Top 5 Concerts

[ZoSoRose]

Since it's a hot topic in the second Vegas show thread

Mine are,

1. GNR the first Vegas show. The first big reunion show. 

2. GNR in 2012 at the Fillmore in Detroit. Really small theater and I was literally leaning on the stage. Met Ron and played his guitar, caught picks from everyone, a stick from Frank, shook Axls hand a few times, great set, and Axl sounded awesome

3. GNR in 2010 in London, Ontario. My first GNR gig and I was in the pit. 

4. The Rolling Stones in Chicago in 2013. My first time seeing them, Mick Taylor played Sway with them

5. X Japan in Chicago in 2010. Tiny theater show. They're one of my favorite bands ever and have only done one small usa tour

Honorable mentions for my 4th and 5th spots- Roger Waters doing The Wall in 2010, U2 360 Tour, Paul McCartney, Rush's R40 Tour, Metallica at the second Orion festival, GnR in 2011

 

Edit- I've seen a ton of shows and almost all of them I have really liked, this is hard!

Edited April 15, 2016 by ZoSoRose

[PsychoKiss344]

This is an interesting topic! Hard to pick, I'm going to make it 7

1. Guns N Roses - Toronto 2016 (I already know this will be my favourite)

2. Avenged Sevenfold - Toronto 2014

3. AC/DC - Buffalo 2009

4. Slipknot - Toronto 2015

5. Kiss - Toronto 2009

6. Kanye West - Toronto 2013

7. Drake - Toronto 2015

 

[moreblack]

No particular order:

Iron Maiden 2001 and 2008, AC/DC 2009, Slash 2010, Paco De Lucia 2011, 

[classicrawker]

Man so many to concerts to choose from and so hard to pick but some of my favorites, not in any order, off the top of my head

1. Aerosmith/ Ted Nugent- Central Park, NYC August 1975- Schaeffer Music Fest when tickets were $2.50......Aerosmith was great but Uncle Ted almost stole the show as it was right after he released his first solo album and it was before he got political

2. EL&P- Yale Bowl 7/28/74- Amazing show as they had a quad sound system which was deafening but crystal clear. I sat next to the SB and the sound was incedible.......

3. Rolling Stones- MSG, NYC 1975- My first Stones show with the flower pedal stage....more than just a concert it was an all day event...............

4. Ian Hunter w/ Mick Ronson and Steve Jones band as the opening act- Toads Place, New Haven, CT 11/9/89- small club which hold about 500 people....Hunter/ Ronson put on an amazing show and Steve Jones was fantastic. He had just released his "Fire and Gasoline" album with Axl singing on one of the songs. I ran out and bought it the next day..........

5. Mountain Felt Forum NYC 12/31/73- only time I got to see them with Felix Pappalardi....Leslie West's LP junior tone is to die for........some of the heaviest RnR you could ever hear

 

Out of all the concerts i attended I could just as easily picked Deep Purple MKII, Thin Lizzy (Robbo/Gorham era), Queen, Humble Pie, Ten Years After, Yes, David Bowie, Sly and the Family Stone, Jethro Tull, Johnny Winter, Johnny Thunders, AC/DC ( Bon Scott era), Stevie Ray Vaughn, King Crimson (1974) etc. etc.....

Also could have picked the 2 Guns N Roses shows at the L'Amour and Ritz back in 1987........

 

 

Edited April 16, 2016 by classicrawker

[Len Cnut]

I got one and one only, Iggy & The Stooges, Hammersmith, 2010, no show will ever ever ever compare.  I fuckin'...like...shows were dead for me after that, just nothing could compare.  The least poser-ish fuckin' fannyhole crowd were in attendance and Iggy was the most mesmerising performer I've EVER EVER seen, it was fuckin' mind blowing, as they started up i could see him just offstage right, bare-foot, in fact naked except for a pair of jeans, jumping up and down on the spot breathing like he'd just taken a shot of adrenaline, then all of a sudden the music kicks in and BOOM!  He goes flying into the fuckin' stack, up the rig, the other side of the stage, then back up the other, literally hurling his body all over the place...and the band are fuckin' locked in like...just perfect, i look around me and it's people going fuckin' mental left right and centre, he plays the fucking entirity of one of my favourite and one of the best, like top 3 best, rock n roll albums of all times and then basically just goes right the way through his fuckin' Stooges b sides like Johanna and Cock in My Pocket and Sick of You and all these wonderful songs, he's in the crowd, he's out of the crowd, he's surfing on my fuckin' head, he's back onstage urging the whole crowd to evade the stage, they follow and suddenly half the crowds on the stage and he does Shake Appeal with the entire fuckin' crowd, by the end of the gig he's fuckin' sweaty and bleeding and euphoric, it was fuckin' brilliant!

