What's the best live concert you've ever been to?

U2, Tom Petty, Smashing Pumpkins. All three put on great shows. Those were my three favorite in order.

Paul McCartney and the Barenaked Ladies. BL because the tickets I got were apparently “obstructed view” seats. In actuality, we were sitting in row 2, but just off to stage left. There wasn’t much obstruction, and the show was awesome. Paul McCartney because, well, he’s Paul McCartney. That and I couldn’t see him in Chicago in 2002, but my dad and I drove to Cleveland to see him just a few weeks later. It was the only two days of high school I ever missed.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, last year.

boy i envy you bythesea! the best on that i have been to is zz top. it was the best because that is a great band and had most of the orignal people in it still. it was totally awesome.

Bands like Hot Chip and Mogwai [two I’ve seen numerous times] both put on phenomenal shows.

I think my favorite or most fun show, however, was either:

Devo at the SF city hall a a few years ago for free. It was at 12 noon and the crowd was going ape-shit.

Or,

Love “Forever Changes Tour” at the Great American a few years back.

Pink Floyd in Ohio Stadium.

Journey, ZZ Top (saw them last month totally AWESOME), George Thourogood (not sure if I spelled it right), REO Speedwagon, Whitesnake. I should also include Richard Marxx. I had a chance to see the Doobie Brothers but had to leave town for a funeral. Boo Hoo.

@peedub, I would kill to see Hot Chip or Devo. I’ve heard Hot Chip puts on great shows.

The best show I’ve ever been to was Le Tigre in Atlanta in 2004. It was so insanely high-energy, the frontwoman was doing cartwheels around the stage. Everyone was so geared up and enthusiastic, and afterwards, the band signed merch, which they hadn’t done before. I got to chat with them for a minute, and they were so, so sweet. That show was a turning point in my life as a LGBT person.

Queens of the Stone Age. Hands down.

NIN had some crazy cool lighting effects and the music was great too… but my heart wasn’t into it at the time.

Bright Eyes would have been great if it weren’t for the drunk idiots in the row in front of me calling out songs to Oberst the whole time and pissing him (and everyone else) off.

This seems almost impossible. The 2 that stand out are Depeche Mode at the Rose Bowl in 1988 or 89 (I forget), and the 3 DMB shows I saw this year at the Greek in Berkeley. Yes it was 3 days, but really, one show.

Tom Petty, Metallica & the Symphony, NKOTB.

@poof- What a combination!

Hands down, Butthole Surfers in Tacoma for their Locust Abortion Technician LP. Nothing even will come close!!

I saw George Clinton and P-Funk in an amphitheater outside of Atlanta and that was awesome. They played all night. As for smaller shows I saw a really good Bouncing Souls show at the fest in Gainesville. They played all of their old stuff.

Roger Waters, 2002 México City… he brought the old quadraphonic pink floyd engineering sound system to a major arena… A-MA-ZING!
then tool, then a perfect circle, then underoath and smashing pumpkins circa 1996

Paul McCartney’s US tour a couple years ago was by far the best I’ve seen. He was an hour late going on but it was worth the wait.

Counting Crows on the water in San Diego. We paddled in to the concert on a raft, it was awesome!

I also saw the Guess Who, Maynard Ferguson and KISS/Aerosmith together. KISS was by far better than Aerosmith.

Any of the Jimmy Eat World or Saves The Day shows.

Daft Punk @ Coachella. 2003 I think. It was their first show in 9 years, with tens of thousands of people in the crowd, overflowing out of the ridiculously huge sahara tent. We got a spot about 200 feet from the stage, right in front of the giant pyramid. There was so much dancing and feeling good and amazing drop-ins. Everybody there became family… as in nobody you would dance with would feel like a stranger. It was like a religious experience! I’ve seen them since, and they were good, but nothing like that first show

David Bowie. A few days before he got a lollipop thrown in his eye and emergency heart surgery. He was fucking amazing though.

And MIKA, that boy must snort sugar before shows.

tragically hip, outdoors, top of the hill in guelpf lakes park, ontario, just before a huge thunderstorm rolled in. The entire atmosphere was incredibly powerful… absolute magic.

The all time best one was probably two years ago in Germany. We were in Frankfurt. I don’t even know the name of the group (I believe they were a local group) but they sang Queen, Genesis. Totally Awesome…...

Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robert Cray Band on August 26, 1990.

Either Metallica in 2007, Iron Maiden in 2008 or Turbonegro in 2007. Motörhead in 2007 was pretty good aswell. I’ll see what it will be like on Monday when I’m seeing Slayer, Mastodon, Trivium and Amon Amarth. Also I’m seing a local band, Dunderbeist tomorrow. :)

What a great question…

Pete Townshend at the Brixton Academy, 1985 Dave Gilmore on guitar and loads of other fantastic musicians. So amazing I went back and queued up the second night. Amazingly it wan’t even sold out, the ticket touts were desperate to get rid of tickets.

Also The Cure playing at Wembley Area probably ‘88 or ‘89, they played for nearly 3 hours, fantastic. Again I saw them twice in one weekend.

Hmm, thats a pretty difficult question to answer, seeing as all the concerts I’ve gone to are ranging in all types of music. I think I like almost every concert I’ve gone to in it’s own way. Daft Punk at the Greek theatre was amazing. The lighting for that show was like a mindfuck in itself. But I also really liked other small shows I’ve been to (jason webley, chromeo, hot chip, the airborne toxic event etc) for their own nostalgic reasons.

Just remembered I also saw Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Very first rock concert I ever went to. I must have been 14 or 15.

Iron Maiden on their Somewhere In Time tour in February this year. My first big concert. I was probably the youngest person there.

Yup, that tour was legendary!! They took the Live After Death tour, repeated it and added a lot more to it.
How young are you?

I was 15 at the time.

That’s not so bad. I guess 1/4 of the people in Oslo were under 16. It might be different where you saw them tho.

Yeah. I didn’t really see anyone else who looked under 20 in Melbourne. Most looked about 40. Though I wasn’t near the pit or anything and obviously I didn’t see the whole crowd, I’m just generalising :P

I saw U2 at the Kingdome in Seattle in ‘97 and it was an epic 3 hours that U2 played. Others that were awesome? Ringo Starr and his All Star Band at the Gorge, DMB at the Gorge, Filter a few weeks ago in Fairbanks, Van Halen at the Gorge, Tom Petty at the Gorge, Death Cab for Cutie at Gonzaga, 3rd Eye Blind and Eve 6 (together) in Spokane, and Chris Isaak in Spokane. All were excellent. There were more concerts, but not as good.