some publication asked me the best gigs I ever saw, this is what I said in circa 2006
my bloody valentine at ULU
butthole surfers at ULU
orbital at progeny
chemical bros at
animal collective at bowery ballroom
young gods at ULU side room
basement jaxx (somewhere in South London? or on the Frying Pan in NYC? or both)
world domination enterprises in croydon 1987 (possibly still the greatest gig i've ever seen)
janes addiction at
zapp at hammersmith (so good i went the next day as well - still good but a mistake to go so quickly in succession)
meat puppets at that really gross shabby venue in Hammersmith (clarendon?)
since 2006?
gang of four that same year or thereabouts
buzzcocks and chris and cosey at Tilburg, Holland festival
scritti politti at bowery ballroom
the go go's at Hollywood Bowl
LCD Soundsystem at Bowery Ballroom
pre-2006 omissions from the first time round
killing joke - twice (Friars Aylesbury and a place in Dunstable)
adam and the ants (Friars)
23 skidoo (Scamps, Oxford)
bad brains (a big venue in London whose name escapes me)
world of twist at astoria
pulp at a venue in Islington in that moment between "Legendary Girlfriend" and "Babies" when they were just starting to take off
stone roses somewhere in London at their very peak
seefeel (unusual venue in North London, Main also good that night)
PJ harvey at cbgbs
a class of their own: kraftwerk
(seen them several times - first at Brixton Academy - the middle one at Roseland NYC might have been best but then I was on one. the most recent, Disney Hall, was spectacular (3D Spex) but the volume was too low)
electrifying for not strictly musical reasons
John Martyn with Danny Thompson at Joe's Pub, NYC, not long before he died
never seen them give a really good concert
smiths or morrissey
far from a complete inventory this....
6 comments:
A great, envy-inducing list. There are many of those that I would have loved to have seen.
I have seen some fantastic live acts that are not on your list. Any room for either of these?
Prince, especially in the 80s.
Fleetwood Mac, again partly for non-musical reasons. Watching the Stevie-Lindsey drama being acted out on stage, about 10 years ago, was simultaneously slightly hammy and deeply moving. They ended with Silver Springs, with Stevie and Lindsey standing together, and thousands of us in the crowd thought about that song: what it had meant in 1977, and what it meant four decades later. Worth a thousand episodes of Daisy Jones and the Six.
I know what you mean about The Smiths. The closest I saw them come to live greatness was on the Meat is Murder tour. The Oxford show was recorded by the BBC and has been widely bootlegged. They were nicely balanced at that point between the excitement of their breakthrough and the professionalised technical mastery they grew into.
One other amazing gig experience, relevant to previous discussions: Happy Mondays at the Wembley Arena in 1990. The band were a bit rough, but powerful enough; the real highlight was the crowd, who all seemed to be absolutely off their faces. The venue was a terrible soulless barn, but it was absolutely rocking. It felt like it was physically shaking. Pretty sure the show got a pasting in the MM (from David Stubbs?), but it was an experience that has really stayed with me.
Ah, that's funny it was actually me that gave Happy Mondays a Wembley a pasting! I felt they'd bit of bizarre, unconvincing phenom at that point, but "Wrote for Luck' was pretty transcendental.
And I was at that Oxford Apollo concert by The Smiths! I enjoyed it obviously being such a huge fan and they were fine, but it didn't have the overwhelming effect I'd have thought. Probably the early years gigs in smaller venues with all the gladioli would have been ravishing. Morrissey's first solo gig at Wolverhampton in 88 was electric but mainly because of the audience's insane fervor, hurling themselves up onstage and hugging him.
Yes Prince live was great - I did have tears running down my face during "Purple Rain" when I saw him at Wembley Arena. Very slick and showmanship oriented but on that level, totally a killer performance from the purple tiny and his minions. Then he did one of those after-the-concert private type small-crowd shows - so being in the press I got to go to that, and that was pretty marvelous - he's already played for over two hours, and then just for fun, after a brief respite, plays for another 2 hours, more looser and esoteric set of tunes.
Never did see Fleetwood Mac - did go to Stevie Nicks solo at Wembley Arena.
I suppose in all honesty, U2 at the same venue was pretty mighty.
I wasn't sure whether to mention U2, but as you have brought them up... I saw them at Wembley Stadium, not the Arena, in 1992 on the Zoo TV tour, and they were spectacular. That tour has gone down in history as showcasing a "playful" and "less earnest" Bono, with his prank calls to the White House and so on, but I don't really remember any of that. What has stuck with me is the elaborate stage set, with all the video screens blasting Jenny Holzer-style slogans, and the sound. I loved it, but a friend I went with got so bored he left halfway through and went home, so it clearly wasn't for everyone.
The other band I really saw make Wembley Arena their own was REM, on the Green tour. They were at the peak of their post-punk homage phase, covering Ghost Rider and See No Evil, and a snatch of We Live As We Dream, Alone. Stipe in heavy eyeliner. They were clearly on the rise, headed for even greater commercial success, but artistically it felt like their peak. They were never that exciting again.
I saw U2 at both the Arena and the Stadium, all around the same time (The Joshua Tree) when they just got bigger and bigger. It was much better in the Arena - incredibly powerful and majestic. Whereas even Bono couldn't dominate the Stadium to the same extent - bounding back forth across the stage and doing BIG gestures, he still seemed like the proverbial ant on stage, and the music just couldn't fill up the space like it did in the Arena.
The main thing I remember that mega-concert is that I saw a young man in his twenties or early thirties headbutt a teenage boy - he looked about 14. It was very incongruous in the context of this large but docile crowd of mainstream rock fans arrayed peaceably in the stands, and it seemed to come out of the blue. Neither looked like a headcases, but clearly this kid had said or done something extremely provocative or insulting.
I saw REM at Hammersmith Odeon in '87, so I guess around Document - so that's the album before Green, right? They were amazingly good, and it surprised me because I had kind of found their albums of that mid-period like Fables of the Reconstruction and Life's Rich Pageant a bit stodgy, so I was a lapsed fan at that point.
I was at that REM show, too! As you say, on the Document tour, which was the one before Green, and as you say also a fantastic gig. My most vivid memory from that one is a them playing a very loose cover of Funtime as one of the encores, with Stipe doing a kind of funny limbo-dancing. Apparently Robyn Hitchcock joined them on stage for it, but I missed that completely.
I saw Prince in 1998(?) at the aforementioned Wembley Arena (a venue with all the charisma of a PWEI roadie) with Larry Graham and Chaka Khan. I don't actually recall him finishing a song. He'd play a bit of Purple Rain and then switch to Little Red Corvette. Still awesome but I wanted him to relax a bit.
Basement Jaxx playing the Boiler Room at Big Day Out in Sydney in 2004 were excellent - I think they had gone a bit dubby and heroin house at this stage.
Throwing Muses in 1992 - Tanya Donnelly had left and they were now a meaty power trio. A bit too meaty as I recall.
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