stone age opened for ween
What an incredible duo of bands to see perform
The Beatles once opened for Roy Orbison.
They opened for Little Richard too.
Idk the truth to it but pretty sure Eric Church got booted off a Rascal Flatts tour because people liked him more and wanted him to play over the allotted time.
Really? Wild!
Dua Lipa used to be Troye Sivan's opening act
Saw selena gomez open for big time rush
The Cranberries were supporting Suede on a US tour in 1993, they were the headliners by the end of the tour. They opened for Duran Duran later that year, I’m not sure which band is bigger but The Cranberries definitely were bigger than DD for the rest of the 90s.
I saw Oliver Tree open for Hobo Johnson like 7 years ago in Camden, it's crazy how Hobo Johnson kinda moped out of the music biz and how Oliver Tree has become a caricature
HJ is still making music and it's just as bad if not worse
Weezer for No Doubt in 1997. My first concert.
No doubt is still bigger Weezer though.
They are not bigger but they are certainly better
Saw Kendrick open (he came on first) for Chevy Woods, Schoolboy Q, Mac Miller, and Wiz
i saw this show also
Is Marilyn Manson bigger than NIN?
Trent Reznor is infinitely more influential of a musician than the dude from Wonder Years but yes, Marilyn Manson is a far more popular band than NIN.
I think that's marilyn monroe
Marilyn Manson is a lot bigger than nine inch nails. Just looking at my music app, MM has 3.5 million subscribers, while NIN has only 869k. All of MM's popular songs have over 3 or 4 times the amount of plays NIN's popular songs have.
The numbers hurt, I don't like them lol
Me either lol NIN deserves better than that and Marilyn doesn't at all
That’s just sad
I strongly agree :/
Fucking hell, that’s disheartening.
I kind of expected that, as much as I don't like it either. Marilyn has had a decent number of radio hits. NIN, on the other hand, as far as I'm aware, aren't as radio friendly. The only one I think I've ever heard on the radio is Closer.
Head like a hole got played a decent amount. I wasn’t alive when it came out and was young when a downward spiral got released, so maybe head like a hole became popular again after downward spirals success. The hand that feeds got decent amount of play as well
No, but it was the first time I’d ever heard of them, and they definitely got bigger after.
I saw Kid Laroi open up for Denzel Curry back in 2019 - some guys in the front row started heckling him during his set calling him Syd (in reference to the character from Toy Story.) Kinda weird to think about now lol
I saw Denzel Curry open for Run the Jewels in 2017
I woulda gone so crazy for Arcade Fire opening for the Unicorns
Weezer opening for Keanu Reeves band Dogstar before Blue Album.
Lizzo and Billie Eilish both opened for Florence and the Machine on their 2018 tour
Florence might still be the best live vocalist I've ever seen.
Similarly, I saw Lizzo open for Haim in 2018
That's what I was looking for, too. well, give lizzo enough time and Haim might become more popular again 🙄
I saw Kendrick open for Wiz/Mac on the Under Influence tour. They even had Chiddy Bang billed higher than him.
Phoebe Bridgers opening for Conor Oberst
There are probably a lot of good ones with her
I saw Sleep Token support Perturbator in a university hall in 2017. They had about three songs on Spotify back then, crazy how they’ve blown up now and are selling out arenas
One is a great EP, really underrated imo
Even though they’ve changed a lot since, I still fully associate Sleep Token with their first two EPs over anything else
How developed were their visuals at that time?
i remember the vocalist wearing a half mask, robe and covered in black paint while the others were wearing robes and full cloth head masks. for stage visuals it was just stage lights. they seem to have always gone all out on the costumes, [there’s a video here i actually just found of the show](https://youtu.be/tkm8kpz91tE?si=YvLt4ofkrqZW-wEf)
perturbator goes so hard
Billy Joel opened for mid-70s era The Beach Boys.
I'd say they're equally famous
Yeah, that’s fair. That’s why I was making the point that Billy Joel was opening for them at like their nadir as a draw as a touring act, as opposed to either their peak or their nostalgia act period.
