worst and best shows you've attended

snarf

making guitars wish they were still trees
Saw this question over on another forum that I occasionally read but can't think of the last time I posted on. What are the best and worst shows that you have attended? I'll start and give a couple for each category.

Best:
ZZ Top/Aerosmith: Maybe 15 years ago. For an outdoor venue, the sound was superb. ZZ Top rocked the casbah, and all the guys in Aerosmith seemed to be sober and friends that night, so they did too. There were some seats up front that seemed like a pretty stoic crowd, but both bands and everyone out on the lawn (where we were) seemed to be having an absolute blast. Just an overall great show.

Jason Elmore/Tab Benoit: Probably 10 years ago. My introduction to Jason, and he was on fire that night. I've seen Tab several times, and I can't put my finger on why, but this was the best of all of them. He was super engaged with the crowd, and was just fun to watch play. Been a big fan of both of these guys ever since.

Worst:
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: Probably 15 years ago. The band was really on point and put on a good show, but whoever was doing sound that night did them a dis-service. It was one of a couple of shows I've been to where it was so loud that I physically felt uncomfortable. Stopped by the restroom after it was over, and some guy ended up talking at me. The only reason I knew this was because, as I was washing my hands, dude tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned around and saw his mouth moving. No idea what he was saying. For all practical purposes, I couldn't hear for 3 days, and it was a full week before my hearing was back to normal. Ever since that show, I am not embarrassed to say that I've carried ear plugs to every show I've been to since then.

Ruthie Foster and the Brazos Valley Symphony Pops Concert: Probably 25 years ago. I believe that Ruthie was drunk off her gourd that night. The symphony-only part of the show was great. Ruthie's part with the symphony came, and she staggered out to a piano and sat down. Did probably 6 songs, half of which she restarted several measures in. The symphony left the stage and the Ruthie-only part of the show started and she mumbled through another 3 or 4 songs before she got up and staggered off the stage to lukewarm, scattered applause. Although I know she has some good music out there, I have had no desire to see her play live since then.
 

WilliamEnright

Blues Junior
Worst one, Sad Cafe at Middlesex polytechnic in the 80's. No harm lads but 'Fanx Tara', lifeless and going through the motions.

Best: Boomtown Rats in Blackpool just as they broke into the charts , Geldoff was amazing running that show and the atmosphere was on fire AND David Bowie in a small venue near Southend on Sea, sticky carpets, spilt beer and everyone bouncing like crazy! Memories.
 

CaptainMoto

Blues Voyager
A few memories, I can't remember dates.:rolleyes:

Some of the best:
Rolling Stones
Santana
David Bowie
The Blues Brothers
Paul Simon w/ Ladysmith Black Mombazo
Buddy Guy

Some of the worst:
Wilson Picket - drunk and belligerent.
James Brown - 1 hour concert 45 mins of the Flames "James Brown" "James Brown" "James Brown", then 15 minutes of the man himself.
Frank Sinatra, in his waning years.........could not remember the lyrics to several songs.
 
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Rick23

Blues Newbie
Best: Eagles Hell Froze Over at Giants Stadium, NJ. Played just about everything in their catalog, and it was obvious how much fun they were having.

Worst: Marshall Tucker at Baker Ballroom, Dover NJ. Didn’t come on til almost 11:00PM, played 45 minutes and walked off the stage.
 

Grateful_Ed

Student Of The Blues
Best
When: New Year's Eve 12/31/73
Where: Daly City, California
Why: Because the Grateful Dead didn't do a New Years Eve concert that year.
Who: No, not the Who, The Allman Brothers Band.
Opening Act: Never heard of them before, some band called Charlie Daniels
Second Act: Marshall Tucker Band
Why the Best: I learned about Charlie Daniels. He and the band put on a great show. The Marshall Tucker Band was fresh off their first release, The Marshall Tucker Band, and they were on top of their game. The Allman's even without Duane were a great party band with a huge catalog of hits and they payed many of them in the first set. They took a break and came back to count down to the new year and were joined by Jerry Garcia and Bill Kreutzmann of the Dead and Boz Scaggs. Story goes that Dead friend Owsley had dosed Butch Trucks wine and Kreutzmann sat in on the drums for the second set. In any case, I don't know how long they played but I swear that by the time I got out of the Cow Palace, the sun was coming up. I'll always consider this the best concert I've ever seen.

Honorable mentions: Day on the Green #3 1979 with Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, AC/DC and Mahogany Rush. Led Zeppelin at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco, also 1973 Not one of their best shows, but still....Led Zeppelin. Opening for Zep was another group I'd never heard of before, The Tubes. and George Thorogood at Marriott's Great America Amusement Park, Santa Clara.

Honestly, I was born in San Francisco, Ca and grew up 20 miles south of The City in the days of the Fillmore and Winterland. It's probably easier to say who I didn't see. The short list of who I didn't see...the Beatles...and I won tickets to their last concert at Candlestick Park, 1966 on a radio station contest. I was 14 and didn't get to go, but I made money on the tickets.

