General Music Chat

Not necessarily your favorite band, but something you really enjoyed

Best

1. Kiss at McDonald gym in Beaumont TX

2. Deep Purple at the Summit Houston

3. Bad Company & Nazareth at the Summit



Worst

1. Aerosmith at the Summit
2. Foghat outdoors Wylie TX
3. Rolling Stones Dallas Cotton Bowl

Best
1. Shawn Phillips Trinity University San Antonio Tx

2. Tangerine Dream Nurnberg Germany

3. Tomita Yokohama Japan

Worst

1. Aerosmith San Antonio Tx

2. Gary Wright Boston MA

3. Jason Bonham San Antonio Tx

Too many good concerts to try to qualify 3 'best' - some were good for the music, some the musicianship, some the 'show', some for being intimate and 'up close' ...

3 worst in no particular order:

1) Collective Soul/ Counting Crows - Meadowbrook, Gilford, NH (2012). Great venue. My wife wanted to see the Crows, they were opening. They did only a couple of their hits and mostly rambled on with obscure stuff. Collective Soul - really didn't know their music, it was all 'posturing', we left after 4 songs.

2) The Cars (opening for Rick Derringer) - Paradise Club, Boston (1977/78). This was before they had picked up keyboardist Greg Hawkes and, before their first album release. Sloppy, noisy and blew out half the PA system during their set. Derringer was great - after the delay to fix the PA.

3) Cheap Trick - Lynn Auditorium, Lynn, MA (2014). Lousy venue - low-slope old-style venue, everyone standing the whole time, obscuring sound and vision. They were using a backing track for backup vocals (at least) - obvious by the drummer count-ins and by backing vocals when no one was at the mics. Couple of times I suspected the lead vocal was on the backing track, too. Another show my wife dragged me to.

Without a doubt, the worst concert I ever attended was Pink Floyd in 94. The ratio of good to bad in that dumb football stadium show was 1:100 at the least. The pain in the ass factor of getting into the Arizona State University area on a Sunday night and parking and cramming into said stadium with tens of thousands of drunks who would later be peeing on the sinks after standing on line for a half hour - not worth it.

The musical aspect of the show was lousy. We couldn't hear anything, because the sound system was pointed at people in higher priced seats. We were next to a surround speaker that would play sound FX or the back up singers on some serious gated reverb. I also had no use for that Division Bell album. Loved Momentary Lapse Of Reason, but the newer one was like a bad demo tape from a band of weekend warriors.

The light show that was supposed to be so legendary was lame. I had seen better lazers and stuff at the 4 Rush shows i had seen up to that point.

From the time i got in line for tickets at 4 am to the time i got home after a 2 hour wait to get of the parking garage and got a flat tire on the way home. The one good thong about that experience was that I got to see pink Floyd. Yay.

hmmm. worst? i'll toss off two....

1. Hot Tuna at Nassau Coloseum.....Jack Casidy was a no-show cos' he was sick. So, it was just Jorma and Sammy Piazza on drums. terrible sound and we were soooooo bummed Jack wasn't there.

2. SVT (Jack's punk band) at the Queens College Rathskellar. they were TERRIBLE and Jack spent most of the show downpicking 8th note roots! )-:


best:

lots of great jazz shows but i'll stick to R&R/blues.... Watkins Glen. that was waaaaaay cool.

one more....seeing Muddy Waters open up for Robert Palmer at Central Park was pretty amazing. first thing Palmer did when he came out was to profusely apologize for the inequity of having MW open for HIM. he mentioned that several more times thru his set.

when you say the best or worst, do you mean the playmanship was excellent but the sound sucked? or do you mean the playmanship was sloppy but the live sound was tweaked well and was excellent? or

best:

lots of great jazz shows but i'll stick to R&R/blues.... Watkins Glen. that was waaaaaay cool.

one

The Glen Grateful Dead show?

Sorry. Summer Jam '73.....Dead, Band, Allman Bros.

i want to say it was '76, jook. so, yeah. i'm gonna say it. '76.

Good

I was incredibly lucky to see Zep on the first tour opening for the Who who themselves were almost overwhelming. Appropriately, the acid was Blue Cheer.

1812 Overture in an outdoor pavilion in MD with cannons and a very cooperative thunder storm.

Montrose - Alex Cooley's Night Club in Atlanta. They got on their Bad Motorscooter that night.

Bad

Grateful Dead at Fillmore East - went to sleep

Derek and Dynamos - boring show at college in Newark Del

Country Joe - Meriweather Post Pavilion in MD. After a crappy show he had to nerve to say "come up and see us in NY where we can get it going" I did but he didn't...

Talbot

Good

I was incredibly lucky to see Zep on the first tour opening for the Who who themselves were almost overwhelming. Appropriately, the acid was Blue Cheer.

1812 Overture in an outdoor pavilion in MD with cannons and a very cooperative thunder storm.

Montrose - Alex Cooley's Night Club in Atlanta. They got on their Bad Motorscooter that night.

Bad

Grateful Dead at Fillmore East - went to sleep

Derek and Dynamos - boring show at college in Newark Del

Country Joe - Meriweather Post Pavilion in MD. After a crappy show he had to nerve to say "come up and see us in NY where we can get it going" I did but he didn't...

Talbot

I envy you for seeing Zep...and with the Who? Wow...that had to be great.

But you saw the original Montrose? In a club???

Dude, I would have killed for that. We played "Bad Motor Scooter" in '79. Dang, they were great. Hagar just never had the same kind of magic with Van Halen as he did in Montrose, imo.

when you say the best or worst, do you mean the playmanship was excellent but the sound sucked? or do you mean the playmanship was sloppy but the live sound was tweaked well and was excellent? or

The whole thing is subjective, really.

I kept changing my top 3 before I posted. Originally I had Stanley Clark with Dixie Dregs in Houston as my top concert based on musicianship. But then I kept pushing them down the list based on how much I enjoyed the experiences of other concerts.

ZZ Top at the Summit in late 70s was a barn-burner.

Yes at Reunion Arena in Dallas was simply amazing.

The 1984 Dallas Guitar Show after-party was incredible with 14 legendary guitarists jamming onstage together with everyone from Chet Atkins to Lee Ritenour to Tommy Tedesco to Bugs Henderson to, well....it just keeps going

Then there was the Dallas Buddy Magazine Awards show I have mentioned before with The Thunderbirds, Stevie Ray, Ray Wylie Hubbard, etc where I was sharing a very small table with Roy Orbison and Maria Elaina Holly (Buddy Holly's wife) who wore me and my brother out dancing.

Anyway, yea, it's all subjective. Just looking for a topic besides Trump. LOL