Best concerts you've ever gone to

I haven't been to that many concerts.
1. Bob Dylan, in '64, when Highway 61 Revisited was his new album. Barry McGuire sat just a few rows behind me. Tickets were about 4 dollars.
2. Conway Twitty, when he was considered rockabilly, instead of country.
3. James Brown, in '68, at Madison Square Garden.
4. Hugh Masekela, in '68, at Lincoln Center.
5. Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review, the year he did Hurricane. Featured artists, before his performance, were Stevie Wonder, Springsteen, forgot some. Roger McGuin and Ringo Starr played with Dylan's band.
I tried to get a ticket to the Woody Guthrie memorial concert, in NYC, but the tickets sold out too quick.
Tried to see Harry Belafonte, but $75 was more than I could afford.

Edgar, if you don't already have it, get the Harry Belafonte's Live at Carnegie Hall CD. My parents bought it on LP many years back, I bought it when it was released on CD. Since its too late to hear Belafonte in concert, the live recording is the next best thing. I give it 4 thumbs up, had to borrow two thumbs from mr. GB.

Haven't been to many either, if I list five, it will be a list of all I've ever attended. I can't tell you the year, but hopefully get the decade right.

1. Late 70s - Tony. Bennet - San Francisco Cow Palace - went with my dad, one of my favorite memories with him. He cried while Tony sang I Left My Heart in San Francisco. It was a few months after he moved out of state after he and mom divorced.


2. Late 70s - Roy Clark - Concord Pavilion. Another music date with my dad. We brought a picnic dinner and sat on the lawn while Roy sang.

3. Early 80s - Billy Joel - Oakland Coliseum. I can still remember every moment of that concert. It was his Innocent Man tour and the coliseum was packed to the rafters. One of my favorite moments was during one of his songs when everyone decided to move from the cheap seats in the rafters and trickled down in an orderly stream of people to fill the aisles around the stage with dancing. It felt like we were one of the grains of sand inside an hourglass and were experiencing the flow of sand down the glass.

4. Early 70s - Mahalia Jackson - a fancy hotel in San Francisco. Mom and I went to hear her sing her ballads. It was one of her last concerts before she died.

Can't remember any more. Most musical events I've gone to in recent years have been symphonies and theater.

If we're throwing live albums into the mix:
Genesis and Three Sides Live (1982)
Live in the City of Light by Simple Minds (1987)
Tina Turner's Tina Live in Europe (1988)
Bride of the NoiseMakers (2011) Bruce Hornsby

I have Belafonte at Carnegie Hall, Returns to Carnegie Hall and at the Greek Theater. I've had them since the years they were released.

I have been to other concerts, but the ones I mentioned were the best. Went to a Van Cliburn performance, in LA, either in Late '63 or '64. He exclusively did some modern piano pieces that I didn't like. Went to a number of Dylan concerts I had various problems with. The sound system was so poor in the hall I saw him in in Houston, I had trouble even recognizing half of the songs. Saw Willie Nelson, once, but he was singing flat and not doing any of the music I like him for best. -

top four would probably be

Tom Waits on the Franks Wild Year's tour
Stevie Ray Vaughn around '86 or so
The Roches in some small club in the mid 80's
The McGarrigle Sisters at a CBC Summertime concert series
honourable mention

Pink Floyd on The Division Bell tour, crappy album, and Roger was gone, but the sound system was out of this world, my ears rang for days, and the concert was outdoors

What kind of music do the McGargoyle Sisters perform?

(approximate representation?)

Americans might know them better as Martha and Rufus Wainwright's mom and aunt

I remember that the Drifters also appeared at the review in 63, also saw War at the Rams Head about 10 years ago, not sure why but I love to listen to their version of 'Low Rider'. There were still a few of the originals in the group, very satisfying performance.

My wish list, would be the following:

Janis Joplin and the Full Tilt Boogie Band. (0k, that's not going to happen)
Ray Charles (also too late)
Tina Turner (ya never know, hope springs eternal)
Talking Heads (slim to zero hope of reunion)
Aretha Franklin
Fleetwood Mac

I almost forgot to mention that I saw Ben E King when I was a sophomore in high school, we drove thru a snowstorm to another high school waaaaay out in Baltimore County against the advise of our parents. We arrived and I bet there were fewer than 30 kids, but King did his show and I still remember standing in front of him (within 4 feet) while he sang "Spanish Harlem", the artist locked eyes with me and I was in awe, I didn't know what to do except stare back. His backup music was recorded but he did the singing, OMG, I was in the presence of a major talent. Ben E. King was a class act to perform in front of a few pimply kids because he was a pro, in a snow storm, when the other kids parents made them stay home. Double Wow

I saw Run DMC back around 1983 or 1984. I remember in the early days of hip hop, it was widely understood that rap music was going to be fad. Popular for a brief period of time. Then fade off the map and be forgotten. Prior to Run DMC, that is exactly what was starting to happen. The popularity of hip hop was dying off somewhere around 1982 or 1983. Then right around that time, Run DMC revived hip hop with their first album, which was also the first album in the hip hop genre. Prior to that, hip hop artists were only putting out 12inch singles. No albums. As hip hop performers, Run DMC owned the stage in their early live performances. I remember Run DMC being the first true superstars in the hip hop community.

