Best Concerts you've attended?

My BEST EVER: Pink Floyd's The Wall in 1990 in Berlin!!! EPIC!!! I was so young and naive, I lived in Germany at the time. Great memories!!!

https://dai.ly/xjy3n7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nO3vOJKFas

Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band in 1972 - Clear Spot set. One the front row at Manchester's fancy Free Trade Hall (velvet curtains!).

Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band in 1980 - Shiny Beast set at London's Rainbow Theatre.

Both just mind-blowingly good. Claims that they used telepathy to synchronize seem well-founded.

Another good memory:

Loudon Wainwright III supporting Soft Machine (of all people) 1972. We were in the bar waiting for the main act when waves of laughter dragged us back to the hall to be greeted with "Dead Skunk in the middle of the road". Wonderful stuff & the start of a lifelong love of the Wainwright dynasty. He also sang "Rufus is a Tit man", which must have been one of the worst assessments of a child's future ever (his then baby son Rufus is a gay icon, FYO). Soft Machine were terrible. Did not speak a word and played four endless avant-garde jazz "numbers".

I can also add the worst concert I've ever attended. It was this May in Copenhagen at Jazzhus Montmarte. Marc Ribot (I'd never heard of him; google him) played a solo set. It was billed as an evening with an iconic guitar player. Turns out he's "iconic" for his "atonal" style of play, which evidently attracted a lot of detractors, and few fans, in his early days. Supposedly he is an acquired taste. Well, I didn't have the patience to acquire a taste. His first set sounded to me like a slow kid struggling to tune his guitar before the start of his lessons. It was hopelessly and self-servingly nonsensical noodling garbage that inflicted literal pain in my brain. I can't unhear what I heard that night.

At the intermission my spouse looked over at me hopefully; I nodded toward the coat check and we bolted. I'd never left a concert before it finished before. I sorely wish I'd left this one before it started... :-)

Boomer / Gen X wrote:

Steve Miller - maybe 7 or 8 years ago. Until this point, he gave the best concert I'd ever attended.

Tom Cochrane - 4 or 5 years ago. Former lead singer of Red Rider, he's been solo for many years. This eclipsed Steve Miller and remains, for now, the best concert I've ever attended.

Anyone else?

Another testimony for Steve Miller.

When Les Paul died in 2009, I think it was a Wednesday, the first thing I though of was that he played every Monday at the Iridium, since...forever. I immediately ordered a bunch of tickets for Monday's show for myself and friends, surmising correctly, they must be having a tribute.

I was not let down.

Les Paul was godfather to Miller, and also his childhood guitar teacher, so it all made sense that he would figure prominently in the event. What I didnt know was exactly how good Millers voice was. I was stunned. It was just a special moment in history to be part of.

Magic Sword

1. Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense Tour

2. The Who, It's Hard Tour

3. The Great BB King, around mid 1980s.

Metallica - 2017 metlife stadium

A Day to Remember - small venue 2010

Detroit Movement techno festival - 2019

There have been so many good ones, but among them were Jimi Hendrix in 1970 and Led Zeppelin in 1969 and 1973.

Kid Rock and Hank Jr

Devo 1983. The concert was almost 3 hrs. The played songs from Oh No Its Devo in front of a video screen for the firs half and then put on E-Domes and played everything from Mongoloid to Whip It the second half. Every guitar or keyboard solo ended in aleatoric cacophony with the crowd going nuts. Mark Mothersbaugh swung from a rope from the balcony to the floor of the theater and had people in the crowd do the "are we not men?" "we are devo" call and answer. I have never seen a band play with so much energy and pure insanity. Every band I have seen since then just look tired by comparison.

I've seen a bunch and it's hard to pick just one.

Pink Floyd at the Horseshoe in 1995 (OSU Stadium) - Came at a time when I was listening to Pink Floyd heavily and Gilmour's guitar was just cutting through the night, felt magical.

Guns N Roses 2017 in Detroit...One of the first shows with Slash, didn't know what to expect, was blown away by the entire performance (Saw them three more times after that)

Gwar - 1994 - @ Newport on OSU campus. Intimate venue, was up by the stage, it was a spectacle with good music and energetic crowd.

Honorable mentions: Rolling Stones (2016 and 2019), Metallica several times (2019 being the last one). Pantera 4 times in the 1990s, and they'd be listed higher except for the fact that they were usually drunk and a little sloppy on stage.

WORST CONCERT would be Grateful Dead in 1992 (Garcia was still alive). I guess I'm glad I saw them with Garcia, however the problem is I detest the music, didn't like the deadhead village or whatever you call it. It was also July and blazing hot, only had general admission lawn seating, got dehydrated. Band played on and on and on, too much jamming on bad songs.

Even worse was the fact that it was my first concert! I was 18 years old.

Muse

walter j wrote:

Muse

Any of the times I saw them. But I guess I'll say when they headlined Coachella.

Blue Cheer, MC5, Psychedelic Stooges- Grande Ballroom, Detroit, 1968. Loudest show I ever attended.

Jimi Hendrix Experience, Soft Machine, MC5- Masonic Auditorium, Detroit, 1968

Mahavishnu Orchestra and Mothers of Invention- Cobo Hall, Detroit, 1972

Magma- 3 separate shows of the greatest band no one has ever heard, all in Chicago, 1999, 2015, 2016

Sun Ra Arkestra- The Stables Bar, E. Lansing, MI 1975

Tony Williams Lifetime, Birmingham Palladium, Birmingham MI, 1971, with this short-haired guitarist I had never heard of, John McLaughlin.

Precious Roy wrote:

Devo 1983. The concert was almost 3 hrs. The played songs from Oh No Its Devo in front of a video screen for the firs half and then put on E-Domes and played everything from Mongoloid to Whip It the second half. Every guitar or keyboard solo ended in aleatoric cacophony with the crowd going nuts. Mark Mothersbaugh swung from a rope from the balcony to the floor of the theater and had people in the crowd do the "are we not men?" "we are devo" call and answer. I have never seen a band play with so much energy and pure insanity. Every band I have seen since then just look tired by comparison.

Jealous ...

LCD Soundsystem comeback a couple years ago. It was in a crappy arena and they sonically saturated the place.

X (original line-up) in the late 90s at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood with Throw Rag opening. I was in Southern CA on a business trip, so went to this show by myself not knowing a soul there.

Throw Rag was a punk band allegedly from the Salton Sea who I'd never heard of, but they just completely tore the place apart - in a great way. I was pretty close to the stage, and was genuinely frightened by the craziness on the stage and in the audience in front of it. Never heard of them since (maybe they're a west coast thing), but my god they were great.

Then X played, and the energy went even higher, if that was possible. They were on their home turf in Hollywood, so they weren't about to let the bunch of young punks in Throw Rag upstage them. They played exclusively songs from their first 4 incredible albums, and hadn't lost one bit of greatness in the 20-odd years since their formation. If only for one evening, I got to experience what the early 80s punk scene must have been like in Los Angeles.

(1) Grateful Dead - Fare Thee Well - July 4-5, 2015 (Soldier Field, Chicago)

(2) Dead and Company - July 15, 2019 (Wrigley Field)

(3) Phish - December 4, 2019 (Pittsburgh)