Stone Roses maybe a candidate for second but was kinda ruined by being out in a massive fuckin' field up North somewhere but it was beautiful, another example of really on-point musicianship, at the end there's this massive fireworks display the goes on for 10 minutes whilst stuff like Redemption Song by Bob Marley plays in the background, remember seeing this wonderful image of this geezer and his missus tongue tangling in the glow of the fireworks, was really.

Sex Pistols at Brixton would probably trump it for a second cuz it was just brilliant, glorious, amazing, got filmed for posterity too and i end up all over the film and on the front cover.  Thats for life now, I'm some fuckin' little miniscule part of Sex Pistols history, love it

Worst was Guns n Roses in 06, took the cunt 2 and a half hours to get onstage, by that time my buzz is wearing off and out comes Axl looking like a ginger pony with a hat on, Izzy came on at some point and i hardly fuckin' noticed and on top of that i got into a kick off with some geezer who obviously fancied himself a fuckin' badman but couldn't stand a decent left hook.  So yeah, if you happen to be reading this and you were at Hammersmith at 06 and got chinned by a big lanky cunt up by the front of the stage i'd like to say 'a-haha!'   Left about the time Live and Let Die was playing, there was some just totally shite about it.  And you really get an idea of just how awful fat Axls stage presence is when you're like, inches away from it, for a man that could fairly command a stage in his day he was fuckin' awful. 

11 minutes ago, moreblack said:

No particular order:

Iron Maiden 2001 and 2008, AC/DC 2009, Slash 2010, Paco De Lucia 2011, 

Is that it, really?  Dunno why but i expect yours to be less...commonplace.

[Nicklord]

Was Kanye West really that good live before? I just realised that I never watched his shows beside Glastonbury but I have listened to his albums couple of times and they are pretty good.

My top 5:

1. David Gilmour in Pula, Croatia 2015 - Ancient amphitheatre, lots of smoke, big round screen, first high note from the black strat... One can't forget that feeling.
2. RHCP in Sofia, Bulgaria, 2012 - Epic concert, something clicked that night between the band and crowd. I saw RHCP 2 times before that (4 days before and 5 years before) and I could really see the difference. 
3. Slash in Belgrade, Serbia 2010 - Last concert on that tour and Slash and Myles sure tried hard to be a memorable too.
4. Sabaton in Belgrade, Serbia 2015 - I don't know if you guys know them. Power metal band from Sweden whcih sings about battles from WW 1 and 2 mostly but their concerts are so much fun. Also their drummer is on a tank.
5. Metallica in Belgrade, Serbia 2004 - Their first concert here, so many hardcore fans, so much moshing, great setlist and awesome sound.

Honorable mentions. Faith no More 2010, Atoms for Peace 2013, Pearl Jam in 2006, The Prodigy in 2007, Muse in 2007, GnR in 2010 (2012 was just bad), Rolling Stones in 2007 (I don't like them, it would probably be higher if I do, but they are one of those bucket list bands), Iron Maiden in 2010...

[moreblack]

3 hours ago, Len B'stard said:

Is that it, really?  Dunno why but i expect yours to be less...commonplace.

There's SO many acts that just don't come to Winnipeg. But I mean, at the end of the day I'm a rock guy and I'm a guitar guy, so a bunch of huge rock and metal shows and  Paco De Lucia reads about right for me.

[Len Cnut]

2 minutes ago, moreblack said:

There's SO many acts that just don't come to Winnipeg. But I mean, at the end of the day I'm a rock guy and I'm a guitar guy, so a bunch of huge rock and metal shows and  Paco De Lucia reads about right for me.

