Continuing with content creation and maybe get some more music discussion here.
And for this weekend’s topic - if you could go to any concert you’d wish, including bands that aren’t playing or artists that passed, who’d you go see? And perhaps where if there’s one specific?
Answers from the top of my head would probably be Led Zeppelin in some of the recordings from the How The West Was Won live album of '72 California shows. Another option would be the classic Queen at Live Aid.
I guess I’d simply really want to be at a mega classic rock concert, stadium filling artists with stuff you don’t really hear today.
A few more that come to mind - Eric Clapton unplugged '92, James Brown at the Olympia Paris '71 and Nirvana unplugged '94.
To see Stevie Ray again would be pretty much the one for me. Over the many years I have been lucky enough to see many bands and or stars. SRV still remains !!
For me, it is a tie. I saw Motorhead/Dio/Iron Maiden on August 5th, 2003 at Blossom Music Center. I wasnt a huge Dio fan prior to the show. Afterwards, I became a huge fan. Dio playing Sacred Heart live was the highlight of the show.
The other show was the 30th Anniversary Tour of Rush on June 10th, 2004. This was the 3rd time I saw them live and it was different from the 2 previous times I saw them. They played a unique setlist of songs they don’t normally play often live (Necromancer, Vital Signs, Jacob’s Ladder, etc.) for their 2nd Oncore.
As far as the best show I’ve NEVER been to, that would easily be the Alice In Chains MTV Unplugged performance.
A music discussion! @orrman I would give you an extra if I could.
Live Albums I wish I was in the audience for:
If you were to ask me which live album I’d like to be in the audience, Nirvana Unplugged would be my number 1 choice. Kurt’s voice is so full of emotion and sadness and if I knew what was going to happen to him next, I would be sitting there sobbing.
If I wanted to follow that up with something a little happier then I’d want to be following Talking Heads around on tour while they taped “The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads”. This is cheating a little because it’s made up of a lot of different concerts, with CD1 focusing on 1977-79 and CD2 focusing on 1980-81. Those performances are so tight, I can’t even imagine how great it must have been to be in the audience.
I think my final live CD that I wish I was there for would be Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s “Weld”. They just turned their amps to 11 and let it rip.
Bands I never saw in their prime:
Many would say that they were past their prime by the time they played at Live Aid, but “The Works” was the first Queen album I ever bought (one of the first albums I ever bought) and I would have loved to have been at Wembley stadium with my arms out, doing the “Radio Ga Ga” clap with thousands of other fans. I did see Queen at Wembley on their “Kind of Magic” tour and it just wasn’t the same. I wasn’t a fan of that album, and it was pretty obvious that Freddie couldn’t hit the high notes any more. But putting my love for “Radio Ga Ga” aside, I would probably have gone further back in time, maybe to the shows that made up “Live Killers”, which focused on the glam rock albums, my favorite Queen period.
Bands I saw and have no memory of the experience:
It was 1987 and I was in the midst of my hair metal phase, so I was very excited to go to Castle Donington to go see Bon Jovi headline the Monster of Rock Festival, with Cinderella as one of the opening bands. Also there was a band called Metallica, who had just released an album called “Master of Puppets”. I wasn’t a Metallica fan at that time and have no memory of even seeing them there, so I was horrified to learn many years later that they were there. So even though I was actually in the audience, I feel like this qualifies as the best show that I’ve never been to.
Bands I saw but left early:
To celebrate the launch of their HBO show, “Sonic Highways”, the Foo Fighters played an invitation-only show at a tiny bar in Chicago, the Cubby Bear. I was able to get a couple of tickets for me and a friend, who lived around the corner, so I was going to stay at his place later, rather than try to get home to the burbs in the early hours of the morning. They played for 2 and half hours and the energy (and the playing) was electric.
The only problem was that about a third of the way through the performance, my friend saw an earlier text I’d sent him (“I’m on the way to your apartment”) earlier that day, and thought I’d left the concert and texted me back to let me know that he’d left the Cubby Bear to look for me. And then when he realized he’d made a mistake, he texted me again to tell me they wouldn’t let him back in again. Friendship is more important than finishing one of the best concerts I’ve ever been at, so of course I left too, and we went to a bar next door to have a beer and commiserate together.