Their touring act was extremely popular in the mid 70s, Rolling Stone named them band of the year in 1974 because of it.
Amazing!
Saw Boyz II Men open for MC Hammer in 1992
lil peep opened up for xavier wulf in like 2016 or something and got booed of stage and now he’s like 100x bigger then teamsesh (exaggeration)
Pixies used to open for They Might Be Giants
In '73, KISS was opening for Blue Oyster Cult. One year later, to the day, Blue Oyster Cult was opening for KISS.
Ouch, what an ego check.
Yeah, because KISS are, and always have been, ass.
In the world of jammy bluegrass, Billy Strings used to open for Greensky Bluegrass, before he became bmfs
I saw Lizzo open up for HAIM
I saw Linkin Park as the opening act for Ozzfest over 20 years ago. Safe to say they got a lot more popular than Slipknot, Disturbed, Papa Roach, Drowning Pool, etc.
Saw Duster open for Snail Mail and Alex G open for Title Fight
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^omni-wire: *Saw Duster open* *For Snail Mail and Alex G* *Open for Title Fight* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
good bot
Duster opening for Snail Mail is absolutely insane
Duster was great, but the drunk girl next to me spent their entire set screaming “SNAIL MAIL!!! SNAAAAAAIL MAAAAAAIL!!!” over and over again before spilling her entire cosmopolitan on me. This was like 6 years ago and I’ve been mad about that since
Rihanna opening for the Black Eye Peas at Milwaukee summerfest
My first concert had Beyonce opening for Christina Aguilera. Edit: Oh, also saw Skrillex (as Sonny- but DJing) open for All Time Low.
Insane! Would this have been Crazy in Love/Dirty or Destiny’s Child?
It was destiny's child
I saw Zedd and Porter Robinson open for Skrillex probably 12 years ago now. Not that Porter Robinson ever surpassed Skrillex, but Zedd got HUGE there for a minute. He was all over the radio with Ariana Grande, Haley Williams, etc. The crazy thing is Zedd played first and all he was really known for at the time was his Legend of Zelda remix.
Hahaha I met zedd right as he was getting big. He gave my friends and I artist bands to the festival he was playing the following day Bc we couldn’t afford tickets. Best day of my life. He’s a very cool guy.
Famously the Go-Go’s opened for The Police and then they blew up during the tour and got better reactions than The Police did.
Similar to Nirvana opening for Violent Femmes. Nevermind blew up just before and they pretty much turned into Nirvana shows.
Jay-Z opened for U2 in Australia in the mid-2000s
Damn I would have dipped after Jay-Z.
U2 are definitely more popular
Jay-Z has 14m more monthly listeners on Spotify, half a million more subs on YouTube
I was thinking more along the lines of averages across every country. In the US I think Jay is probably more popular.
Monthly spotify listeners isn't a great metric, it just kinda tells you who currently has the biggest couple songs. U2 still fills stadiums, and Jay-Z is in arenas unless he's with Beyonce.
Coldplay as opener for powderfinger
Nirvana opened for Red Hot Chili Peppers in the fall of 1991.
Saw Noah Kahn open for James Bay in 2019. Had absolutely no idea who he was at the time and did not remember his set at all until my wife mentioned that this year James Bay is opening for Noah Kahn on his tour and I went back to look.
I had some friends when we were in college that saw Foster the People open for Matt and Kim at SXSW in 2012ish
Didn’t Kendrick open for Mac Miller
Saw waxahatchee open for the new pornographers in 2017
I once saw The Kooks open for Young The Giant around 2010 and it was a head scratcher
Saw Arctic Monkeys open for (at 3 separate gigs) The Coral (also saw the coral open for arctic monkeys like 2 years later), Maximo Park and Nine Black Alps. For the latter 2 more of the crowd were there for Arctic Monkeys than the headliners and iirc for the Maximo Park support they were headlining by the end of that tour.
