Inspired by Stephen’s U2 fanboy post, and by a stellar gig last night, here are some witterings about my top five live music experiences.
In no particular order:
Last night’s K’naan gig makes the top five with room to spare. This guy is just amazing. My husband heard him at a music festival on Vancouver Island last summer, and came home raving about him. We found some YouTube clips, I bought his first album the following day, and then the second just a few weeks ago, on the day it came out.
The gig last night was at the Commodore in Vancouver, a legendary venue that used to be a ballroom and has a sprung dancefloor that bounces under your feet. K’naan’s performance alternated between intimate, moving moments, and high energy joyful belting out of some awesome songs. My only complaint is that I really wanted to hear the Dusty Foot Philosopher from his first album, but he stuck to the more recent stuff, which I suppose is fair enough.
My photo isn’t as good as Stephen’s
So here’s someone else’s video
A couple of notes for the support artist though: first, you went on for waaaay too long. I don’t care if you’re usually the main attraction and are used to “three hours of drinking Jägermeister on stage and telling you all my deepest darkest secrets”, we’re not actually here to see you and I’m getting too old to get home at 12.30 am on a weeknight. And second, when the main act is going to sing about escaping as a teenager from the soldiers who killed his cousin, and his childhood sweetheart being taken from him at gunpoint, it is Not Cool to spend whole minutes complaining about how it’s soooooo hard being a Canadian in LA because they don’t sell dill pickle potato chips, and there’s only one restaurant in the whole city that sells poutine.
The Commodore was also the scene of my second pick – Gomez, in 2002. I’ve seen this band many times, but this was my first time seeing them up close and inside, rather than through the rain of a Scottish music festival. The venue made this one – I’ve seen them since at other venues around the city, but the Commodore is just perfect for their kind of music. I hadn’t really appreciated the diverse contributions that each member of the band makes before seeing them from five metres away, as part of a happy, energetic and tuneful weekend crowd. They seem to like Vancouver a lot, coming through once every year or two, so hopefully they’ll make a return to the Commodore before too long.
The venue was all-important for my third pick too, even though I don’t know its name. My sister was living in Paris in 2000, and my American cousin and I managed to cram ourselves into her tiny flat for a week of, quite possibly, the most fun EVAH. On our first evening together, my sister and I ignored our cousin’s protestations about jetlag and made her go to see Travis with us. Again, I’d seen them at T in the Park and Glasgow Green, but had never seen them in a smaller venue. Tickets to see them at a home-town inside gig in Glasgow were selling out a matter of minutes after going on sale, and I always seemed to miss out.
But it turns out that Paris is a great place to see popular British bands (my sister had discovered this fact about a week after moving there), and we got to see one of my favourite bands at the time in a crowd of no more than a couple of hundred people. Everyone there was British, pleasantly drunk, and up for a fantastic live music experience. My cousin was hugely impressed and went home to Ohio with Travis CDs tucked safely into her luggage; she later sent me a clipping from the newspaper she works for, in which the music editor raved about what great taste his colleague had and how he wanted to send her to Paris with her cousins again to get more hot tips!
The mention of Paris brings me back to U2. As I commented on Stephen’s post, I saw them in Paris in 1999(ish), as we’d failed to get tickets for any of their UK gigs. We enjoyed the show from seats about halfway up the massive stadium, and behind the stage (the band turned round every once in a while, but it was far from ideal). A day or two later, we got home after the bus journey from hell to hear the news that U2 had just announced a Glasgow gig. My flatmate and I went straight back out to queue for tickets, and actually managed to get four! My friend in Newcastle immediately claimed two of them, and said she’d drive up to meet us as soon as she finished work, but that as a junior doctor she couldn’t guarantee a time.
Leaving the two spare tickets at the Will Call window, we got into the venue (Glasgow’s SECC) about three hours before the posted start time, secured a spot two rows back from the walkway that extended into the crowd, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Beer was out, as a loo trip would have cost us our spots. So we chatted about this and that and wondered when the Newcastle contingent might join us. The support band were a local outfit whose name I forget, but who were touchingly delighted to find themselves supporting such a huge band in such a massive venue. I remember the lead singer actually announcing “we got to meet Bono!!!!” in a very non-cool, non-rock star way.
