[redshifter]

hirsch,
although i was born in 1967, i think 1971 is the dead's greatest year (from many live tapes/cds i have). pigpen was still alive, and jerry's playing had great energy. i have a bootleg from the filmore east from '71 that has the greatest garcia solo i've ever heard for "hard to handle".

my best concert was jethro tull around in the late eighties. my friend bob stopped by my dorm room and said, "lets go see tull!!". i never really listened to tull before, but i dropped everything and went. the openning act was this little english wanker in skin tight tiger-striped pants who played deafening butt rock. but the end of his set my ears were ringing, everyone was booing him, and he took a picture of the audience "for me mum". then tull played. these guys are serious musicians. i've never seen a live rock act that played with such virtuosity. and on top of that ian anderson is quite the showman. every song was like a mini-play, complete with special effects and magic tricks, but not in that dorky vegas way. tull that night gave 200% and after i became an instant tullhead!

 

[chadbang]

QUOTE: "the openning act was this little english wanker in skin tight tiger-striped pants who played deafening butt rock. but the end of his set my ears were ringing, everyone was booing him, and he took a picture of the audience "for me mum"


And that wanker was...?
Man, I thought there was a surprise ending!

 

[mackay maus]

Iggy Pop in some tiny dump in Columbus Ohio, 1977-can't recall the club, but it was the Idiot tour.

Surprise keyboard player-David Bowie.

Couldn't have been more than 250 people there, and everyone could get up near the stage.

Still love that album-best non stooge work.

Time has probably made it better than it really was, but I enjoyed that one.

Biggest goof-up? I had a ride and was offered tickets to the first Sex Pistols show and didn't want to miss that much university.

Dummie...

Matthew

 

[MikeR17]

Well, I haven't exactly been to that many concerts, but my favorite so far would definitely be the Dave Matthews Band Concert at SPAC, I think in the year 2000. I went with one of my good friends and had a great time there. Dave played several of my favorite songs and I thought he put on a great show. However, I may be a bit biased since I am a huge DMB fan. Anyway, that's my favorite so far.

 

[Audio-Me]

Warped Tour 2000, Suffolk Downs Boston, MA. Sum41 + Jurassic 5.

 

[redshifter]

chadbang,
i've deleted that information from my memory to make room for headphone statistics.

who knows, either he's the lead singer in blur now, or he's unemployed living in his mum's basement.

 

[royboy2k]

Weezer, October 2001

Admittedly I haven't been to many rock concerts, but this one was great. It wasn't so much the actual music or sound quality, but the experience of singing along to the songs with thousands of other Weezer fans. I had lots of fun!

 

[coolvij]

You can count the number of rock concerts - no, make that TOTAL concerts - that i've been to in my life...on your fingers and toes.

By far the best tho - Blue Man Group at Briar Street Theater in Chicago.

Very entertaining.....strange, admittedly humorous stage antics - and, of course, a great musical show......

 

[thopter]

Impossible to pick just one... so
Janes Addiction, on their first nationwide tour. It was an XRT budget show at the Metro in Chicago. Afterwords I realized that you could always tell the 'Rock Star' poseurs from the guys that really wanted to make music.
Primal Scream, again at the Metro, voted one of the top shows there ever, culminated by a rousing rendition of 'Anarchy in the UK' with the Orb's Alex Patterson.
Underworld, about a year ago, at the House of Blues. Never thought the GF could dance quite like THAT!

 

[erix]

Can't remember the exact date except it was Friday of a three-day series.

It was my first Dead show - I'd been around that kind of people before but never went to a show. Partly because they hadn't played in Vegas since 84 and partly because I didn't want to become - "one of them" (in hindsight this turns out to be a pretty lame excuse!)

It was kinda sunny in the morning but ugly black clouds formed over the stadium (Sam Boyd Silverbowl, if you must know) in the afternoon and the wind came up. The parking lot is gravel and we spent most of Steve Winwood's set out there enjoying the scene and getting sandy.

Winwood ended his set and we headed inside and got into the stadium. We were up in the bleachers at the top, (you know, the aluminum ones by the aluminum light poles?) when the sky opened up in the most terrible confligration of rian, wind, and lightining I'd ever seen in my life. It occurred to me that maybe we weren't in the safest place during a lighting storm....

A lighting bolt landed near a car parked outside the stadium. It was LOUD, BRIGHT, and I could smell the ozone.

We dived down inside the bowels of the stadium along with the rain soaked masses and made our way to a ramp that rose above the floor of the concourse and up to a storage area. There was a food stand below and a large group of picnic tables.

Then, something amazing began happening...

People started drumming on the tables, a few hands at first and then a lot of hands. Pretty soon a huge organic rythm was filling the air. The sound beat on my chest. It was loud and smooth and free and I just stood there, mouth agape and gazed. People were dancing and yipping and yelping and the rythm would bob and weave - a new beat added here and there - lets add an accent HERE - what happens if we do this - totally spontaneous improvisation on a crowd level.

It stopped raining too soon and gradually we filtered back out into the stadium. Then another amazing thing happened..

The clouds seemed to part and the sun came out and almost instantly the Dead were onstage and the first song they played was "Here Comes Sunshine" - a song I'd never heard before or since - and the crowd went absolutely nuts! I have goose bumps just typing this!

How did it change me?

Well, for starters I went to a lot more Dead concerts....

Great thread, thanx.

ok,
erix

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Pink Floyd, Division Bell tour. Best concert I will have ever seen in my entire life.

Giant, bigger-than-life-sized, anatomically correct male and female inflatable pigs.

Quadraphonic sound.

A giant mirror ball -- they put the whole band in it.

Huge screens.

Played a bunch of great music.