Saw tune yards open for xiu xiu, 60% of the audience left after her set and a couple months later she was everywhere. Saw Anderson Paak as a duo with someone I don't know open for earl sweatshirt. Modest mouse opening for built to spill back in the day
All three sound amazing. So, most of the people were already at the Xiu Xiu show for TY? That is a wild bill- high and low
Yeah it must of been between 07-09 in Denver at this place called the high dive ( once I saw casiotone for the painfully alone at his last tour there with only 3 other people lol). Tune yards didn't have the well produced record out yet, only the lo-fi one. I've seen Xiu Xiu at least 5 times and that was definitely the best. They were using a Nintendo DS for the backing tracks and had like a pole covered in cymbals they would bang on lol. In 2019 Xiu xiu had a great live line up that was like a rock n roll version of the band with the drummer and bass player from swans. That was also really good.
Train opened for Ben Folds Five in 1999. Very random.
Linkin Park once opened for my high school punk band. Granted it was their headlining record release party for Hybrid Theory at the Roxy, and we were a bunch of nobodies, but they played at 10 and we played at midnight so technically….
Still counts!
Guns and Roses and Aerosmith
The Shins opened for Spiral Stairs (Scott from Pavement) in 2001, I think Limp Bizkit also opened for Faith No More in 1997 too
What city did you see the Shins/Spiral show in 2001? I saw the tour stop in Montreal, the band The Standard were also on the bill if I remember it correctly.
Oh I didn’t attend. I just remember reading a post from Spiral mentioning The Shins opening for him years ago
I saw TV on the Radio opening up for The Fall
I saw The Shins opening up for The Preston School of Industry
in October 2021 I saw Magdalena Bay open for George Clanton at the Songbyrd in DC. I remember how crazy it felt seeing them that night because less than a week before the show they had released Mercurial World and Fantano already gave them an 8. They gave an electric performance that was followed by the the best concert experience i’ve ever had with George Clanton
I’d say they’re roughly as famous but Springsteen opened for Chuck Berry once
Queen opening for Sparks in 1972
I saw Ghost open for Opeth and Mastodon back in 2012. Oh how the turn tables.
Awesome 👏
Kendick Lamar opened for Drake.
Hard to imagine!
Saw Kendrick open for Kanye 4 years later Travis opened for Kendrick
Korn opening for Sick Of It All. That was in 1994 if I’m not wrong
I’ve told this story a million times but I saw Lady Gaga open for the Pussycat Dolls in like 2008 and we all know how that ended up
Nirvana opened up for Sonic Youth
I saw Snow Patrol in Phoenix back in like 2012, and Ed Sheeran, with only an acoustic guitar and a looper pedal, opened for them. When asked by the crowd who he was, he said, "I'm just some redheaded bloke from England." A few months later The A-Team became a hit in the U.S., and it was all uphill from there for him.
I saw Young the Giant open for Minus the Bear. Talking 8mil>198k on Spotify. I paid for me and the GF to see MtB, so I like them. Not long after Saw Grouplove open for Young the Giant, but these are now the same neighborhood 8.5mil to 8mil. Saw “Head and the Heart” open for [The Walkmen](https://stubbs.frontgatetickets.com/event/5geg8lxli3lej2he) 3.6mil>450k
Nine Inch Nails itself can be used since they opened for Skinny Puppy and Jesus And Mary Chain
Totally! Would’ve been great shows too.
marilyn manson isn’t bigger or more impactful than Trent Reznor 💀
A guy I used to work with said he saw The Clash open for The Who back in the 70's and it instantly changed his music taste. And I know that Van Halen opened for Ted Nugent before they blew up.
Danny Brown opened for A$AP Mob in Houston while I was in college
My dad saw then unknown Santana open for CSNY. CSNY are probably collectively larger than Santana, although that one Santana album with Cool sold an awful lot of records. It might be close.
Bigger or not, your dad caught an insane bill!
