Well, when I was young we saw the bigger groups at the Portsmouth Guildhall, but they were very cheap and affordable compared to how much we had, so it was actualy the same price as going to the pub, which obviously we did quite often, because that was cheap. There would often be a band in the pub, or one of the smaller venues. None of those things are that cheap any more.
But then, it was the status of those groups, you see iron maiden / scorpions / Dio etc, they weren't mega legacy groups at hte time, they were just the normal groups