Cool topic. There were many today, as I was at our Mile of Music downtown
again today (4 day original music festival with musicians from all over.)
Picked what I felt would be good…most all were…stumbled on a couple more
that were really good. But I still wonder about all the others going on at other
venues at the same time. So shows I never got to!
A few standouts I Did hear: Lilly Lewis trio from New Orleans, May Erlewine solo folk from Michigan, and Patty PerShayla & the Mayhaps rock trio now from Nashville.
Again got to chat with a few on the street or at the hotel when they were not
rushing off to another gig. I try to encourage young musicians whenever I can…it’s kind of my job now.
Sometime back in 88’ or 89’, Iron Maiden had a great concert out in New Jersey. I was / may have been there, old friends have stories about the evening and subsequent day after. That night made the newspapers, there was some kind of vehicle fire at the venue, out in the parking lot and something about rowdy and vicarious concert attendees.
I remember body surfing the crowd for a short while, and there was a particularly unpleasant and painful ride in the back of a hot and wildly driven box truck during the early wee hours of the morning… I used to own and drive an 1980 Chevy Impala, it was a beater but it drove, most days. I told my insurance agent it was stolen the evening of the concert, an old friend insisted it went up in flames at some point while “we” were dancing on it and I insisted not wasting good beer putting the flames out before they got out of hand
I have no recollection of these events, I’m pretty sure i parked it safely in row East Z-25 and some nasty crackheads stole it. I also have NO recollection of the concert, no idea how or why i woke up under a dumpster many blocks away from my home, bare chested and bare foot wearing jeans that looked like they had been set on fire
Best damned show i can say I may have never been to
And I guess that show has to be my answer to this thread now
Iron Maiden was actually one of my first live shows. I saw them in Bangalore, India in 2009 in my final year of college when I had to take a train 6 hours away overnight and made a bunch of metalhead friends from a bunch of European countries who were “discovering” themselves in India lol, drank a bunch of beer, bungee jumped, saw and joined in my first mosh pit and crowd surfed in the Maiden show \m/ before running out early to catch my train back. Oh and all this was on Valentine’s day so my girlfriend at the time was super pissed with me as I was missing that to attend the show lol…best show ever
Apart from that, I don’t have any specific shows but more artists from mostly 70s and early 80s that I would have loved to see live in their heyday for e.g. floyd, zeppelin, sabbath, joy division, metallica, megadeth (I’ve seen them like 10 times now but in 80s), black flag, rush, pixies, nirvana, (I could go on)…
The best show I never been to and really regret right now is Band-Maid at Lollapalooza 2023. I don’t know why I really like this band, just became a fan in May after seeing one of their concerts live just on a whim with no real knowledge of that band. They really rocked my world ever since then and is slowly becoming one of my favorite band of all time. After that concert in May, I did have my eye on going to Lollapalooza, but honestly didn’t want to go to Chicago twice this year. Watching their concert at Lollapalooza is giving me big regrets… Hope they get invited to a music festival in America again next year, probably will try to make that one.
My favorite song from them live is “No God” because the energy was really high when I went live in one of their concerts, but they really nailed it with “Hate” (42:55 in video below) at the Lollapalooza concert. The Guitar vs Bass back to back and then they both come together at 45:03 - 46:43 was so incredible. Man, it makes me wish I was there live . They also had an aftershow after Lollapalooza too and people looked like they were really enjoying it, should’ve just told myself to go. Maybe next time I guess…
@SaberPunch Your enthusiasm is so infectious. I started watching the YT, thought at first that they weren’t my cup of tea, but I kept watching because they looked like they were having so much fun on stage and their performance was so high energy. They sound a bit like Sleater Kinney playing metal and singing in Japanese. By the end of it, I also regretted not being there in person, because they must be a fantastic live band.
And I have no excuse because I live in Chicago, and my office building is across the street from Lollopolooza. In fact I stayed at home last week to avoid the crowds.
if I could.
. They also had an aftershow after Lollapalooza too and people looked like they were really enjoying it, should’ve just told myself to go. Maybe next time I guess…