Thought I'd at least get some really cool blues guitarists into the equation!  Always had a respect for you musically speaking, which is odd cuz you are a metaller but you've a history of talking a fair degree of sense.  Paco De Lucia is redeeming i suppose, i listened to him cuz of someone on this forum.

Edited April 16, 2016 by Len B'stard

[moreblack]

3 minutes ago, Len B'stard said:

Thought I'd at least get some really cool blues guitarists into the equation!  Always had a respect for you musically speaking, which is odd cuz you are a metaller but you've a history of talking a fair degree of sense.  Paco De Lucia is redeeming i suppose, i listened to him cuz of someone on this forum.

My favorite blues players aren't alive anymore unfortunately. Never got a chance to see them.

[Len Cnut]

1 minute ago, moreblack said:

My favorite blues players aren't alive anymore unfortunately. Never got a chance to see them.

I feel your pain sir, truly, i feel your pain!

[Gordon Comstock]

1) Guns N' Roses - April 8 2016 (Las Vegas)
By now everyone here knows how the show was, but man, it was something else being there, up front, feeling the energy in the arena, and they played my all-time favorite song for the first time since '93 and maybe the 5th time ever.

2) Guns N' Roses - January 16 2010 (Calgary)
My first GNR show, I was 16 and me and my dad flew to Calgary to see them - at the time it was the farthest we'd traveled for a concert. Luckily we got there as a chinook hit, so we stood outside the arena all day in t-shirts. Pretty good for mid-winter in Calgary. As the show got closer though there was an issue with the venue, where they moved the GA line to another door, but some nice security person came and brought the 10-or-so people that had been waiting all day into the venue before everyone else, we went through security and got GA wristbands and everything, then they opened the doors for everyone else and said 'GO'
I got front row on the right side of Axl's runway, and it was insane finally seeing the guy come onstage and go "You know where you are!?" a few feet away from me. The whole show was amazing, of course Axl's 2010 voice was stellar, but the biggest highlights that stick out in my memory are Shackler's, Street of Dreams, OTGM, Nightrain, and most of all Better. I say 'most of all' because during the chorus before the heavy part, Axl started fucking around with his in-ear monitor, then the monitor thing he wears on his belt, then he starts ripping all the cords out of his shirt and all his monitor stuff off, runs off stage (I could hear him yell "Who the fuck..." before they cut his mic), then when the "so full of anger" part started he ran out and sang that part while death glaring the soundboard guys the whole time. I still have a pile of confetti and Tommy's shotglass from the end bows somewhere.

3) Foxy Shazam - September 3 2012 (Seattle)
Anyone that's seen Foxy knows their shows are great, high energy and kinda weird, and they were everything I expected them to be. I saw them again in 2014 and met them before and after the show, which was great, but the 2012 was better because it was my first time seeing them and the setlist was a bit better. The opener in Seattle was probably the best opening band I've ever seen too, they're called Super Geek League, if you've never heard of them go Youtube them.

4) In Flames - February 3 2012 (Seattle)
My second time seeing them, I was front row, and they played a ton of stuff off Sounds Of A Playground Fading. I'd seen them a year before (also front row) and they only played for a half hour, so this was like my first 'real' show and aside from not playing 'Only For The Weak' the setlist was fantastic. The band and crowd was great, the show was in a place that literally looked like a shed with a bar on the side of it. Trivium was the opening band  and they pleasantly surprised me... I still don't like their albums but I'd go see them again for sure.

I'm having trouble picking the last one so I'll just list a few honorable mentions:

Buckethead - September 17 2012 (Victoria, BC)
Slipknot - October 16 2009 (Victoria, BC)
Godsmack (at Crue Fest 2) - July 27 2009 (Seattle)
Aerosmith / Motley Crue - December 13 2006 (Vancouver) - my first big rock concert.
Guns N' Roses - December 16 2011 (Seattle)
Alice In Chains  - July 1 2013 (Burnaby, BC)
 

[Len Cnut]

I'd like to see Buckethead live

[RussTCB]

c&p from the Vegas thread:

1) Guns N' Roses, Las Vegas, 04/09/2016
An amazing concert for so many reasons not limited to; the line up, the set list, the city, the company I was able to keep, the energy and Axl's voice in general

2) Prince, Detroit, 04/09/2015
3-hour clinic on how exactly to perform music for a crowd of people. I was lucky enough to get a soundboard recording of this show and still can't believe I saw it in person. As a side note, I didn't realize until writing this up that it was exactly one year to the day before GN'R.

