I linked this video in the youtube all stars, but the more I thought about it the more awesome this video became. Metallica, ACDC, Pantera & more live in Moscow circa 1991. The atmosphere speaks for itself with the military personnel and helicopters flying around. "Largest crowd ever in a Monsters of Rock Festival, with estimates between 700,000 and 1.6 million people, considered as one of the most attended rock concerts in history." Focus: What is the most memorable concert you have ever been too? Bonus points for pictures / video.
Absolutely Langerado. 3 days in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida with my best friends, camping in a shanty village of complete and utter lawlessness, and listening to some seriously awesome music that I have no hopes of ever remembering. It's Florida's Bonnaroo. They completely ruined it the year after we went, making it that much cooler that we got in while it was still awesome. ETA: My favorite story from that weekend came from one of my buddies. He broke away from us to go find beers and instead fell asleep under a palm tree. He later woke up to a naked chick painting his arm. So he stood up, painted one of her tits purple, and left to find us. Couple pictures: Mr. Anastasio
A couple of years back I went to Germany to see Rage Against The Machine in Berlin at the Zitadelle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandau_Citadel. The venue was awesome, it just felt so right being in a 16th century fortress, having to cross a drawbridge to get to the arena to see one of the best live bands in the world do what they do best. The set was perfect, they played pretty much every one of of their songs, never missing a note, even two hours into their set. Tom Morrello was spellbinding, Zack Del La Rocha was not so much a singer, but a preacher spreading his gospel to the masses. However, the most prevalent memory was during Bombtrack. Hearing 3000 angry Germans chanting "HARD. LINE. HARD. LINE. ABER HARD LINE" with their fists raised still raises the hairs on the back of my neck. I know the German's are the furthest thing from fascists, but the last time I saw them in a large group, in lines, chanting while raising their fists, Poland got fucked. Just saying...
I don't care for GWARs music even slightly, but they put on a hell of a show. I've seen them three times that I can remember (I pregame way too hard for concerts). They have fire breathing, decapitation, it's high theater at its finest. You can definitely count on being covered in blood by the end of the show unless you hang at the bar. Skip to 1:12 for decapitation Couldn't find a video of GG Allin shitting on stage, but my thoughts were there...
Having managed an electronics dept., which is where the tickets were sold in a variety store, and having a radio station DJ as a friend, I've been to many. I'd say in upwards of 50 if you count festivals too (no not DMB type either). By far the absolute best was seeing Stevie Ray Vaughn from the first row at a rather small venue. I was amazed and pretty much awe struck. One of the best experiences in my life. Luckily I got to see him once more before he was killed. Such a shame. RIP SRV.
AC fucking DC. Me and my brother made a pact years ago that when AC/DC toured again, we would see them- no matter what. Luckily, they scheduled a tour stop in St. Paul at the Xcel in November a couple years ago. I woke up early on the Saturday morning when tickets went on sale and failed to get a couple for us- they sold out while I was still "in line." However, they scheduled another stop in February and with the exception of floor seats, every seat in the place was at the same price. I got tickets in the lower level in the section next to the stage, maybe 15 rows away. We split a liter of whiskey on our ride to the show and were perfectly drunk. My first day of classes for spring semester last year was the next day. My God those guys rock. They played for over three hours and there wasn't a single second of nothing but balls-out rocking. Given, AC/DC was the first band that I ever liked (I've watched the video of their show at Donington in 1991 many, many times), but their show surpassed any other I've seen. Not my video, but you get the picture. I'll be damned if a band can top AC/DC closing with "For Those About to Rock" with a battery of cannons firing onstage.
