[MUSIC] Best Live Performances You've Ever (personally) Seen?

too much time on your hands these days?

 

Bauhaus
Devo
Fugazi
Butthole Surfers
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282


I can't remember dates and/or locations. Too old and braindead...
I'm sure there are more.

 

Decemberists at Rudyard's
Wrens at Mary Jane's
Castanets at Walter's
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra at ACL
Sigur Ros at Verizon
Denendra Banhart, Vetiver, and Joanna Newsom at the Orange Show
Joana Newsom at the Paramount in Austin

 

Rage Against The Machine in NYC

Best live band EVER

 

These come to mind of the past few years.

Grizzly Bear (Music Hall of Williamsburg)- best concert I've ever been to..you could hear a pin drop at this show the crowd was so respectful
Mark Kozelek (St Marks Church, SXSW 2008)-- was in tears it was so good. but Koz is a jackass when he performs
M83 (Webster Hall)
Cut Copy (Studio B Brooklyn)
Cut Copy (Webster Hall)
Born Ruffians (Mercury Lounge)
Bloc Party (Warehouse Live)
Matisyahu (Warehouse Live)
Explosions in the Sky (Free Press Summer Festival)
Wolf Parade (Terminal 5)
Sunset Rubdown (House of Blues)
Dead Prez (Stubb's)
The Tough Alliance (SXSW 2007)
Sufjan Stevens (Paramount Theatre)
Bon Iver (Highline Ballroom)
Sigur Ros (Grand Ballroom)
NewVillager (The Earl, Atlanta)
The Decemberists (ACL Festival)
Gold Panda (SXSW 2011)
Keane (Warehouse Live)
Future Islands (Art Collective in Baltimore)- really amazing live act
Arctic Monkeys- (Warehouse Live)
Mew (SXSW 2007)
Voxtrot (I saw these guys live 6 times in 2006)
Beach House (Walter's on Washington)
Yeasayer (Walter's on Washington and SXSW)
The Album Leaf (Proletariat)
Foals (London)
Bombay Bicycle Club (London)
STRFKR (SXSW 2011)
Diamond Rings (Toronto)
Interpol (seen these guys over 10 times in past 6 years)
The Rosebuds (last two albums have been dissapoint, but always a great show)
The Killers (Seattle)
Hercules and Love Affair (boy can Nomi dance)
Death Cab for Cutie (seen these guys 8 times over past 6 years)
Plants and Animals (Mercury Lounge)

One band I have seen over the years and always disappoint live is The National. I've seen them three times and they can't recreate the sound of their studio albums. It's unfortunate.

Generally crowds in NYC are very respectful of the bands and artists. You don't hear much talking. Some of the worst crowds I ever been a part of have been in Houston. It seems like half the folks either got in free and don't care about the band so they just chat the whole time or people just go to the show as a social outing and have never actually listened to the band so they don't care either.

Crowds in the South tend to be less uninhibited and people often dance at shows in Houston, Dallas etc..but no one really dances in places like NYC or Seattle. The most unruly of crowds are in Britain or usually British people at shows. I would run into a lot of them at shows in NYC and they always made the experience miserable.

Houston has improved their offerings of indie acts more recently which has coincided with Jagi taking over Fitzgerald's. Some really solid bands have been through town I've noticed. So that is a big plus for the local scene.

 

Coachella-Pixies, Beck, Radiohead in the same day
Radiohead-Tower Theatre in Philly, woodlands 3 times
Beta Band - Engine Room
James Brown- headlined a festival in Nice
Sigur Ros- Verizon
Arcade Fire- trees in Dallas and Woodlands
White Stripes-Verizon
Explosions in the Sky-Mary Jane's
Broken Social Scene (w/ feist and do make say think)
Jane's Addiction- Verizon

 

Sigur Ros at the Ryman Auditorium on February 14, 2006
Wilco at the Ryman Auditorium on March 17, 2006
Interpol at the Ryman Auditorium - fall of 2007
Bruce Springsteen at Bonnaroo - summer of 2009

Now that I'm single again, looking forward to catching a show or two every year.

 

My list would go like this (in this order):

AC/DC in San Antonio
Heart in San Antonio
ZZ Top in Austin
Journey in San Antonio
Styx in San Antonio
Lynyrd Skynyrd in Houston
Foreigner in San Antonio
Lynyrd Skynyrd in San Antonio
Def Leppard in San Antonio
Stoney Larue in Victoria
Kid Rock in Houston
George Thorogood in Austin
Cheap Trick in San Antonio
Eli Young Band in my hometown.

I only went to one concert (I didn't put it on the list because it sucked) before I went up to college at Texas State. All of these were within a 4 year span.

 

The Lips are one of the best live shows around.