3) Jack White, Detroit, 04/30/2014
This was almost a dead tie with Prince due to length of show and energy from the entire band. I saw the same tour in the same city but at a different venue 2 days prior and the difference was night & day. Monday's show was good but not great due to a lame, cell phone checking crowd. Wednesday's show was completely unchained as if JWIII was determined to make up for Monday's show.

4) Roger Waters-The Wall, Auburn Hills, 10/24/2010
My favorite album of all time performed by the guy who wrote it along with arguably the greatest I drew front row center in a lottery on Roger's site which made this all the more sweet. It wouldn't have mattered where I sat and I actually sat in the very last row on purpose when I saw the same tour 2 years later. The second show almost edged the first one out due to me meeting Roger earlier in the day, but the first one gets the edge for the pure magic of it being the first time. 

5) The Black Crowes, Detroit, 08/20/2010
No opener, a 90 minute acoustic set followed by a 90 minute electric set and one of the best overall setlists I've ever experience in my 20+ Crowes shows. This is another one that I have the soundboard recording of and still amazes me that I got to see in person.

 

Honorable mentions:

U2, ZooTV Outdoor Broadcast 1992 
Pink Floyd, The Division Bell Tour 1994
Pearl Jam, 5 Against One Tour 1992
Beck, Odelay Tour, 1996
Nirvana, In Utero Tour, 1993

[DieselDaisy]

1. Neil Young/Crazy Horse, Newcastle Arena, 2013

  Simply unbelievably.

2. Alice Cooper, Newcastle City Hall, circa. 02 (Brutal Planet Tour)

  I'm not even a big fan of Alice Cooper (I have two of his old records on vinyl!) but I can safely say this is the most fun I've ever had at a rock show.

3. Stones, Wembley '99

 Well it was The Stones, last time under Wembley's old towers. Nostalgia fest of course.

4. Dylan, Arena 1997

 I've seen Dylan three times at Newcastle Arena and I believe the first one had the edge. Time Out Of Mind renaissance.

5. Ron Wood, Shepard's Bush Empire 2003ish (w/ Slash)

 I loved this gig. The two of them pissed as farts.

[moreblack]

15 hours ago, Len B'stard said:

I feel your pain sir, truly, i feel your pain!

I really wanna see Bonamassa but he never comes around these parts.

1 hour ago, DieselDaisy said:

5. Ron Wood, Shepard's Bush Empire 2003ish (w/ Slash)

 I loved this gig. The two of them pissed as farts.

They put that on DVD didn't they?

[PsychoKiss344]

15 hours ago, Len B'stard said:

I'd like to see Buckethead live

Amen

I wish he was coming to Toronto on his current tour

[Zint]

1) Rolling Stones 1978

2) Aerosmith 1977

3) Guns n Roses 1991

4) Kiss 1976

5) Alice Cooper 1981

..best club gig, Black Flag 1982

 

[DieselDaisy]

3 hours ago, moreblack said:

I really wanna see Bonamassa but he never comes around these parts.

They put that on DVD didn't they?

I'm not sure. It would probably make a very unprofessional looking DVD as they were both drunk as lords, but it was a fun gig.

PS

Other notable mentions which just missed out,

- Metallica 1996. I do not listen to metal now but there is no doubt that Metallica are a tight teutonic arena machine.

- Dylan the second time I saw him which would have been about 03ish.

- Snakepit 2002ish, a decent sweaty club gig.

Worst gig,

- Axl and his hirelings 2006 at Newcastle Arena. He arrived three hours late, but arrived in fine voice - the last time he sounded good in my opinion - and slowly began to win the hostile increasingly inebriated Geordie crowd over, before storming off at the end because somebody had - get this - thrown a penny at him!! The crowd shuffled out of the arena like they had just been to a funeral. Weirdest concert experience ever.