My most memorable was Mudvayne's homecoming concert in Peoria, Illinois with 10 Years and Snot. The floor was as brutal as some rugby matches I've been involved in and two of my favorite bands (Mudvayne and 10 Years) put on one hell of a show. I went with 10 friends and we polished off 4 cases of The Beast and a couple cans of Joose each on the way and arrived shitfaced. Snot was a perfect opening act as they weren't the best musically but they got the crowd into it. 10 Years was up to standard and Mudvayne was insane live. My best friend and I fought off about a dozen other hammered rock fans for a drumstick and the bassist's towel and proceeded to downtown Peoria and nearly set a bar on fire with a hundred other fans. All in all, it was the best show I've ever seen. By the way, anyone else out to see Three Days Grace, Chevelle and Adelita's Way at the Savannah Civic Center tonight?
Rob Zombie By far the best live performance by anyone I have ever seen. I saw him at the (now closed) Villa-Real convention center in McAllen in 2005. He played for over 2 hours; I was in the very front for the first hour and a half, but had to get out and go to the back for water because I was so dehydrated from sweating that I was getting light headed and genuinely thought I was going to pass out (And I didn't even drink at that show!). He had robots, zombies, a chick dancing in a giant martini glass, everything you would expect. After they exhausted their playlist, they even took requests from the audience! Raise your hand if you've ever heard Rob Zombie sing "Hot for Teacher." I got to meet him after the show briefly too, he seemed like a cool guy. Unfortunately I have no pictures or videos of that show; the venues down here are real dicks about that, for awhile they wouldn't even let you bring in a cell phone if it had a camera.
The most memorable concert/event I've been to has to be the Pemberton Festival in 2008. Nine Inch Nails while high on shrooms? Check Sam Roberts, Tragically Hip and Tom Petty all on the same day? Check Jay-Z and Coldplay back to back? Check That place was insane. I saw about a dozen other bands play, but those were the ones that stood out to me. I split my time up between all the different stages so I got a fairly big variety of bands I saw. There was the main stage, side stage, beer garden and the Bacardi Dance tent, which was essentially the birth child of a barn and club. That whole weekend was amazing. I even managed to get interviewed my MuchMusic while there, and was one of those little 5 second clips that got played a few times over. Jay-Z was probably the highlight of the weekend for me though. By the end of the show I was probably about 15 rows back from the front. When he played Hard Knock Life and Big Pimpin' back to back, my god that place was going nuts. His interaction with the crowd was really cool too. Singing to a crowd of around 30,000 people, and he made it feel like a small club. For about 5 minutes or so, he was just pointing out random people in the crowd and mentioning them (Topless girls, guy with a crazy hat, another guy with a big flag). On top of that, the full band he had with him played amazingly. I'm really bummed I missed him last time he came to Vancouver, because it sounds like it was a similar performance, and I would have loved to have seen him again. Maybe not the best, but definitely one of the most memorable concerts for me had to be Andrew WK at the Biltmore Cabaret. For anyone not from Vancouver or who's never been there, the Biltmore is a club in the basement of the Biltmore Hotel. Probably 9-10 foot ceilings, not a place you'd expect to hold a rock show. That place was packed to the tits, and was hot and sweaty as hell. It was kinda weird, since he didn't have a band with him. He just had a stereo playing the backing track for most of his songs, along with a keyboard he was playing too for a big chunk. That part was a little disappointing, but tickets were only $12 with service charge, so I can't really complain. At one point there were probably about 20 or 30 people rocking out on stage beside him, and someone knocked out one of the legs holding the keyboard up, but AWK just kept on playing it while it was at a 45' angle, one side of it resting on the floor. Musically, possibly one of the worst shows. The atmosphere though was insane. Not my video, but I did find one of the concert:
I was a big fan of Blink-182, and very much enjoy Angels and Airwaves. I saw AVA twice in San Diego, once at an open air venue behind the convention center, right on the bay, and once at the House of Blues. Tom DeLonge can't sing for shit live. He's always about a half step off key. Definitely a studio singer. But they put on an amazing show. Lighting, effects, staging and energy, all just amazing. And the music itself is pretty kick ass. I also saw Bad Religion at HoB, and they may be getting older, but they haven't lost any energy. Awesome seeing a crowd of 500 mid 20s to late 30s folks going apeshit.
