What are the top 3 concerts you've ever seen?

[Jamison]

I know a lot of you older people here have probably seen way cooler shows in your time, but anyway, here are mine.

3. First time I saw Dave Mathews band back in '97 or '98.
2. A special acoustic show by 3 Doors Down in a local radio station's studio that I saw last November.
1. Stone Temple Pilots in '95. Scott Weiland was dressed in full drag for some reason, but it was cool. I had 3rd row center seats for that show too.

Now post yours!

[KG]

1. Jimmy Lafave, Dave Alvin, Chuck Prophet.

but really, i've seen so much great live music esp. in the last 10 years, it's hard to keep track.

[MN ChimpH8R]

18. Three special ones

3. Patti Smith, State Theatre, Minneapolis, 1978 (Saturday show) One of the most incredible shows I've ever seen. Nothing fancy but incredible intensity and conviction. By the encore, Patti was standing on top of the PA leading the crowd in a singalong of the Ronettes' "Be My Baby." The Sunday show was horrible - PS "treated" the audience to a 15 minute guitar solo. As a guitar player she was unadulterated cat $hit.

2. Pink Floyd, Metrodome, Minneapolis, 1994. Though I have been a Floyd fan for so long I was waiting for Dark Side of the Moon to come out, I'd never seen them. No Roger was better than no Floyd at all, and the show lived up to more than twenty years of expectations I brought to it. Incredible.

1. Brian Wilson, Orpheum Theatre, Minneapolis, 2004. The ultimate, the best, something I never thought I would see. Wilson and his band were a little tight at first, as it was the premier show of the tour, but by the middle of the first set they caught fire. Song after incredible song, and all of "Smile" in the second set. I could have listened forever. Something close to a religious experience. :loveya:

[Maddy McCall]

2. Stevie Ray Vaughan, 1990. KISS, 1976, Adam Ant, 1987.

Stevie Ray Vaughan put on the best concert I ever attended, and he didn't have all the pyro, platforms, wires, etc that most other bands had.

Best concert I ever saw.

[JimmyJazz]

4. Stevie Ray Vaughan! I have a cd of him in concert and it is

GREAT :bounce: You're right. He didn't need bells and whistles.

[NMMNG]

3. Geez, being that I've only been to four it's not hard to choose

(I don't get out much do I?)

3. Melissa Etheridge
2. Def Leppard
1. Pink Floyd

[muchacho]

5. my three

Prince - Madison Square Garder last Winter - The Time opens the show
Frank Zappa - Shiek Yer Booty tour - I met the man at a bar after the show
Drive By Truckers - the best touring band working today

[bowens43]

6. The Who (early 70s), Springsteen 1976 , Pink Floyd 1977

It's not easy to select three out of the dozens the many that I've seen. Ask me later and you probably won't get the same answer.

[nine23]

7. Some of you may remember, back in the late '90's...

...Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison did a 12-city, "mini-tour" of west coast arenas.

As the tour was starting out in Vancouver and continuing down the coast, Dylan's management contacted the promoters and asked if they could find him a little nightclub in which they could squeeze in a little pre-tour "rehearsal". The promoters asked Dylan: "Would you like an audience?"

ONE RADIO ANNOUNCEMENT was made for tickets, my girlfriend spent the night in line to purchase them, then 500 extremely lucking souls - myself included - got to see Dylan in a small, dingy bar. And what can I say? Dylan was fucking GOD.

FULL DISCLAIMER: I am in no way "stuck in the sixties", nor am I particularly stuck on folk music. (In fact, I'm basically a product of the late 70's/early 80's punk scene; Clash, etc...) THIS SHOW WAS, FOR LACK OF A BETTER TERM, WAY TOOOOO FUCKING GOOD. His band at the time were semi-acoustic as well as electric; they were all multi-instrumentalists playing bongos, mandolins, banjos, violins and cellos, as well as Fenders, all in that 90's MTV "unplugged" style...

As people filed out of the bar, we were all FUCKING SPEECHLESS - we couldn't believe what we just saw and how freakin' lucky we were. TO THIS DAY, this show is is on everybody's "best show in the history of Vancouver", even the most hardened rock critics (if they were lucky enough to be one of the 500 there.)

The fact that I'm writing all this is testament to how good this show was. If you ever met me in person, you'd be "doomed" to have to listen to me go on and on about it for an hour or two, then you'd have to slap me to shut me up...

[IADEMO2004]

8. Peter Paul & Mary

Almond Brothers in the 70's and John Mellencamp(?) 2years ago. I saw Emerson Lake and Palmer once and swore off concerts for over 20 years.

[Orsino]

9. Springsteen, Mannheim '93...

Jethro Tull, Atlanta '96
The Who, Atlanta '00
Dizzy Gillespie, Fat Tuesdays '83
Elvis Costello/Squeeze, Blacksburg (VA) '81
Modern Jazz Quartet/Kronos Quartet, Eugene '90


Hard to pick favorites among these.