- Aerosmith at Wembley 1999 were a bit creaky. Full of the cheesy ballads. I felt sick at the time and it could have been the bus journey down, something I'd eaten but the ballads certainly didn't help. Not really a big enough fan really (my mate preferred them and dragged me along).

 

Edited April 16, 2016 by DieselDaisy

[PsychoKiss344]

43 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Worst gig,

- Aerosmith at Wembley 1999 were a bit creaky. Full of the cheesy ballads. I felt sick at the time and it could have been the bus journey down, something I'd eaten but the ballads certainly didn't help. Not really a big enough fan really (my mate preferred them and dragged me along).

 

The worst gig I have ever been to was Aerosmith in 2010, the crowd was dead

[moreblack]

2 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

6 hours ago, moreblack said:

They put that on DVD didn't they?

I'm not sure. It would probably make a very unprofessional looking DVD as they were both drunk as lords, but it was a fun gig.

PS

Not sure if it's the same show but I think they did film a gig from that tour

 

Edited April 16, 2016 by moreblack

[J Dog]

Part I:

Tom Petty - Nothing fancy. Just one of my heroes blazing through 25 years of great rock tunes. Black Crowes opening up was icing on the cake.

Nine Inch Nails/Janes Addiction - Both killed it.

Guns N Roses 06 version - Axl wasn't too late. Voice was great and he was full of energy.

Velvet Revolver - House of Blues. Maybe the most electric show I've been to. The band, the crowd, it was all there.

Snoop Dogg - House of Blues. He was everywhere then, reality show, movies, the poppy Pharell songs like Beautiful and Drop it Like its Hot were all over the radio. So I was expecting a half ass money grab show. Nope. He brought the Death Row family with him. Dogg Pound, Daz and Kurupt backing him up on the mic. Warren G on the turntable. Nate Dogg singing them hooks. It was G-Funk Heaven.

 

Part II:

Chili Peppers - Californication tour. The return. It was perfect.

Pearl Jam - Sonic Youth opened up. One of my favorite underground bands, they were great. So was PJ. And there was some top notch ecstasy going around.

Ozzfest - 05 maybe? Black Sabbath, Velvet Revolver, Rob Zombie, Iron Maiden, Black Label Society.

Raekwon and Ghostface Killah - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 20th anniversary tour. Two legends performing a legendary album. Crowd rapped every song. Some real tiger style wu-tang shit.

Hank III - Always cool to see your underground hero play in a small, grimy, half metal half cowboy half biker bar. Plus after the show 3 hopped down and hung out, took pics, signed shit. Cool cool guy.

Edited April 16, 2016 by J Dog

[Len Cnut]

1 hour ago, J Dog said:

Part I:

Tom Petty - Nothing fancy. Just one of my heroes blazing through 25 years of great rock tunes. Black Crowes opening up was icing on the cake.

Nine Inch Nails/Janes Addiction - Both killed it.

Guns N Roses 06 version - Axl wasn't too late. Voice was great and he was full of energy.

Velvet Revolver - House of Blues. Maybe the most electric show I've been to. The band, the crowd, it was all there.

Snoop Dogg - House of Blues. He was everywhere then, reality show, movies, the poppy Pharell songs like Beautiful and Drop it Like its Hot were all over the radio. So I was expecting a half ass money grab show. Nope. He brought the Death Row family with him. Dogg Pound, Daz and Kurupt backing him up on the mic. Warren G on the turntable. Nate Dogg singing them hooks. It was G-Funk Heaven.

 

Part II:

Chili Peppers - Californication tour. The return. It was perfect.

Pearl Jam - Sonic Youth opened up. One of my favorite underground bands, they were great. So was PJ. And there was some top notch ecstasy going around.

Ozzfest - 05 maybe? Black Sabbath, Velvet Revolver, Rob Zombie, Iron Maiden, Black Label Society.

Raekwon and Ghostface Killah - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 20th anniversary tour. Two legends performing a legendary album. Crowd rapped every song. Some real tiger style wu-tang shit.

Hank III - Always cool to see your underground hero play in a small, grimy, half metal half cowboy half biker bar. Plus after the show 3 hopped down and hung out, took pics, signed shit. Cool cool guy.