Rob Zombie, Monster Magnet & Fear Factory: Arrow Hall, Mississauga Oct. 30 1998. Devil's Night. I ate nearly seven grams of mushrooms for this show and it was unreal. Fear Factory was as heavy as any band I have ever seen and Monster Magnet kicked royal ass as always (Wyndorf very memorably beat the unholy shit out of an extremely willing naked chick on stage with a cat-o-nine-tails while singing Look To Your Orb For The Warning), But Zombie gave the most memorable live show I have ever seen that night: A set like a twisted futuristic Castle Greyskull, dancing go-go girls, all kinds of horror costumed mascots, giant robots, pyrotechnics to blow your mind, horror movies on huge screens, confetti and snow falling from the ceiling and Zombie's manic, non-stop (AND I MEAN NON-STOP) energy on-stage, which you have to see to believe. It was a concert for the ages, one I fear will never be defeated. I got a Doc Martin boot to the forehead that drew blood and didn't even break stride because of how much awesome was flowing through that giant airport hangar that night.
As far as seeing great artist it really is a toss up between the Bonnaroos Ive been too. More often than not there were days where you had to plan out extensively before hand which bands you were going to see in what order to get the most from all of them. It kind of sucks having to leave a good show so that you don't miss another good show. The worst case of this was leaving a GREAT Ween show, this being the first time I heard them, and going to see Primus. We left Ween early to get good spots and of coarse waited in ankle deep water for 2 extra hours before the band started. We ended up leaving five songs in because we were exhausted from the entire day. As for over all memorable events to be at my first festival, and one of the first concerts I ever went to, was Ozzfest 2000. During one of the main acts in the middle of the lawn three girls started dyking out for attention. Attention that teenage guys and middle aged fat balding guys were willing to give. Now as I remember they were pretty bad butterfaces but my mind and penis didn't really care, they weren't fat and had decent bodies. It was a good little show with about thirty dudes packed around. It all went south when a balding fat dude starting groping ass well past the girls limit. She told him to fuck off and I elbowed him and wedged myself between them so he could ruin all the fun. Then some other guy started trying to make out with another one of the girls. This prompted them all to stop. I remember clearly to this day a guy yelling, "First Rule of Lesbian Dyke out club, let them do their own shit!!!" To my 14 year old mind, this was a bitchin concert. At the same festival I got to participate in the largest moss pit Ive ever seen during Pantera. The moss pits, really just an excuse for hormone jacked teens and fuck ups to hurt each other, were pretty muted the rest of the day. Not for Pan-fucking-tera. Every shirtless fat drunk hillbilly came out of the woodwork to crack some skulls as soon as the music hit. Unlike other ones Ive been in where people help each other out when they fall down, this shit was a free for all. My friends and I were lucky to come out alive. Had to be 4 or 500 people in it at once.
I miss the mosh pit. They won't DO IT ANYMORE. Not the "It's hardcore punk so let's sock each other in the teeth" pits, but the simple "Body-checkin' & Jump around" pits. Most notably MY first concert: Lallapoolza, 1993. Opening band: Rage Against the Machine. Opening Song: Killing In The Name. I was reborn that day, and covered in more contusions than Charlie Sheen in The Rookie.
I have two that I think were equally as awesome, and both were free. The first was RJD2, Damien Marley and Busta Rhymes. This was around that time that Jamrock and Kill You came out so we definitely got a good dose of those songs. All three of those artists can perform their asses off. Marley had one guy on stage that ran around and waved a giant flag of Zion the whole time, that guys got endurance, and his live performance sounds almost as good as the CD. And if you want to see the best performing live rapper look no further than Busta Rhymes, what that guy can do with a DJ and a hype man is amazing. The second was during Las Vegas' 100th anniversary concert where Weezer opened for the Chili Peppers. Weezer sucks balls live but the Chili Peppers absolutely murdered it. For 2.5 hours they played nothing but awesome music, Flea even busted out the trumpet during a short intermission and then after a few minutes of cheering they came out and played Under the Bridge as an encore...fucking amazing. Wale/NERD/Jay-Z were damn excellent as well.