Although the Dramatics, Delfonics, and Stylistics were groups from the 1970s. In the early 1990s I saw these groups performing an oldschool tour singing all of there 1970s classic love songs. I've never heard them live back in the 1970s, but they still sounded great in the early 90s performing those classic beautiful love songs that I fondly remember from my childhood. That oldschool concert was an absolute treat.

Wasn't Run DMC the group that sang Walk this Way with Aerosmith?

Seeing Bowie is on my bucket list.

Very, very cool!

I saw Cheap Trick in the summer of '05. They were pretty darn good. I usually save mementos from every concert I go to, but that's the only one I don't have anything from...

Very cool stuff I haven't seen any of them. In particular I'd love to see Neil Young some day. I'm a huge fan.

By the way, I love your name

Holy smoke!!!

Very cool, especially getting to see Hendrix and The Yardbirds, wow!

I would LOVE to see The Pretenders! Chrissie Hynde is awesome! One of my all time favorite songwriters!

I saw U2 during the Popmart tour in 1997. It was a good show, but I kinda feel like of all the tours to see them on, that was probably the worst one. I can't even imagine how awesome it must have been to have seen them during The Joshua Tree tour!

Would've loved to have seen Queen.

Very cool. I saw Kiss in 1997 (the Ace Frehley and Peter Criss original incarnation reformed). It was great!

The full list of all concerts/shows I've been to so far. The opening acts are denoted below the headliners. I've never been to more than 8 concerts/shows in one year. I'm hoping to break that number this year...

1994
------
1) Bikini Kill
~Fitz Of Depression
2) Pegboy
~Hammerhead

1995
------
1) The Jesus Lizard
~Red Red Meat
2) Blues Traveler
3) White Zombie
~Toadies
~The Supersuckers

1996
------
1) Ozzy Osbourne
~Deftones
2) Fitz Of Depression
3) Babes In Toyland
~The Kelley Deal 6000
4) The Cure
5) Pantera
~Biohazard

1997
------
1) Metallica
~Corrosion Of Conformity
2) Kiss
3) Collective Soul
4) Corrosion Of Conformity
~Machine Head
~Drain STH
5) Fishbone
6) Foo Fighters
~Talk Show
7) U2
8) Prince

1998
------
1) Jimmy Page & Robert Plant
2) Everclear
~Marcy Playground
~Fastball
3) Megadeth
~Monster Magnet
~Sevendust
4) Smashing Pumpkins
~Cracker
5) Bob Mould
6) Rob Zombie
~Monster Magnet
~Fear Factory
7) Aerosmith

1999
------
1) The Rolling Stones
~Johnny Lang
2) Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band

2000
------
1) Frank Black & The Catholics
2) The Melvins
3) Danzig
~Six Feet Under
~Disturbed
4) Slipknot
~Hatebreed

2001
------
1) Pantera
~Slayer
~Morbid Angel
~Static X
~Skrape
2) Eric Clapton
3) Snoop Dogg

2002
------
1) Guns N' Roses
~Mix Master Mike
~CKY

2003
------
1) Disturbed
~Taproot
~Chevelle
~Unloco
2) Stone Sour
~Powerman 5000
3) Static X
~Soil
~Skrape

2004
------
1) The Pixies

2005
------
1) Seether
~Crossfade
~Dark New Day
2) Cheap Trick
3) Gwar
~Devildriver
~A Dozen Furies

2006
------
1) Deftones
~As I Lay Dying
~Story Of The Year
2) Frank Black & The Catholics

2007
------
No Shows

2008
------
1) Blue Oyster Cult

2009
------
1) Green Day
2) Ben Folds
3) Soul Asylum

2010
------
1) NOFX
2) Har Mar Superstar
3) Modest Mouse

2011
------
1) Motorhead
~Clutch
~Valiant Thor

2012
------
1) Jonathan Richman
2) Built To Spill
~Helvetica
~Sister Crayon
3) The Jesus & Mary Chain
4) Jim Breuer
5) Henry Rollins
6) Dinosaur Jr
7) DJ Shadow

2013
------
1) Yo La Tengo
2) Nick Offerman
3) The Queers/Dwarves
~Masked Intruder
~Jetty Boys
4) Animal Collective
5) Chris Cornell
6) MGMT
7) Built To Spill
~Slam Dunk
8) The Breeders
~Speedy Ortiz

2014
------
1) Neutral Milk Hotel
2) Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
3) Todd Barry
4) Deafheaven (Upcoming)
5) Guided By Voices (Upcoming)

Yeah it was Shea stadium. All those NY things are the same to me --- it was so long ago and 1982 was right I was a freshman in college. That would be 82. We drove from Boston to NY with 5 of us squished into a little car. One of the guys had family that lived walking distance to the stadium. We parked at their house and walked. After the concert we drove directly back to college - when we got in I showered and went to work with only the small nap in the car.

It was great. I loved doing crap like that.

Missing out on Fleetwood Mac is a big regret for me as well. I've heard relatively recent live clips of Stevie Nicks on Youtube and its sad to say, she lost her distinctive singing voice.

If I didn't go to Boot Camp in the summer of 1990, I would have definitely seen them when they came to Massachusetts. Alas, it wasn't meant to be because I spent my summer in Oklahoma... AKA Hell.