Most and least favorite concerts?

[AnotherScott]

On 10/9/2022 at 11:01 AM, Michael W said:

Pleasant surprises:

 

I like the pleasant surprises category... could be a thread of its own. Back in probably 1973 or so, I saw Edgar Winter (yes, great show, with Rick Derringer too), and there were two opening acts, who I knew nothing about. Jo Jo Gunne who I did not like, and the pleasant surprise, James Gang, who was great.

[mate stubb]

2 hours ago, Bill H. said:

My experience when I opened for him in the 1970s too. I was really looking forward to this one, but he was so wasted that he could barely play piano - doing mostly glisses and smears in place of his trademark solos. 

 

No chance of catching him backstage either. Accompanied by bodyguards he walked directly to the stage from his limo, and left the same way when done. 

 

The show could have been much worse personally for me. The club I was in brought him in as a headliner, and tried to borrow my keys. After watching him put his feet all over the piano, I was glad I refused. My guitar player wasn't as fortunate - they borrowed his amp and broke it.

[Rod S]

3 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

 

I like the pleasant surprises category... could be a thread of its own. 

 

A pleasant surprise for me is when an foreign act comes here to Brazil and does something thoughtful with the local Music and Arts scene.     A lot of it is bringing local artists on stage, but there was a cool one I remember.  

 

Back in 2002, saw Vanessa Mae in concert in Rio (sold out).   Around the same time, there was a project here in Brazil with young violin players (9-14) called 'the little Mozarts'  that were starting out and weren't getting much attention.  She brought them on stage to play with her halfway through the concert, which brought some nice recognition to the kids.    After that, they got some traction and got invited to play around the world.    Doing some web searches, looks like the group has continued until today.  

[HammondDave]

Hard to rank them as there have been so many incredible performances that I was lucky enough to to see… 

 

The Best OF The Best:

 

KING CRIMSON MK I. 1969 Palm Beach Rock Festival.  Saw two performances (they played two days) of this debut band with Robert Fripp, Ian McDonald, Greg Lake, and Michael Giles.  No doubt, one of the most important musically influential moments of my life.

DEEP PURPLE MK II. 1970. Pirates Word.  Their first tour with Gillian and Glover.  They blew Rod Stewart and The Faces off the stage. 
PINK FLOYD, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1980, 1992.  All these concerts were amazing.

ALICE COOPER. 1969. Pirates World.  The man who brought theatre into rock.  Jerks in the crowd calling him Homophobic names. He handled it incredibly professionally… he threw dead chickens at them.  
RETURN TO FOREVER AND WEATHER REPORT. 1976. Gusman Hall, Miami. Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul. Need I say more?

BILLY JOEL The Stranger Tour. 1977. When Billy first hit it big. With an amazing band to support him.  Funny that I first saw him playing coffee houses.  Many world tours later…

THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND 1969-1975 (original band). I saw these cats dozens of times as they were basically a local band in Florida. Gregg Allman was another huge influence. First rock/blues B3 player I enjoyed listening to. There was nothing like the musical synergy that this band produced. 
JO JO GUNNE, 1973. Sportatorium, Hollywood Florida. The best two musicians from Spirit leave their band and create an unbelievably hard rocking quartet featuring Jay Ferguson on piano and Mark Andes on bass.

 

 

The Worst of The Worst:

 

LEE MICHAELS 1970   Left after one song as my ears could not handle this assault. He started by smearing up to a high C… and held it there until the audience screamed in pain.  I escaped to the parking lot and listened to his set from a 1/4 mile away.  It sounded like 30,000 people being tortured… musically it was OK… I returned later to see Jo Jo Gunne

THE ROLLING STONES 1969 West Palm Beach.  I really can’t blame them… it was 35 degrees and raining.  
 

[NewImprov]

On 10/7/2022 at 11:55 AM, JimboKeys said:

 

Sam Rivers Trio, Carrboro (NC) Arts Center, 2005.  I had no idea what they were, just knew he played sax which i was taking lessons on at the time.  What i got was the most energetic 82-year-old you'll ever see, along with a couple young guys, who between them played every instrument imaginable.  A song would start out as a piano/bass/drums jazz trio and somewhere along the way morph into a 3-part solo sax section.  Incredible.

 

 

 

I had the great fortune to run sound for that trio in Portland. As I recall, Rivers played flute, soprano and tenor saxes, and piano, all of them incredibly well. Bassist played electric and acoustic basses, bass clarinet and piano. Drummer doubled piano, and was probably the best pianist of the trio. It was an amazing, utterly transcendent show.

 

 

[Synthaholic]

Best: Gino Vannelli, Florida Theater, 1999

Worst: Al Di Meola. It was his first gig with a brand-new band. They were too loud for the room, not tight, and didn't seem to know the music. Pretty disastrous.

[yannis D]

Medeski Martin & Wood for the first time I saw them in London back in the mid 2000s. I was a big fun before, but this concert made me change many of my musical perceptions...

Chick Corea-Gary Burdon in the early 90s. A real lesson in combination of written and improvised music.

McCoy Tyner "African" quartet back in the mid 80s - It's one thing to hear this post Coltrane-gone African music on the tape, and another to see the guys on stage, especially for my then young self...

BB King early 2000s - not the best BB King but still a nice concert looking the giant playin his Lucille

James Brown late 90s - you need more explanations?

 

My hard drive erased the bad ones..

 

 

[o0Ampy0o]

Pleasant surprise:

 

Before the Buckingham / Nicks version of Fleetwood Mac became hugely popular I saw them play with Peter Frampton before he became hugely popular. They kept playing all these songs I had enjoyed on the radio but hadn’t comprehended who the band was. Some songs didn’t sound like the same band given all the lead vocalists. By now of course it is easy to identify them. Plus they also played older FM songs. They were the universally popular act. They had an array of good songs and performed them well live.

 

The pleasant surprise was Fleetwood Mac but the show-stopper was Peter Frampton. His Comes Alive album came a year later but he was that guy who could connect with and entertain a large crowd the album captured. Dave Mason performed right after him. The audience had not stopped cheering for more Frampton and people started throwing things at Mason. I had seen Mason before and he came out playing the best of his setlist first but it didn’t matter. I did not list Frampton as one of the best in my first post because I was so far away in a stadium that I felt like an observer rather than participant. I even started getting board during DYFLID because he just sort of gets through the driving part. I looked forward to the break from the that first part because I liked the break in the studio version. I had no idea what he was going to do with it when performed live.

 

In the 70's concert sound in a stadium, that stadium at least, left a lot to be desired. It was muddy and there was little midrange while the low end seemed an octave or two lower and was more of a rumble than audible tone. That was the only outdoor stadium concert I attended during that era.  Years later I saw Pink Floyd in the same venue.  PF always had state of the art sound.  The sound was so good it seemed as though I was significantly closer to the band yet I was probably the same distance from the stage.