Most memorable concert you attended

[jwasbury]

Originally Posted by red-beard

I have to admit, seeing SRV in concert was great. Amazing. And when he did Voodoo Chile, I swear he was channeling Jimmy.

This...

I had the pleasure of seeing SRV new years eve at the Ritz NYC two years in a row, December 31 1988 and 1989.

[craigster59]

I've seen a lot, but those that stand out...
AC/DC Highway to Hell in Neunkirchen, Germany. Had never seen a band with that much energy.
AC/DC Back in Black, same venue. Surprised how quick and strong they came back after Bon's death.
Us Festival San Berdoo. 3 days, lots of bands, Clash, VH, Bowie, U2, INXS, English Beat, Triumph, Scorpions, Wall of Voodoo, a lot of music.
Led Zepplin Neunkirchen, Germany. Bonham passed out after 3 songs and they canceled the show. Our tickets were good for Munich so we saw them there with Simon Kirk from Bad Company on the drums. Bonham died shortly after. Here's a photo from the show with Bonham...

[BlueSkyJaunte]

The ones I remember most are the ones that went sideways/weird for some reason:

- Angelo Moore passing out twice onstage during a Fishbone concert...and (literally) hanging from the rafters above the stage in between "outages". At one point some girl ran out after her top had been ripped off.

- Crowd surfers mooning the two opening acts for LIVE in what was the worst mosh pit I've ever personally witnessed (I was bleeding profusely from a damaged ear by the end). By "crowd surfers", I mean one guy acting as the surfboard and another guy standing on him.

Best concert I was at in recent memory was just this past weekend: Dream Theater here in the Mesa Arts Center (a really nice venue). I've never seen the band enjoy themselves (and be so relaxed) as at this show. They were tight. The departure of "Mr. OCD" Mike Portnoy seems to have had a very positive effect on them.

[daepp]

"A Show of Friends" in Hollywood. Sometime around 1988. Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, David Lindley, El Rayo X, David Crosby (just a few weeks after his liver transplant.

The show was a benefit for the health costs of a wife of one of the members of El Rayo X. They played for 4 hours. The highlight for me was the 20 minute version of Werewolves of London - duet with Zevon and Lindley!

[daepp]

Another great - Neil Young at the Universal in LA. Before they enclosed it. Warm summer evening, just Neil, a Martin dreadnaught, a piano and a harmonica. Played most of the (then not that old) Harvest album.

[Joeaksa]

I flew rock n rollers for a while so feel like I am kinda cheating here. Guess the best of that era was when we flew the Beach Boys for 3 months on tour and really got to be friends with them. Last gig was back East and they really pushed us to come to the show as we did not make all of them. We had no idea what was going on but for the last song we were standing in the wings and Al Jardine pulled the three of us on stage and we sang the song with them. Prolly the highlight of my career in this area. A close second here was flying Rod Stewart. He was nice to work with but sitting backstage drinking sake with his Father was excellent! Next would be flying "The Police" and Sting around. It was always a pretty wild party with them...

Second would have to be when we were in Berlin and when Pink Floyd did "The Wall" concert there. I still have one of the original German posters from this series of concerts.

Lastly was a excellent Moody Blues concert in Missoula Montana (lived in Helena) and the guys we worked with all went so we tagged along. The "magic mushrooms" that they handed around really made it nice!

[Seahawk]

That sounds like the business, Joe. Very cool.

All I have is Earth, Wind and Fire, third row. My girlfriend at the time was Black.

I looked like the light at the end of a tunnel

Originally Posted by Joeaksa

I flew rock n rollers for a while so feel like I am kinda cheating here. Guess the best of that era was when we flew the Beach Boys for 3 months on tour and really got to be friends with them. Last gig was back East and they really pushed us to come to the show as we did not make all of them. We had no idea what was going on but for the last song we were standing in the wings and Al Jardine pulled the three of us on stage and we sang the song with them. Prolly the highlight of my career in this area.

Second would have to be when we were in Berlin and when Pink Floyd did "The Wall" concert there. I still have one of the original German posters from this series of concerts.

Lastly was a excellent Moody Blues concert in Missoula Montana (lived in Helena) and the guys we worked with all went so we tagged along. The "magic mushrooms" that they handed around really made it nice!

[BeyGon]

Originally Posted by DAEpperson

Another great - Neil Young at the Universal in LA. Before they enclosed it. Warm summer evening, just Neil, a Martin dreadnaught, a piano and a harmonica. Played most of the (then not that old) Harvest album.

I saw Neil Young at some auditorium in San Diego, early 80s, he was a great one man show, not political then, just played and sang. The place was filled with long hair and beards. Major contact high. He was mostly sitting on a stool on the stage and at one point stopped playing, said, I am sitting here, you people in front that are standing, jumping up and down are keeping people in back from seeing the show, if you don't sit down, I will stop playing.

[dw1]

Wow, this question takes me back.

The Grateful Dead at Cornell University (Barton Hall) 5/8/77. As a member of Cornell Concert Commission, I helped with design and production of the "college crew" t-shirt!

