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

Best: Cheap Trick (five times and they've never let me down)

Worst: Weezer (not a good live band and couldn't have been on stage more than 45 minutes)

Last: From The Jam, earlier this year

Next: Dr. Dog, Friday night

 

Best: Butch Walker in Nashville maybe four years ago; it was a religious experience, the guy totally bonded with and controlled the crowd and gave an incredible performance

Worst: Saw a Mooney Suzuki show once that didn't live up to its billing. Can't really think of too many awful ones.

Last: Gavin DeGraw at HOB Cleveland last Friday. Will be at Hold Steady on Thursday, Foo Fighters in a couple weeks and Radiohead soon after.

 

Best: Kayne West at Toad's Place in Connecticut. Saw him a couple of weeks after he came out when he was still mostly unknown. Glad I got to see him in an intimate setting. His head was a lot smaller too.

Worst: Snoop Dogg at the House of Blues in Chicago. He didn't go on stage until 1:30 am and only played for an hour. Plus I was a little woozy from all the weed smoke in the place.

Last: Snoop.

Next: No idea.

 

Best, one-act division: Aerosmith '98, Stones '99, Springsteen '00, Dave Matthews Band '01, Live '03, Live '06.

Best, festival division: Music Midtown '02, which was headlined by Counting Crows, Bush, then Stone Temple Pilots right in a row. (And the next night, it was Garbage, Hoobastank, then No Doubt.) Inredible.

Worst: Cake '99, Marvelous 3 (hi TSP!) '01.

Last: Live '08.

Next: No idea.

 

Drove 284 miles from Eugene to Seattle to see Midnight Oil, and drove back immediately after the show ended.

 

First - Blue Oyster Cult, Head East and New England, New Year's Eve 1980, Memphis. I was burning for some cowbell, and BOC delivered right after the clock struck midnight with 'Don't Fear The Reaper.'

Best - Hank Williams Jr., Mississippi State University, 1982. Hank was at his rowdy best, and I have fond memories of getting left behind by my ride - my older sister and her friends - after the show. Had to catch a ride home, located about 40 miles away, with a highway patrolman who wanted to know every detail about the concert.

Close Second for Best - Rush, 1981, Memphis. The first of my five Rush concerts. The Moving Pictures tour was a perfect time to see them.

Worst - Beale Street Music Festival, Memphis, 2005. Of the three-day event, the family and I picked the worst day (Saturday) to buy advance tickets for. It rained on and off throughout the day, plus a cold wind made for a very miserable experience. All of the evening acts were either delayed or couldn't perform, like Collective Soul and Journey, because of the driving rain.

Last: Warped Tour, July 9, Atlanta. The fourth year for me to take my daughter and her friends to the festival. Enjoyed bands like From First To Last, Every Time I Die, As I Lay Dying and Maylene and the Sons of Disaster. I was tempted to crowd surf, but it would be my luck if my 45-year-old fat butt was dropped on my head. Had a great time.

Next: Right now, it's Carrie Underwood in December.

 

I did the same fooling thing, driving 360 miles from north Mississippi to New Orleans for a Rush fans' meet-up and then the concert, and then drove back after the show. Left home at 5:45 a.m. Sunday and returned at 4:45 a.m. Monday.

 

Best: U2, Joyce Athletic and Convocation Center, Notre Dame, IN, 2001 (their first concert after 9/11. Very emotional).

A close second: Springsteen in Louisville, 2000

Best free concert: James Brown, Indianapolis Jazz Fest, 2001

Worst: Dave Matthews Band, Foxboro Stadium, 2000 (not so much Dave's fault, just that the place was mobbed with 16 year-olds drinking vodka from 7Up bottles. I felt really old and I was only 21. Plus Foxboro was a lousy place for a concert and it took us two hours to get out of the parking lot).

Last: Tom Waits, St. Louis, last month. If you get the chance, go see him.

Next: Who knows.

 

Preface this by saying I'm not a big concert-goer. I probably do more theatre than concerts. This post my actually exhaust the entire list.

Best- If Stomp! counts, then that's the one. Saw them at the Fox and it was very cool.
Worst- I dunno, Styxx Kilroy Was Here Tour maybe. Omni, 1983. I don't remember it being that bad, but I don't remember it being that good, either
Last- Took Mrs. Novelist to see Josh Groban, which I think trumps Hall and Oates and revocation of manhood front.
Next- Probably Sarah Brightman to make Mrs. Novelist happy. Oh, the hu-manhood-ity.

 

Sirs, Madames,

(Toronto unless noted otherwise)

First: All-Canadian Rock Festival, Varsity Stadium, headlined by the Guess Who, 1970 or 71

Best: (tie) Gang of Four, Masonic Temple, 1980ish, burned the place down; Roy Orbison, Massey Hall, early 80s, inspiring, his Running Scared is easily my most memorable concert moment; James Brown, Music Hall, early 80s; Clash's first Canadian concert, the Rex, 1978 or '79

Honorables: Steve Earle with Jimmy Dale Gilmour at the Masonic Temple, 98 or so; Rolling Thunder, MLG, 1975, just for a nuclear concentration of star talent; Etta James, Brunswick House, 1985; BTO, Victory Burlesque, 74 maybe, in front of 100 patrons the night after they played a dance at Stephen Leacock high; King Sunny Ade, Police Picnic at the CNE, 1983; Talking Heads, one of the Police Picnics

Most Disappointing: Television reunion, Music Hall, didn't seem like they should have bothered; ditto, Pink Flag, Lee's Palace, 2003

Worst: Al Green, Massey Hall, 1975, played four songs and walked off the stage

Worst (for me, or, the least memorable): Rolling Stones, Municipal Stadium, Cleveland, 1978. Made it through Peter Tosh but I was so high I thought it was Jagger etc on stage but I was informed it was the warm-up act .... Kansas. As soon as I faintly recognized Dust in the Wind I left, got a hotel room and had the best sleep of my young life. Least memorable = all I remember is the line-up at the bathrooms.

Last: Al Green, O'Keefe Centre (I won't call it anything else), June 2008. Great, but he owed me one.

YD&OHS, etc

 

Mr. Friend O',

Where was the Rex? Is it still standing?

And like you, I refuse to recognize the venue at Yonge & Front as anything but the O'Keefe Centre.

 

Mr Huggy,

The Rex was the old Odeon Theatre on Danforth at Pape. Saw the Clash and the Jam there. Also saw The Great Escape and In the Heat of the Night there as a squirt. Now a fitness joint.

Sigh, etc