Worst: ? Never seen bad live music...I've played bad live music but never went to a show I didn't enjoy. :Beer:
 

steve o

Student Of The Blues
Bruce Springsteen, “The River” tour, 1982, St. Paul (MN) Civic Center. This was before he went mainstream big time. I have never really liked most of his music after that album. He had a few good songs/hits on his Born in the USA album but after that, I wasn’t a fan. But that night I will never forget! He had no warm up band. Bruce and his E Street Band played for 2 hours straight, said we are going to take a little break. Came back out a 1/2 hour later, played for another 1 1/2 hours, left came back for an encore. His encore was only 2 songs but he rocked those 2 songs for another 1/2 hour. FYI: the encore songs were Born to Run (of course) for 10 minutes then the Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels cover of 1966’s Devil With the Blue Dress On for 20 straight minutes. Pure rock and roll and you could tell the whole band had a blast all night. Wow! Just remembering that night gives me goosebumps!
 

PapaRaptor

Father Vyvian O'Blivion
Staff member
Best:
Hands down, the most entertaining concert I ever saw was Elton John around 1975. This was arguably at the height of his popularity. He had just released his Captain Fantastic album, followed seemingly immediately by Rock of the Westies. As I recall he did three or four songs by himself on the piano from his earlier years, then brought out the entire band. They did over an hour and a half then announced they would be taking a break for "costume changes" and return. When they came back they did another 90+ minute show.

All time favorite show was the second round of the G3 tour, with Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and a very young Kenny Wayne Shepherd. KWS opened, Vai was second and Satriani third. There wasn't a boring moment the entire evening. It was also the first concert I took my oldest son to see. He was 12. Close behind was the G3 tour with Satriani, Vai and John Petrucci in 2001 (I think).

Honorable mention goes to Emerson, Lake and Palmer on their first American tour. I was awestruck that a trio could do such a masterful job on their studio work in a live venue.

Worst:
Probably not really the worst, but the one I enjoyed least was John Mayer. It was one of his pop shows, outdoors in the summer heat in West Palm Beach. It was so hot, my $15 24 ounce can of Budweiser was hot before I could finish it. Clearly, guys like me aren't his target audience. I just don't like his pop flavored stuff, but man can he play guitar. The problem I had with that was about 5 pop tunes, then 1 really good Hendrix style cover. Lather, rinse repeat. It wasn't his fault. I shouldn't have been there (but I was dragged along by my wife and a few of her friends).

Bob Dylan and Santana. This was during a relative lull in both their careers and at a venue atypically small for them (which didn't sell out). Santana was OK as the opening act, but it sounded like they were just going through the motions and really just wanted to get back on the bus. They didn't seem to be having a good time and there was no spontaneity onstage. But they weren't bad.
Dylan came out (electric stuff). The sound was awful (which is surprising, because they had Santana dialed in pretty well) and Dylan acted like he wished he was anywhere else but onstage. We left after the third or fourth song.
 

JohnHurley

Rock and Roll
Going way back ...

In my early teens i saw Mitch Ryder and Detroit a bunch of times in Ann Arbor/Detroit area.

Yes on the Fragile Tour at Kent state gym.

The Cure on their Wish album tour.

Springsteen in Cleveland the night before Barack Obama won 1st term ...

U2 on Joshua album 30th anniversary tour.

King Crimson on 50th anniversary tour.

Steve doing Sympathy for the Devil at Glens Falls.
 

Ted_Zeppelin

I’ll agree with you so that both of us are wrong.
The best would probably have to be Ozzy on the “Diary of a Madman” tour. This was a few months before Randy Rhoads was killed. It was a great show and to this day I am so grateful that I was able to see Randy play live. As a bonus, Motörhead was the opening act and I believe this was the year “Ace of Spades” was released. We were standing up pretty close to the stage and I still vividly remember staring up at Lemmy screaming into his mic which seemed like it was 8 feet off the ground!

Best and worst: Van Halen around 1980 at the Toledo Sports Arena. They had some local band open up and in hindsight, they probably were not that bad, but they only lasted about 20 minutes. The whole time the crowd was chanting “Van Halen” so loud you could not even hear these guys play. The excitement was at a fever pitch when Eddie and the boys took the stage. They played great and Eddie absolutely tore it up...but the sound was so loud and distorted that it pretty much ruined what would have been a great show.

Honorable mention: Rush farewell tour in 2015. Geddy’s singing was the best I had heard in many years and the band couldn’t have picked a better set list to play. Still hard to believe that Neil is no longer around.

As for the worst shows, I would say the 3 times that my wife made me take her to go see Bon Jovi. Don’t get me wrong, there were some good moments and Ritchie can rip out a few good solos, but between the girls (and ‘guys’) constantly screaming, it’s the only time I left shows with a headache that wasn’t caused by the loud music!
 