ONLY BUILT FOR CUBAN LINK KINGS WHO SHOOT DICE!!! GO ON SON!!!

[J Dog]

Just now, Len B'stard said:

ONLY BUILT FOR CUBAN LINK KINGS WHO SHOOT DICE!!! GO ON SON!!!

It was glorious my friend. They did the whole album. The encore was CREAM and an ODB Shimmy Shimmy Ya tribute.

[chevelle]

1. Death Grips, July 2015 - Simply put, I've never experienced more pure energy at any other show than DG. The energy of both the band and the crowd was insane - the band for being able to play nearly two hours straight without a gap between any of the 20 songs they played, the crowd for being crazy enough to be the only time I've ever feared for my safety in a crowd, the surreal fact that I was even seeing them at all given their "break up" a year earlier. Next level shit. 

2. Protest the Hero, December 2013 - I'd been a fan of these guys for five years before I finally got the chance to see them, and in that time they became one of single most important bands to influence my taste in music and my own guitar playing. Besides being note-perfect the whole show, their singer Rody could have a career in stand up with how he can command a stage with banter in between songs. Got drunk, screamed my head off to every word, lost my voice, had a great time.

3. Circa Survive, March 2013 - I actually wasn't all that familiar with these guys when I first saw them, I only knew their most recent album at the time. But I was blown away by the crowd and the band, because the atmosphere of the show made it feel like a big ass family, in one of those impossible to explain ways. I immediately dug into the rest of the band's music after this show and fell in love with the band, so it was a pretty important one for me. Also, it's the only time I crowd surfed and got myself a better spot instead of going over the rail - I got dropped two people behind the rail and had a great view the rest of the night!

4. Cloudkicker, April 2014 - This dude is another huge influence on my music taste and playing, and this tour was (so far) a once in a lifetime chance to see him play. Ben never toured the Cloudkicker music before or after that month and besides getting to see a ton of my favorite music get performed two feet away from me, when I thought I'd never have that chance, I got to talk to Ben between sets and get a picture with him too. It made the trip back to PA from NY worth it despite the fucking torrential rain I almost washed my car out in.

5. Nine Inch Nails, August 2014 - Even though I almost never listen to NIN anymore, I couldn't pass up the Death Grips/NIN/Soundgarden tour (which DG later dropped off of). Soundgarden was good, but NIN's stage show and the pure emotion Trent could still pour into these twenty-something year old songs both left me speechless. By the time Hurt closed out the set it actually made me tear up a little, so I think it left a pretty powerful mark on me as far as live music goes.

 

[emybdc]

#1 GnR - Las Vegas - 04/09/2016 - I'm speechless to this day.

#2 David Gilmour - Curitiba/Brazil - 12/14/2015 - the sound was just off the charts. Never heard anything like that in my life. The venue was an abandonned quary - crazy beautiful place with insane acoustics. I've cried like a baby when he played Coming back to life, which is my second favorite song from Pink Floyd and wasn't on the previous setlists for Brazil shows

#3 Richie Kotzen - Curitiba/Brazil - 04/29/2010 - after GnR, he's my favorite music act. I've seen him twice after that, but the first one made a real mark on me. The venue was very small and the setlist was perfect. Eric Martin opened for him, so that was very cool too.

#4 Aerosmith - São Paulo/Brazil - 05/29/2010 - they are unbelievable live. Steven Tyler is definitely my favorite frontman of all times. He let the crowd sing What it takes alone until the chorus kicked in. It was beautiful. I've seen them after that once more and they were amazing again.

#5 Joss Stone - São Paulo/Brazil - 05/10/2014 - I just love her and she is great live, awesome energy. Jeff Beck also played that same night and they did "I put a spell on you" together - one of the greatest things I've ever seen.

 

I also should mention that I saw GnR twice in Brazil before Vegas and they were both great show. My favorite was 2014 but 2010 was very cool 'cause Sebastian Bach was the opening act. However Axl was 3 hours late to the stage - had to leave the show and go straight to the airport otherwise I'd miss my flight home.

Edited April 19, 2016 by emybdc