Pink Floyd ("Wish You Were Here" tour) at Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City c. 1974 or 75

Emerson, Lake & Palmer at the same venue around the same time.

Pink Floyd at Madison Square Garden ("Animals" tour). I will never forget the giant inflatable pig flying inside MSG.

Allmann Brothers Band at the Capitol Theater, Passiac NJ

And, of course, Frank Zappa playing the Palladium at Halloween.

-----------------------------------------------

Oh damn...I left out:

The Who (Quadrophenia tour) playing at MSG

Jethro Tull (Passion Play tour) also at MSG. Say what you want about the album itself, the live presentation of it was impressive as hell. Ian Anderson was an amazing showman.

Genesis also at MSG. This was part of the same tour captured for the "Seconds Out" album.

[BeyGon]

I paid the bucks once to see Bob Dylan, second row, at the Orange County Fairgrounds Amp. It was really bad, the next day the papers billed it as the WORST DYLAN SHOW of all time. I guess he has had some bad ones, but this hit the top.

[xbrumossalesman]

[QUOTE=GH85Carrera;6421529]Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1973 was great for the music and the crowd.

Skynyrd at the Fox Theater in Atlanta recording the live album One More from The Road.

[ckissick]

Another great one was Neil Young and Crazy Horse at the Catalyst Club in Santa Cruz, about 1985. It's a small club with capacity for just a few hundred people. What Neil used to do was show up under an assumed name, and they'd put the fake name up on the marque the day of the show. A friend saw the name, suspected it was Neil, and called me to come on down.

[kaisen]

Recently:

Seether, My Darkest Days, and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus at the Valarium in Knoxville, TN
Stood on the rail center-stage for three great performances
There is a bar attached to the venue so after the show I sat down and had a cold beer (the venue was 90+ degrees inside). Just a few people in the bar, so I talk with the (hot) bartender. A couple stools away the lead singer for RJA, Ronnie Winters, joins the conversation. We sit and talk for awhile and the rest of his band and his tour manager join us. The bar "closes" to the public, but I'm still there in the center of it all. I knew the guys from My Darkest Days, they were friends before this, and they come in and join us. We're all doing shots and everyone is acting like normal people, no drama or ego. The drummer (John)and bassist (Dale) from Seether filter in at some point. Then Seether's frontman Shaun Morgan comes in with two hot strippers and his huge personal security guard and sit in the corner, about 5 seats away from me. He buys us all a round of shots then drinks. By that point there were only three or four of us non-band related guys (plus the two strippers). The bands load-out was done, so the techs/roadies were all there too. We closed the bar at 4am, with trips to the tour buses in between. Can't tell you everything I saw, but I remain friends with most all of them today.

All time:

Motley Crue Theater of Pain Tour, 1985
Opening act was the Japanese band Loudness
My date was a beautiful blonde that is still a friend (she's now a lawyer in Santa Monica)
Got to talk (briefly) to Nikki Sixx
BTW, that was the only time Loudness ever played Minneapolis until they returned this Summer, 26 years later. I went to see them, met them, hung out on their bus for a while. There's a thread about it here somewhere.

Honorable mention:

Seeing Big Head Todd and the Monsters this Summer
Keyboardist/guitarist is in a car with my girlfriend's cute friend when she is arrested
That's all I've got to say about that.....

[bretski]

The New Orleans Pop Festival in 1969. I don't remember a lot of the performances :-) but here is a list of the performers:

Janis Joplin, Country Joe and the Fish, Chicago, The Byrds, The Youngbloods, Iron Butterfly, Santana, Grateful Dead, Tyranasaurus Rex and Jefferson Airplane. There were others I don't remember at all.

The venue wasn't great (a speedway) but it was a lot of fun anyway.

[9dreizig]

Does getting drunk with Gogar count ??
If not Joe Cocker at the Saginaw Civic Center around 71
Emerson Lake Palmer at MSU in 78
Steven Stills at Pinewood in MI in 75

[scottmandue]

+1 on Tower of Power... caught them a bunch of times at the county fair.

Neil Young on the Rust never sleeps tour.

Crosby, Stills, Nash with Jackson Brown at the Ventura Fairgrounds.

[Head416]

Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony, second row in a 3,500 seat auditorium.

Metallica - Hero Of The Day - HD - [Live S&M 1999] - [W/San Francisco Symphony] 720p - YouTube

[imcarthur]

I have never been a fan of 'arena' tours but Alice Cooper in '72 was a highlight during his School's Out Tour.

The best: Muddy Waters at the Colonial Tavern in Toronto in '76 or '77. Only 30 people or so in the audience . . .

Ian

[Black968]

Floyd on the Division Bell Tour at the Canadian National Exhibition 1998(?). 19 th row the sound quality was incredible.

[Christien]

Originally Posted by VINMAN

The Who. Shea stadium 1982 the Clash opened up for them.

2nd post of the thread, you win. No need to read the rest. Wish I was older than 7 in 1982. Wouldn't miss it for the world now, if only it were possible.

For me it was Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros at the Spectrum in Montreal in 2000. Hearing Joe sing London's Burning is something I'll never forget.