[jmowreader]

10. Two of them were Floyd-related...

I was ten rows back from the stage at "The Wall: Live in Berlin." The whole first song was almost drowned out by people screaming "Louder! Louder!" And then they lost power to the whole stage for "The Thin Ice." Which was fine by me because it's not a very good song.

When the Rogerless Floyd toured "A Momentary Lapse of Reason," they played in front of the Reichstag, and I was there. The headline on the next morning's Berliner Zeitung: "Pink Floyd could be heard from 7 kilometers away."

And does anyone remember Accept? A very loud German metal band with probably the ugliest, fastest-singing singer in history? Accept was speed metal before there was speed metal. Well, the little ugly fucker left the band and started UDO due to creative differences between him and Accept guitarist Wolf Hoffman (Wolf thought Accept should have only one guitarist; Udo thought two were better. Accept broke up and UDO has released six albums--all with two guitarists.) I saw Accept in concert at the municipal auditorium in Nashville. I saw UDO in a huge bar in Berlin. Both were great shows, but the Berlin show was better--for instance, the Nashville people wouldn't let him play one of his greatest hits, "Son of a Bitch." I can understand why: the place would have been raided by the Tennessee State Police if they would have let this ugly fucker stand up there and sing "cocksucking motherfucker, I was right."

[LynneSin]

11. My 3:

1. Robert Plant in 1989: It was his first solo tour and the first time I had the front row ever at a concert. During the second chorus of his solo hit 'In the Mood' he reached out and we grabbed hands while he song that second chorus
   
2. Pearl Jam in 2003: We had the whole evening plan including some picnicking in the parking lot before heading in for the show. But my friend drove and his car ended up breaking down along I-95 right near the airport. We ended up picnicing under the sign for exit 9a on 95northbound for 2 hours while we waited for our friend's brother to pick us up and take us to the concert. All of the hassle was so worth it - the concert was amazing, the seats were great and Eddie Vedder closed the concert with this montage of songs that included "War" and he song it with a Bush Mask on his head
   
3. Steve Miller Band - Various years in the early 90s: I most have seen him about 4-5 times in concert throughout the years because everytime we went to see Steve Miller in concert you just knew it was a good time for all that came. The Mann Music Center was an outdoor ampitheater and back in the early 90s you were allow to bring your own bottled water into the center as long as the seal was attached. I had an amazing skill of being able to remove the cap off the water bottle without breaking the seal. We'd empty out the water and fill it up with Vodka. All we needed was some pink lemonade from the concession stand and we were good to go. Plus you can always guarentee the best sing along concert ever with Steve Miller because everyone knows the words to his songs!
   

[trumad]

12. Bob Seger in 1975

The Eagles in 1978

and Boston/Van Halen in 1979

[WCGreen]

13. Springsteen at a converted theatre in

Cleveland, 1975.....

Jessie Collin Wuyoung, Santana, The Band and Crosby Stills Nash and Young, 1976

Pink Floyd, 1973

[underpants]

14. Let's Active, Hodoo Gurus, (the Boathouse in Norfolk)- The Connells

at a small tiny little room at Wm.&Mary St.Patricks day 1987 (or 88).

[bicentennial_baby]

15. Tool, Pink Floyd, Tool

Tool- Hartford, CT right after 9/11
Pink Floyd- Foxboro, i don't remember when
Tool- UMASS 2003 ?

[Debbi801]

16. Springsteen, BNL, and Moody Blues.

[jandrok]

17. Here are mine

Van Halen opening for Black Sabbath. 1978, I believe. It was Halen's first tour. They blew the poor Sabbies off of the stage. Van Halen was young, rude, and hungry. The Sabs were slow, plodding, and lost.

Billy Squier/Queen. Sometime around 1982 or so. Squier was hot with a big album, and he was a good compliment to the bombast of Queen. Queen was amazing. Brian May played a MONSTER solo that just rocked my ass off.

All those great Dead Horse shows at the old Axiom club in Houston. Dead Horse was an old speedcore/punk/metal band. They never broke out nationally, but they had a large local and Texan following. Those shows were always wild. Lot of drinking, slamming, lots of naked and semi-naked people, people setting themselves on fire, that sort of thing. Good times.

[In_The_Wind]

19. here are the 3 most recent ones

Rolling Stones

Eagles

Woodstock II

[XemaSab]

20. NIN-Bowie

1995.

[GreenPartyVoter]

21. Saw Jethro Tull last winter

[CitrusLib]

22. You'll think I'm nuts, but these were pretty entertaining shows

Warning - 80's flashback.

The Police Synchronicity tour (The Fixx opened for them).

Adam Ant and the Romantics.

Def Leppard Hysteria tour.

They were all such a fun time!

[arwalden]

23. Peter Frampton, Chicago, Earth Wind & Fire, Osmond Brothers

[noonwitch]

24. Springsteen at JLA in 1984, The Cars in 1980, and the Stones in 1989

The Sprinsteen show was the first leg of his tour, at Joe Louis Arena. It was an awesome show.

Honorable mention goes to the Grateful Dead concert I saw in 1993. The show was great, but the acid-pumped whirling dervishes in the hallway were a pain.