Hands down, 2005 Nine Inch Nails Halloween show in Nashville.
I dressed up as Ralphie from A Christmas Story, pink bunny suit and everything. When I left the pit it was mostly dark gray, covered in dirt and sweat. Ah, the good 'ole days…
1 Like
Saw that tour when they came to Las Vegas. Great show!
1 Like
2006 April 19th David Gilmour at the Kodak theater. Was always a Floyd fan and Gilmour was my favorite guitarist. This was my very first concert, so to see your heroes absolutely kill it is something special. This also happened to be one of the last few times that Rick Wright performed before he passed. This concert will stay with as long as my mind does.
6 Likes
My best concert was probably Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. It was at a big arena, but the whole thing felt like a giant party with everyone singing every word. It’s wild how good he sounds live after all these years, and the energy was unreal. Honestly loads of my favorite shows have been the spontaneous ones, like showing up last minute and grabbing tickets at the door or just outside the venue.
1 Like
From a musical standpoint it was the 1984 Yes gig in Stockholm on the 90915 tour. They had rehearsed for a few days at the venue but it still felt a bit unsure during the first songs but they found their feet and delivered. So very satisfying music.
The best atmosphere were U2 during their 1984/85 tour. The audience were still singing the end song on the Tube home long after the gig ha ended. Goose bumbles.
A close second were Big Country when they were asked for so many encores that song did dry up and they had to discuss on stage what to play.
Micke
2 Likes
1980 Yale Bowl, New Haven, CT. Little River Band, Heart, and Eagles on the same bill.
Chris Botti at the Veterans Theater, Providence, RI. 2015/2016 timeframe. The lineup of musicians was amazing.
1 Like
Hard to say. Blue Öyster Cult / KISS / Rush in September of 74 at Lock Haven State was pretty good but so was Jethro Tull at the Civic Arena a year earlier. More recently Santana and Journey in Allentown.
Harder still if I venture into other categories of music.
It was probably about 25 years ago or more, and I don’t remember at all who was on the main stage, but the side stage had Citizen King, and it was amazing. I’m an extremely introverted person and don’t go with the flow very easily. I’m not about to let myself get into the moment in public, but even for me I could appreciate how amazing their performance was. I bought the CD that day and it’s one of the few memories I still have from those days. After that I got into Rave’s and saw some amazing DJ’s, back when they actually did more than plug their phone or ipod into a system and hit play for all intents and purposes. But alas, I don’t remember a single one of them because after my first Rave, I got into drugs and the memories were lost as soon as they were made.
Also, whenever I can’t find tickets for something really popular (like when friends all decide at once to see something sold out), I usually just look up seats on StarTickets.com. Sometimes you can snag great seats even when everything else is sold out.
Some of the more memorable artists I saw perform live include David Bowie, Laurie Anderson, Echo and the Bunnymen, LL Cool J, Glenn Branca, and Public Enemy. I frequented smaller clubs were punk acts performed too.
Siouxsie and the Banshees, Blondie, Kate Bush, Grace Jones, Iggy Pop, Sade, Devo, Peter Gabriel, and The B-52’s would’ve been fun to see around that time as well. But I didn’t make it to any of them.
But if the question is the best concert I NEVER saw, the Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Prince, Bowie, Freddie Mercury back from the dead “Live” Aid event.
Mahler 9 with Bernard Haitink conducting the Cleveland Orchestra. It’s a tie with the Cleveland Orchestra Verdi Requiem a couple of months ago, which I heard in CLE and which got rave reviews at Carnegie Hall.
2 Likes