Went to an Avenged Sevenfold concert with my sister a couple years back. Also in attendance was Shinedown, Papa Roach, and Buckcherry. There was lots of moshing and stuff of that sort, and the sister went crowd surfing for the first time. All-in-all it was an awesome time spent with my little sis. I have some sweet video's of guitar solo's by Synyster Gates and a couple drum solo's by the late Rev, but here's a good pic:
The first thing that came to my mind was an Andrew WK show just like this. Solo set with a backing track and keyboard. He played a free show at Ohio University in June of '08, the weekend after final exams were over and we were free for the summer, so there was definitely a celebratory scene. Here's video: I'm pretty sure it's a staple of AWK shows to rush the stage if there aren't any gatekeepers. At this concert, there was one pissed off sound guy who literally threw people off the stage, but there were just too many raging college kids for him to keep up with. It was incredible...I lost a shoe and took several elbows to the face. The thing is, Andrew did some piano improv for like 15 minutes and maybe five songs, tops. But the show was definitely one of my five favorite moments of college. Later that same night, I saw Papadosio (who quickly became my favorite indie band) perform for the first time, but AWK was so much more memorable.
Sam Roberts, frosh week 2006. Most people had no idea who he was, but I'm a fan. He was pretty rocking as the kids say, and the crowd despite not knowing who he was was really into it. Where I go to school now, well, they have shit bands like Tokio Hotel Club during frosh week and maybe 50 people show up and stand around looking bored.
I always recommend The Flaming Lips to anyone who wants to have a good time. I like their music well enough (Soft Machine and In a Priest-Driven Ambulance most), but their live show is consistently enjoyable. I've seen them 4 times and every time it was different. 1st time I was thwacked on X, pot and acid. They blasted the crowd with strobes and fog, while they all stood completely still, were silhouettes and never spoke between songs. And they were LOUD. Amazing. Next time they played in front of a wall of boomboxes blasting a sonic confetti of odd samples. The drummer played guitar on a rocking chair and was also on a screen in back playing drums in perfect, loud time. Singer Wayne Coyne was in a bathrobe in front of a huge gong and spraying the crowd with glitter from a tube. You could use your id to rent a headset and listen to more samples that were delayed for extra trippy effect. In short, if you ever get a chance to see The Lips you won't regret it.
I'll second that. Living in another country, I don't get to see many of the greatest bands. AC/DC was something I wouldn't lose for anything. Not my video, but I was there.
Living in Texas, country music is obviously huge. While understandably not for everyone, I am a big fan. While in college, some friends and I traveled down to Corpus Christi to see a Pat Green concert (this was before he went to Nashville and became quasi-mainstream). When we got there, we found out that tickets were only going to be $5 to get in, because the concert was part of some sort of fair that was being held on the beach and boardwalk. To top that off, beers were only $1, because the concert/fair was being sponsored by Miller Lite. So we make our way to the stage to listen to Pat play, fully expecting maybe a 45 minute to 1 hour show. After about an hour, he stops playing and says to the crowd, "I'm getting a bit tired and need to take a break, do you mind if my friend comes and plays for a bit while I rest up and grab a couple beers?" Out steps Cory Morrow (another big up-and-coming Texas Country musician at the time). Cory Morrow then proceeds to play for about 30 minutes or so, when Pat Green comes back out and they play together for about another 30-45 minutes. They played everything from their original hits, to covers of old-school country artists, to even some rock music. It was amazing, to say the least. So, for the grand total of $5 and God knows how many dollar bills spent double-fisting Miller Lite, we were able to see two amazing musicians play individually, and together, for over 2 hours. On the beach, nonetheless. Fucking. Awesome.