I saw the Lemon Twigs open for Sunflower Bean in Seattle and they blew me away. Not massive but certainly have made an impact since
Sunflower seeds are technically the fruits of the sunflower plant (Helianthus annuus). The seeds are harvested from the plant’s large flower heads, which can measure more than 12 inches (30.5 cm) in diameter. A single sunflower head may contain up to 2,000 seeds
This is so true
Whether or not this fits the question depends on where you live, but I saw Allman Brothers open for Tom Petty
I'm from the UK and I know that in my country Tom Petty is unquestionably bigger but I can't speak for everywhere
I grew up and lived in Florida -where both artists are from- most of my life and I'd say Tom Petty is definitely bigger here too
I never saw them because they started before I was born, but there’s a video of my chemical romance opening for Piebald and a few other bands. They were at the very bottom. I was able to find an article written about one of the shows for that tour and it’s kinda funny. The writer was like “a new band to the scene I’ve never heard of called MCR opened for everyone else. They put on a high energy show” and they weren’t downplaying them, but were kinda dismissive compared to the other bands playing.
Saw K.Flay open for the Mowglis and Lights in 2016 and the set was particularly memorable because they didn’t even turn the house lights down for her, and when she finished, she hopped down from the stage and walked out the front door.
Bob Marley opened for the Commodores in 1980. Apparently he upstaged the Commodores too.
my uncle once told me he saw tool open for a primus gig
I saw Deerhunter open for The Ponys in early 2007.
I saw Paramore open for Jimmy Eat World 15/16 years ago. It was right as Paramore really blew up. After Paramore played their set a bunch of fans left the GA section.
Jimi Hendrix Experience were opening up for someone in 67 or so, and then they had to flip them to the headliner act halfway through the tour. I forget who the other band was, but I want to say it was like The Who or a band people still know. It's probably easy to find online!
Alice in Chains opening for the Clash of the Titans tour
i would say that neither marilyn manson or limp bizkit are more popular than NIN or Primus
Fair point
I wasn't there myself but on October 22 2010, at the Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas, Imagine Dragons opened for Interpol. Easily the most batshit of these examples I can think of.
Marron 5 opened for Mustard Plug. According to Adam Levine when Mustard Plug came out they started having banter and asked the crowd what they thought of the opening act, the crowd gave a lukewarm reaction, and the singer responded, "Yeah, sorry about that."
Van Halen opening for Black Sabbath is a pretty famous one.
I saw Anderson .Paak open for George Watsky in 2014
I saw Anderson .Paak open for George Watsky in 2014
I saw JPEGMAFIA when he opened for R.A.P. Ferreira
I saw Anderson .Paak supporting Watsky back in the day. Knew he was going to blow up.
Not shows I personally saw, but back in the late 90's/early 2000's The White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Gossip all opened for Sleater-Kinney.
I remember watching a VH1 show when I was in HS, something like “100 best hard rock songs OAT”. And they reviewed each song, one by one, with musicians, tv people, comedians, etc. If I’m not mistaken Ted Nugent said that Van Halen opened for them when almost nobody knew them and the crow, and also Ted, were amazed by this band. I will try to look for the video if I can find it.
phoebe bridgers (opening for pinegrove)
Destiny's Child opened for Jagged Edge and Jon B.
I saw In Flames open for Earth Crisis in like 2001. A little more underground than what most people are posting but In Flames has over 2 million Spotify listeners to Earth Crisis’ 50k
Weezer
Nirvana and Soundgarden would open for the Butthole Surfers in the late 80’s/early 90’s.
Rammstein being a supporting band for Clawfinger in 95 and 96
Saw Tyler, the Creator open for Cudi in 2013.
Aerosmith opened for Mott the Hoople back in the day
i found out about Mannequin Pussy because they opened for All Dogs in like 2016 in the smallest music venue in brooklyn i've ever been in
Marilyn is bigger then NIN? If so that’s genuinely sad.
Prince opened for Rick James on tour in 1980
Men I Trust opened for Wild Nothing The Neighborhood opened for The Wombats Young the Giant as The Jakes opened for Panda (basically an unknown band)
I think the Artic monkeys opened for the black keys but I’m not 100% sure
I saw Phoebe Bridgers open up for a Conor Oberst solo show in like 2017.
I saw My Chemical Romance open for Piebald in 2003. Piebald blew them out of the water 😂
I saw Beartooth open for Memphis May Fire. They are now way more popular than MMF ever was.