Best/Worst LIVE Bands...???

Most bands I've seen live are, for the most part, pretty good. Some that I was always told "sucked live" I thought were KILLER (i.e. Aerosmith)

But the worst was, with a shadow of a doubt - The BABYS. OMG!
It was at the Aragon Ballroom, in Chicago. They were smack dab in the middle of .38 Special and Molly Hatchet!
You couldn't have picked a worst line up to put these poor guys into! LOL!!!
They were so bad that those in the front that were close enough were throwing full beer cans at these guys.
John Wait (I believe that was the lead singer) ran off stage...as did the rest of them, and then he comes back out....tears his shirt open, and yells F-YOU CHICAGO!!!!! - We'll Come Back When You Grow Up!!!!!

Not that I wish anybody bodily harm, but it was pretty funny coming from a member of a band called The Baby's - LOL!!!!


The absolute BEST has to be between The DOOBIE BROTHERS (at Alpine Valley - Wisconsin) and PINK FLOYD (at Soldier Field - Chicago).

Of those two - I'd have to say PINK FLOYD at Soldier Field! OMG!!! I have never heard anything so perfect in my life.
It was outside, and the rain coming down through the Lasers, and the Lightning slashing down over the lake front was just phenomenal! No way you could duplicate those effects!....and I was STRAIGHT!

And that chick that does the backup vocals?....just had me mesmerized.

...not to mention David Gilmore's guitar!!!

Definitely the BEST show I ever seen/heard.


I'd have to say - The Rolling Stones - "Who do you VooDoo/Voodoo Lounge" at Joe Robbie Stadium (Tampa Bay) was pretty dam incredible also.

I gotta hand it to those guys....Mick NEVER puts on a bad show.

In their 60's and they're still going like the guns of hell!!!

I hope we are all so fortunate.


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Best: Tool, every time.
Most memorable: Primus/Anthrax/Public Enemy. That show was a revelation.
Most consistent: Jethro Tull

Worst: Does SNL count? Franz Ferdinand was just awful on SNL.
Worst that I've actually witnessed live: CSN. Bored me to tears.

Best and worst live band - New Order?

Best live..

Peter Gabriel - B'ham NEC 1986
Dr Feelgood - Swindon Oasis 1979
AC/DC - Wembley 1990
Paul Rodgers - Glasgow 2006
Ultravox - Oxford 1982

Worst live -

ZZ Top - Wembley 1987 (only played for 50 minutes looking utterly bored, no encores)

ORIGINAL: spacey

I sure remember my first concert...Iron Butterfly -In-Da-Godda-Da-Vida tour. I was very young and I still remember it.

In 1978 I saw John McLaughlin and Stanley Clark at the Pope Joy Hall in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was deep in music studies so one can imagine the impact.
I'll never forget during Johns show he broke into an amazing solo then went into playing like a practice and then back into sailing, back to practice back to smoking and then stopped, walked up to mic and said "bass player broke a string" and giggled. Jaws were dropped. Was truley amazing to see "him" play.

Ah yes.....I forgot about Return To Forever in Orlando Florida.
Logins and Messina opened the show, followed by Fleetwood Mac (Stevie was so HOT!!!).

And Return To Forever headlined it....and everybody left! I couldn't believe it!
The absolute BEST of the BEST - The Creme' da la Creme' were getting up on stage, and most people were leaving.

I think that was the first time I actually realized that most people haven't got a clue what GREAT musicans, and GREAT Music....is all about.

I mean, I'm not taking anything away from Logins and Messina, or Fleetwood Mac - but come on!.....John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, and Stanley Clark, and Al DiMeola!!!!????.....togther!????

It just don't get any better then that.

That was an awesome show that I had forgot completely about!!!



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best - hmmm, unexpectedly i'd have to say ian brown at the Apollo in manchester, closely followed by metallica last night and at the gates in manchester in 96...
worst is a joint effort -gallhammer last year and cubanate (supporting carcass who were great) in around 95...

Ahhhhh.....I almost forgot about Jean-Luc Ponty live at Central Park.


AWESOME!


And spacey - you're 100% correct! .....

"these are the type of musicians that show other musicians what is possible on the instrument and give them the ambition to become better."


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You're right Ken.....

That didn't go over well.





j/k.........



That would have bored the hell out of me too.


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favorate: The Yellow Jackets w/ Robben Ford 1985 in Atlanta... They opened for ToTo...

least fav: Bob Dylan Rolling Thunder Review... I can't remember where or when...

actually you're right - joe satriani was another really boring gig...otoh steve vai's show was immense! benefits of a proper band and natural showmanship i guess!

spacey, my first concert was also Iron Butterfly - probably the same tour you saw - I was in Jr. High School at the time.