Entire Dark Side of the Moon, interspersed with other tracks -- e.g., at the end of "Breathe (Reprise)", when he's singing "...far away, across the fields, the tolling of the iron bell...", they start ringing a bell, and as the rest of the song ends, they keep ringing the bell...and begin playing "High Hopes". Many magical moments like that.

Rush was good, too. Specifically on their "Different Stages" tour, when they played the entire "2112", when I realized that they were going to, I almost cried.

Also, on the Hemispheres tour, when they played the entire Cygnus X-I, Books 1 and 2, compleat, plus something before that ("Trees", I think?) and something after ("Cinderella Man"?). Contiguously. (That's over 40 minutes of solid music, for those who don't know.) And then they played almost the entire "All the World's a Stage" as a medley for the finale'/encore. That was a pretty awesome tour.

Black and Blue was good (Black Sabbath/Blue Oyster Cult co-headliner).

Al Di Meola on the Infinite Desire tour was amazing (it was so intimate, I could have reached out and strummed his strings for him).

Every Legendary Pink Dots show is their best.

 

[Chazmo]

Sorry, can't pick just one; these were the one's that stunned me...

James Taylor, Carole King... 1969, the cafeteria at Fairlegh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ (no kidding!); Sweet Baby James had just come out, JT in his early days -- before the money and fame, still in the clench of smack (no, this is NOT a good thing)... just him, a guitar and a mike... amazing.

Pink Floyd (gotta go with 2, here): Animals Tour at Radio City Music Hall and The Wall Tour, Nassau Coliseum... perfect combination of spectacle, outrageous acoustics and absolutely over-the-top head music (ok, admittedly enhanced by the ingestment of some mind-altering material).

The Stones: Sympathy for the Devil Tour, Madison Square Garden, 1969 (I think); along with Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Terry Reid, Ike and Tina Turner Revue (highlight of evening, Tina Turner doing Ball and Chain, joined onstage by Janis Joplin)... say no more.

Jimi Hendrix, Band of Gypsy's Tour, Fillmore/NY (see earlier review at LA Forum)

Cream, Hunter College/NY, 1968: the show that turned me on to the blues and the concept of "the jam". Absolutely the most amazing sound to ever come out of 3 pieces in the history of music.

Damn, I'm old....

 

[srapps55]

I have two bests and a most memorable (well, sort of...)

Best #1 - Amnesty International concert - Chicago, 1985
This show lasted about 5-6 hours amd featured U2 and the Police (they reunited in three cities to support Amnesty - Chicago was one of the lucky ones). Other performers included Peter Gabriel, Joan Baez, Bryan Adams (ech!). The performances were all stellar, and you could tell they all cared about what was going on, not just going thru the motions.

Best #2 - Radiohead - Summer 2001 - Grant Park, Chicago
Radiohead decided to do an outdoor concert, originally planned to sell 15K tickets, but they moved it to a different section of the park and sold 25K. Not only did Radiohead completely KICK ASS (their soundsystems should be adopted by anyone on tour), but the atmosphere was great, Lake Michigan on one side, the Chicago skyline on the other.

Most memorable: Who Reunion Tour - 1989, Alpine Valley, WI
If you remember, Pete Townsend was not supposed to play the electric guitar due to his hearing loss. Well, that lasted for about the first 20 minutes! Yes, the show was great, but the crowd was really interesting. You see, the Greatful Dead was scheduled the day after the Who show, so all the Deadheads arrived a day early. Here I was, an innocent college boy walking thru the parking lot with the sounds of "Get your whippets!!" and "LSD for sale!!" There were cops everywhere, but they did not bother anyone. After the show we stayed at a nearby campground and, low and behold, more Deadheads!! Thats why I said it was sort of memorable; I did not sleep for 2 days after that...

 

[davidcotton]

Best concert?

Easy Magnum at the Poole Arts centre 1991
Everything about the gig was brilliant.

To make things perfect Magnum had the decency to invite one of the "bigger" local groups, Galahad (who I am quite into anyway) to open for them. Apparantly the bar was virtually deserted for the entirety of Galahads 35-40 minute set which was unusal. This of course helped get the crowd really up for it when Magnum came on and then proceeded to do an hour and a half of there most well known songs, with the audience virtually singing along too every word, absolutly stunning.

Honourable mention, Marillion This Strange Engine tour at the same venue. Stunning version of the title track was the highlight which got the band a standing ovation from what I remember. Funniest thing about that concert was the fact that it had been PISSING down with rain all day, Steve Hogarth (lead vocalist) came on and went "hello Poole, been a nice day hasn't it?" which promptly got the crowd laughing and broke the tension....

 

[Superbaldguy]

I saw Iron Maiden in 1984 during their "Powerslave" tour. Awesome show. No pretenses with that heavy metal band. They had Eddie, of course, do his thing....

I was honored and fortunate enough to see my idols, in November, 1988, none other than Canada's most legendary power trio, Rush. These guys are simply unbelieveable as a live act, as others have already mentioned on this post. Actually, those particular string of shows sparked their "Show of Hands" CD, which were highlights from the "Hold Your Fire" tour.

Rush are slated to put out their 17th studio release in the late spring, so another tour will be in the works. Living in Atlantic Canada means I may not get another shot at seeing them unless I go to Montreal or Toronto when they go out on the road, again, but I might attempt to go to such a concert even if I have to fly to do so!

I would have liked to been at the following concerts:

(1) The Led Zeppelin concert in Knebworth in 1979.
(2) The Scorpions concert held at the Rio de Jeniro rock festival in January 1985.
(3) The AC/DC concert they did in USSR in the summer of 1992.
(4) The performance by Roger Waters and freinds of "The Wall" at the Berlin Wall festivities in 1990.

Unfortunately, you can't go back in time!