Coolest "Who have you seen live" thread

You probably got to see the original MTB, the best. The later lineups with one or maybe two originals was nowhere hear as good.

Grinderswitch played at UR in 1973 or 1974. It was a hell of a show.

I remember hitting Villa Pizza and then the Pass on our rare trips to VCU territory. Topped off by a late-night breakfast at Lums. Those were the days!

 

Most of these bands I've seen with the graciousness of a friend of mine who was an iHeart air personality until it had its purge in January (definition of "coolest" may vary):

U2 - at Arrowhead Stadium,
Janet Jackson - at Kemper Arena
Aerosmith
Brooks & Dunn with Reba McIntire
Live - in Dallas
OMC - remember them? At a dive in Wichita. How Bizarre.
Jessica Simpson - in OKC
Jewel - an acoustic concert in KCK (before that album where she tried to reinvent herself)

 

Garth Brooks - at a state fair less than a month after he released "Friends in Low Places." You know how people talk about seeing somebody knowing they have "it?" Seeing Garth play a dirt-floor rodeo arena, you could tell he had "IT."

B.B. King - I was drunk on Beale on a random Thursday in the mid-90s and went into his restaurant to use the bathroom. I heard somebody playing guitar and thought "Damn, he's doing a pretty good impression of B.B." I walked out of the bathroom and realized it was him. He was playing unannounced, but the joint filled up pretty quickly once word got out.

DMB - My first DMB show I wandered into the New Daisy and saw them in 1994. Being a jam band fan, I dug it. A few months later, I was in Dallas with a girlfriend and saw they were playing Trees. That was my second of 60-plus shows I've seen in the 26 years I've followed them. The HORDE Tour in Memphis one year featured Lenny Kravitz, Rusted Root, Blues Traveler and DMB. If MTV ever replays the concert film it did of that show (or I ever convert the VHS copy to digital), you can see me several times in the crowd. The most notable time is during the Rusted Root set when I flip off the boom camera as it zoomed in on several of us passing a joint.

Jimmy Buffett - A cousin loaned his A1A cassette to me when I was in junior high and I was hooked. My first show was the Zoo Ampitheatre in Oklahoma City in 1986.

Keb' Mo - Played a tiny upstairs bar here back in the 1990s that seated 50 or so. He was so good in that setting.

 

Does this count? The only time I saw Garth Brooks was in the late '90s when he was training with the Padres. Good field, absolutely no hit. Great interview though. Remember Tony Gwynn saying, "this is great. Now I'm not the guy everybody wants his autograph."

 

I saw Pearl Jam in an 800-capacity club in Frankfurt about a month before they blew up really huge. And word of mouth preceded them, so that was a hard ticket for me and my mates to get.

 

The Stones, 1994. Fun times, that's all I'll say.

Steely Dan, 2013. My wife was like the only non-white person there.

 

Saw the Marshall Tucker Band last summer at the Orange County Fair. Dude just can't sing anymore. The other guys were pretty good. The keyboard/woodwind guy was fantastic.

 

Vassar was at The Coach House in San Juan Capistrano in February. My friend had never heard of him. Before it was over, he was up and singing along, clapping, jumping around, just like Vassar. He said it was a great show.

Saw Santana right about the same time they got married and Cindy wasn't in the show. A few months later, I notified some friends in NoCal that she was headlining at Yoshi's, a renowned jazz club in Jack London Square. My friends are both very musically inclined and have performed for more than 40 years. They went and reported back that Cindy wasn't very good at all, couldn't hold the band together, as the drummer has to do. They said that Carlos was in the audience. He went up on stage and helped things considerably. I don't know who her bandmates were, but my friends said it was a very disappointing concert until Carlos took over.

 

I saw MTB maybe 4 years ago. It was so bad, we left before it was over. The guy I went with had seen them a year or two before. He told me repeatedly it would be bad. I had to find out for myself*. He was right.

*Charlie Daniels reference.
CDB and MTB are both going to be less than three miles from my house later this year... not gonna go.