Some of the worst - Led Zepplin - an outdoor concert in Golden Gate park. (ever see the poster with Plant and the dove on his finger - that concert). They let loose about 200 white doves on the stage - about 90% of them got slottered by the pidgeons within minutes of being let loose - dead birds dropping everywhere - was a pretty aweful site. This was the Houses of the Holy tour - they plain sucked.

The Doors sucked - Morrison was so drunk - he could barely find the stage. He took a break during one of their tunes - took a leak on one of the amps. This was the Summer of '66.

I've seen a lot of great concerts - Pink Floyd at the Cow Palace in San Francisco stands out. They came out and played the entire Dark Side of the Moon album, took a break and when they returned, they played the entire album - the Have a Cigar album. At that time - that album had not been released.

My first concert was MOUNTAIN at the Garden when I was 14. That was awesome.


Another one up there with the worst was Mitch Rider and Detroit w/ Johnny Winter....in a Roller Rink!

They were great, but the acoustics were just awful. And it was so ear-bleeding loud I couldn't hear for 3 days.

What's kinda funny is that, at the time, there was this ridiculous word going around that Johnny Winter was really a vampire. Honestly - LOL

So my drummer, at the time, took all these pictures of them on stage...and Johnny's the only one that didn't appear in any of the photos.....erie. LOL


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Hmmm - well, without getting into "best/worst" BANDS, per se -

Probably the most amazing concert experience was Pat Metheny group, Boston Commons, around '85 or so - possibly the most spiritual musical experience I've ever had. 10,000 or so people, and you could feel the energy flow through us all, lifting everyone up to.... well, someplace better. Every single person there was recharged, renewed - ready to face the world from a better frame of mind. And bear in mind, we're talking instrumental music, here.

Sometimes it IS "just" music - but it can be much, much more.

Worst in recent memory - Foo Fighters at Phoenix Memorial Colosseum (sp?). Not the bands fault, their sound guy was a complete idiot. They came out and opened with their current hit (Learning To Fly) - but they were So - Damned - LOUD that you couldn't even recognize the tune. It was at least halfway thru the show before my ears clamped down to the point where you could begin to actually make sense of what was going on. For comparison, around '78 I saw Heart in concert, just after the release of Dog And Butterfly. I had never heard a tune from the album, and obviously it was a big part of the show. But the sound was SO well mixed, and the levels were so reasonable, that every part of every tune was there - hearing it for the first time I could make out every nuance and note - may as well have been listening at home (assuming home held 15,000 people and I had a 40kw sound system).

I'm an engineer for hire - when talking to a band about doing a gig I'll tell them flat out, "If you want to be the loudest band in town, I'll give you somebody else's number. But if you want to be the best-sounding band, we can talk..." And I'm snotty about it - don't want every gig, don't take every gig. But I have a rep, people know that if I'm at the board it'll be a good experience for all. That matters to me.

Sheer class:

* The Stranglers - 1978

* Iron Maiden - 1980

* Whitesnake - 1980

* Judas Priest - 1982 & 2009

All good stuff - can't think of any bad ones

Biggest regret - never saw The Clash

My 10 best live shows (I've got ticket stubs from about 120; I've probably seen about 130 or so shows) in no particular order:

U2 Achtung Baby tour
P-Funk on the Mothership Connection 30-year anniversary tour (w/ Bootsy Collins) from 3rd row...
Queensryche on the Empire tour when they did Operation: Mindcrime live
REM on the Monster tour (from 5th row)
Prince - a year or so after Emancipation was released, but I don't think he was actually touring for that album...
KISS on one of their reunion shows (from 5th row - used to work for a company w/ awesome season tickets)
Pink Floyd on the Division Bell tour
Fates Warning in a small club (I was 18 and it was a 21+ club so the band snuck me in...)
Lindsey Buckingham a couple of years ago on the Under the Skin tour
Rush - hard to pick the best time I saw them. Probably the Presto or Vapor Trails tour...

Okay top 11 - Black Sabbath w/ Ozzy the first OzzFest where they reunited... Great concert and a special memory for me because I went with a friend where this was the last time I saw him before he died.

The worst live bands I've seen were no-name opening bands, but the worst main acts that I've seen have been:

Billy Squier (left about 1/2 way in - absolutely horrible)
Aerosmith (saw them other times when they were good, this one particular time they were asleep at the switch, going through the motions, apparently burned out from being on the road..)

Dave

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