I cant name em all, but some that stand out:

Janes Addiction at Numbers (also Verizon, Woodlands)
RHC Peppers at Numbers
Ministry at Numbers
Nine Inch Nails at Numbers
Soundgarden at Numbers
Sugarcubes at Numbers (ah early Byork)
Son Volt at Numbers
The Cure at the Houston Coliseum (Kiss Me Tour)
Butthole Surfers at some place off Main St outside of downtown Houston in 1987/88 (sat on stage whole night, a headbanging idiot)
Metallica at the Houston Coliseum, winter 1989
Blues Traveller at the Sigma Chi house in Vanderbilt, 1990
REM at the Exit Inn in Nashville
Johnny Cash at the Ryman in Nashville
Stevie Nicks at Red Rocks in summer 91
Muddy Waters at the Exit Inn
Blues Traveller at Numbers (unknown S. Crow opened for them)
Widespread Panic 40+ times, all over the SE and NE US, plus Texas
Grateful Dead through Bruce Hornsby days, not the biggest fan of Vince (plus Jerry started to fade) 30+ times...everywhere..between 89-95
BB King and Junior Brown at some ****hole in Memphis during Bluesfest
Smashing Pumpkins at Unicorn, Summit, Ariel Theater, and recently in NY
String Cheese Incident at the Fabulous Satellite Lounge (RIP)
Cream at MSG
Rev Horton Heat at FabSat
G Love at FabSat
Foo Fighters Acoustic at Beacon
Allman Bros during many March runs at the Beacon
Neil Young at the Beacon
Elvis Costello at the Beacon
Robert Plant at the Beacon
Decemberists for 3 straight nights this last Jan at the Beacon
Lyle Lovett at a small casino in Calgary (seated 50)
Roger Waters performing the Wall at MSG and Izod Center
Pink Floyd in the Dome
Flaming Lips at Cosmo Casino Pool this summer
Live at the Woodlands in late 90s during some epic storm
Pearl Jam and Soundgarden at Lollapalooza 92 in Orlando
ZZTop at Summit
Aerosmith and Kid Rock in Vegas at MFGM Grand
Porcupine Tree at Radio City
Willie Nelson at Beacon Theater
Bon Jovi in Newark
Bruce Springsteen at Izod Center
The Killers in Central Park




....sadly enough, these are just the ones that stand out. My ears are shot for life.

 

Back Door Slam, Beale Street Music Fest 2007.

 

This guy blew away Bonnaroo

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Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath Reunion Tour.

Pantera - opened for Sabbath on the above tour.

Metallica - Summer Sanitarium in 2000 in Dallas. Unique because Hetfield threw his back out and couldn't perform, so the singers from the other bands took turns filling in for him on vocals, including Kid Rock and Joe C doing their version of Enter Sandman with the rest of Metallica. Newstead fronted many of the songs, but the whole experience was great. Then Metallica came back a month or so later and did a free show since the whole band couldn't perform; all we had to do was save our ticket stubs. I'll forever respect them for that.

Iron Maiden - can't BELIEVE how good they still are.

Megadeth - I've seen them several times, most recently on the American Carnage tour with Anthrax and Slayer.

Slayer - just friggin' amazing.

Korn - Family Values Tour. I wasn't really much of a fan until I saw them live.

Motley Crue gets at least an honorable mention: It was my first real rock concert and there were rock & roll groupie sluts EVERYWHERE, blatant drug use all around, and everything else you can possibly imagine. It was awesome.

So many others....Queensryche puts on an amazing show (I'm seeing them at Emo's East in Austin next Sunday). Rob Zombie puts on a hell of a show, too. And I'm super-stoked to see Judas Priest next month in the Woodlands.

Rock on, y'all.

 

Radiohead at Bayou Place in 1998 (first date on OK Computer tour) - only slightly marred by the guy standing behind me loudly lisping along to all the songs while gloriously out of tune. I remember sharing a look with everyone around me and then proceeding to elbow the guy hard in the gut. He stopped singing after that.

Marshall Allen at the MECA Auditorium in 1999 - Allen was the saxophonist with Sun Ra. A cool mix of free jazz and R&B spirit.

Flaming Lips at 2010 Free Press Summerfest - I've been friends with Jagi for almost 10 years (he managed my band in the early 2000s) and watched him work really hard to get Pegstar off the ground. So my enjoyment of this show was as much about seeing his success as it was the Lips (although the Lips were really, really good that night).

Lollapalooza 1992 - Was there mostly to see Soundgarden, but Pearl Jam stole the show. I'm not a big PJ fan, but they were on fire at that point - Ten was peaking in popularity and they had toured enough to really knock all the songs into shape.

 

Some of my favorites that come to mind...

Portishead - Coachella 2008
Massive Attack - Boston 2010
Nine Inch Nails - Fragility Tour 2000
Radiohead - Woodlands 2008
Arcade Fire - Woodlands 2011
Trentemøller - Coachella 2011
LCD Soundsystem - Verizon Theater 2010
Grizzly Bear - Emos 2009
Underworld - Boston 2007

 

in flames and children of bodom...

 

In terms of being impressed by their live sound compared to studio sound, it's definitely the City and Colour show I saw just this past Thursday at the House of Blues.

Haven't found any high quality video on YouTube from that particular show, but this one from a few weeks ago is pretty good.

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The best performance I've ever seen was for a band I didn't even really like... nor had I heard of. It was OK GO opening for the Vines at some small club in Dallas, back in 2002. They completely killed it. Made the Vines look like chumps -- rightfully so.

Two Gallants in Austin about 2 years ago was a close second.

 

i was there too - pixies and radiohead were both groin-grabbingly good. seen both those bands multiple times and those were the best sets id seen from either.

im sure im forgetting some but...

spiritualized - liberty lunch - 1997
spiritualized - la zona rosa w/ 13 piece band - 2001
dan deacon at emos w/ 13 piece band - 2009
juana molina - parish - 2006
sonic youth w/ pavement and painteens - unicorn - 1992
fishbone w/ primnus - unicorn 1991
guided by voices - liberty lunch sxsw - 1996
beck - austin music hall - 1996
the frogs - electric lounge - 1999
polyphonic spree - someones front yard - sxsw - 2002
prince - san antonio - 2004

im only mentioning this one to make you jealous...

red house painters - cactus cafe - 1997