Concerts thread: Best/Worst/Next/Last one you attended?

Just saw Jerry Seinfeld Friday night. I was surprised to realize that's the first comedy show I've gone to. Had a good time.

Got U2 coming up in May and Frank Turner in June. Pondering the Bowie Experience tour, or whatever they're calling it.

 

$80/ticket in Cleveland once fees are added in. Got in for $40 at the same venue a couple years ago.

 

I really don't understand why Donald Fagen is touring as "Steely Dan" anymore. Fagen is saying promoters are insisting on it, but Fagen has never struck me as a guy who would be cowed by commercial pressures or interests. If it was a way to keep money going to Becker's family I'd be fine with it, but Fagen has said that all shares of the band go to the survivor if one of them dies.
Fagen has toured solo before, probably done more than a few SD songs on those tours. But then again, the current tour is with the Doobie Brothers - who at least have two original members (and a heck of a backup band with Bill Payne, John Cowan, Ed Toth and Marc Russo).

 

Billy Corgan launching the "Plenty of Good Seats Still Available" tour with Smashing Pumpkins...

Smashing Pumpkins’ reunion tour doesn’t appear to be selling very well

Tenth row center till available in some cities.

 

As a kid I remember how frustrating it was to have to buy tickets two months out for a show. Now it's closer to seven, eight, nine for the top acts. I get it - the money helps finance the tour expenses, but geez.

 

Want to see Chris Stapleton. He’s in my neck of the woods in November. Tickets are already on sale.

 

The tour closes in Nampa, Idaho! (suburban Boise). What are the odds all three original members are still playing together at that point?

Saw the Pumpkins in the 1990s and enjoyed their music then, but this feels like a cold-blooded cash grab by a band that's gasping on fumes in 2018.

 

Saw a promo for Metallica tickets for a December show.

 

Got tickets for Radiohead at MSG for July 13. Paid a pretty penny, which is fine. One of my favorite bands, maybe my favorite, and this will be the first time I’ve seen them live, though I saw Thom Yorke at Coachella back in 2010. Wondering if they put on a great live show. Hoping they play nothing from Kid A.

 

Out on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins
Nature kids, they don't have no function
I don't understand what they mean
And I could really give a fuck

 

The wife and I saw Dead and Company Saturday night at the arena in New Orleans. As far as I'm concerned they might as well call themselves the Grateful Dead, because it really was a Grateful Dead show, just without Jerry Garcia. It was a Grateful Dead crowd, a pretty stereotypical Grateful Dead set list and a standard issue Grateful Dead performance. John Mayer does a nice job with the leads and Bob Weir seems reinvigorated on rhythm guitar, plus his voice has mellowed with age.

A few surprises as far as songs go. A killer Cold, Rain and Snow early, then they brought out Smokestack Lightning, which nobody expected. Truckin' and Uncle John's Band highlighted the first part of the second set, along with a really rocking One More Saturday Night. The encore was Werewolves of London, which was another surprise. The show was sold out and the crowd was a good mix of veteran Deadheads and younger kids who weren't even born when Jerry died. All in all, a pretty sweet night.

 

The Smashing Pumpkins seem like a band that was huge for a brief period - and, really, very, very good - but for whom there seems to be next to no lingering nostalgia. Maybe because Billy Corgan never seems to have gone away.

I'd go see them if it wasn't on a Monday night.