WilliamEnright

Blues Junior
odd one here but Ken Dodd, Liverpudlian comedian who sang and had hits in the 60's and was chums with all the Merseybeat groups and Cilla Black. Manchester in the 70's, not so much the singing, though he still has some of the top selling hits in the UK but I swear i nearly died laughing and he went on for 4 hrs!
 

tommytubetone

Great Lakes
To this day, the most I've been entertained at a concert was Griff Hamlin and The Circle City Horns at the Bon Ton Cafe in Memphis 2016. That was fun. There may have been alcohol involved. :whistle::rolleyes:
The most disappointing show was Robert Cray a couple years ago in Kalamazoo. He seemed to be going through the motions with very little interaction with the crowd. He could learn a bit from Tab Benoit. :Beer:
 

PapaBear

Guit Fiddlier
Worst concert was Peach Jam in Atlanta Stadium, it rained out most of the acts by the time The Allman Brothers Hit the stage Greg could barely sit up let alone play, he finally stood up waved goodbye and said "We owe you one Atlanta!", next show they did was at Alex Cooley's Electric ballroom and again they were late getting on and crowd was getting antsy, Greg came out sat down and said "Don't know what ya'll bitching about, we got all night" and I swear I think they must have played their entire catalog, It was 3 AM when it was over
 

snarf

making guitars wish they were still trees
To this day, the most I've been entertained at a concert was Griff Hamlin and The Circle City Horns at the Bon Ton Cafe in Memphis 2016. That was fun. There may have been alcohol involved. :whistle::rolleyes:
Griff and the band playing the Allen Blues Festival was a total blast as well. There was a reason that when the reviews came out in the local papers they barely mentioned Kirby Kelley or Eric Johnson or any of the other acts from that day. They all talked about Griff Hamlin from Corona, CA. Although they were all good, none of the other bands put on a comparable show.
 

BigMike

Blues Oldie
This is a difficult question. I was there during the late 60's, early 70's British rock/blues boom(weren't we all!) and I saw a lot of stuff.
For the worst I would have to say the Stones at Don valley stadium in Sheffield in the 80's. Not their biggest fan it has to be said but I thought they were very poor.
A couple of early ones spring to mind for the best. Jethro Tull at Blackpool Opera House UK around about 1970, I was instantly hooked and have been a big fan ever since - magical. Also, the first time I saw Rory Gallagher. it was about a year later at the old Public Hall in Preston UK. he came on (on time!) said "Good evening", played the most amazing music for 90 minutes then said "Goodnight Thank you" and disappeared, no frills or anything but what an amazing performer. Saw him 4 times live after that but that one stays with me. I also saw Zeppelin the same year at that venue and they were awesome. never realised a drummer could get so much volume out of a drum kit!
In later years. I know he is not everyone's cup of tea on this site but I have thoroughly enjoyed the 4 times I have seen JB live over here in Oz. he puts on a great show and his ability goes without saying in my opinion.
 

ervjohns

Blues Junior
From back in the day I remember a show with John Mayall, and the Steve Miller band at the old Boston Gaaden.

In recent days saw JB in Vegas, Tab Benoit in a small local venue, and the black keys in the new Gaaden, and these were all excellent shows
 

ChrisGSP

Blues Journeyman
For me the best were Zappa in the mid-70's. I saw him twice here in Aus, first time a "big" band with Jean-Luc Ponty (I'm pretty sure), and the second time a year or so later and it was just a quartet or quintet. Both concerts were amazing. Second bests are The Who, Yes, Zeppelin, Mahavishnu Orchestra - that's how highly I rate Zappa.
Worst was Rainbow. Terrible. Every song seemed to be in the same key and I wish Ronnie James Dio had screamed himself hoarse - and shut up. Richie Blackmore was going through the motions.
Honorable mention for best of all time, because it's nothing to do with blues. Maxim Shostakovich conducting the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House either late '75 or early '76. Maxim was out here on a conducting tour when his father Dimitri died back in Russia. Max went back for the State Funeral, then came back to Oz to continue the tour. They played one of the Shostakovich symphonies that night (can't remember which, but my heart wants to say it was the 5th). I've seen the SSO dozens, if not a hundred, times and that night was their best - when Max turned around at the end and held up the score, the audience erupted. Bravo!!!
 
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OG_Blues

Guitar Geezer
Hands down, tie between The Association, and Blood Sweat and Tears back in the late '60's.
Highly Honorable mention, Maynard Ferguson.
In the same timeframe, The Young Rascals put on a pretty good show.
Worst - I guess it was so bad I forgot what it was.
 

david moon

Attempting the Blues
I haven't seen that many "big" shows, Rolling Stones Sympathy for the Devil tour in Detroit, no big memories of that. That was a long time ago.

Saw Little Feat and it was so loud to be painful.

More recently, in a smaller local venue (Infinty Hall CT):

Bad show: a heckler pissed off Los Lonely Boys and they left the stage early. Ticket holders got a ticket to another show.

Good Shows: Tab Benoit, Tommy Emmanuel, John Mayall, Eric Johnson, Gary Hoey, Asleep at the Wheel, Best Of local open mic.
 
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