Several hours and a couple of full bladders later, the band came out. My Irish flatmate was and is, without a doubt, the biggest U2 fan I have ever met, and could barely contain herself when Bono walked right past us… I thought she was going to faint, vomit, and/or explode. Within about 10 seconds we were dripping in sweat, and found that the arms we’d flung skywards when the band appeared were now stuck up there, as the people behind us had surged forward in such a press that we couldn’t make the space to put our arms back down. As the pins and needles started to get really painful, I finally made some room, but my friend had to put her arm around the man next to her, which pissed off his girlfriend no end. The people in front of us apparently hadn’t realised that standing at the front of a U2 gig might entail some pushing, and started to push us backwards into the guys who were pushing us from behind… oh what fun! The pushers in front of us eventually got hauled out of the crowd by security, leaving us at the front.
I’m not usually much of a one for excessive adulation of rock stars, but it was just incredible to be that close to such a legendary band. Every note was spot on perfect, and Bono can work a crowd like no other frontman I’ve ever seen. And there’s something about being part of a crowd like that that is incredibly thrilling. I admit to getting hopelessly caught up in the moment and repeatedly shouting Bono’s name as we waited for the encore.
My Newcastle friend found us some time around the second encore. She and her friend/boyfriend (still not sure what was going on there) had missed the first twenty minutes, but had had a great time nonetheless. But then they proceeded to tell us a story of such heart break and tragedy that I apparently blotted it out of my memory when I commented on Stephen’s post, only to be reminded of it when I emailed his link to my former flatmte.
My doctor friend was treating a long-term patient, and just happened to mention that she was driving to Glasgow that night for a concert. The patient replied that her daughter was supposed to be working at a concert in Glasgow that night, but had decided to come and visit her ailing mum instead. Which concert? Well, Doctor, have you ever heard of a band called U2?
The daughter was part of the stage management team, and was due to visit some time in the next couple of hours. The mother was 100% positive that she’d be able to make a call or write a note and get us four backstage passes.
My friend was faced with a dilemma – wait for the passes and risk missing the gig, or just drive to Glasgow as planned? She ended up waiting about 20 minutes past the latest she thought she could possibly leave, and missed seeing the daughter.
My Irish flatmate was so distraught by the news that we’d potentially been a few minutes away from backstage passes that she declared the evening ruined. But we now look back on an amazing live experience, and, as I say, try to kid ourselves that nothing else happened that day… and that we didn’t later hear that the daughter had appeared on the ward about five minutes after my friend left the hospital…
My final pick is my all-time favourite live music experience, at my all-time favourite venue – Muse at Glasgow’s Barrowland in, ooh, 2000 or so. Like the Commodore, there’s a sprung dancefloor (Ash once got the crowd to all jump in the air at the same time, and it really bounced), and the crowds were always great.
This gig is a bit of a strange pick for my favourite, as while I thought Muse were OK and bought their first couple of albums, I was never a particularly avid fan. My friend was going to this gig, I was newly single and a bit down, and she nagged me into going with her.
The evening didn’t start well, as the “friend” she was bringing with her turned out to be a very attractive, interesting, and (most importantly) single male. She had not passed on this crucial piece of information, and it being a hot and humid evening (yes, I did say Glasgow), and a notoriously sweaty venue, I was wearing ratty clothes and hadn’t bothered to wash my hair. If you have any single friends you will know that this failure to communicate was a major breach of the rules of female friendship.
Well, despite that, the gig was the best I’ve ever experienced. The music sounded better live than it did on CD, and the whole crowd on that hot sweaty Glasgow night seemed to know every single word to every single song. We pushed further and further fowards as the gig went on, and were just back from the mosh pit when the gigantic balloons were released from the ceiling. Several games of volleyball immediately broke out, and we quickly realised that the balloons were coated with a substance that fluoresced under the venue’s UV lights. People immediately started to paint their faces with their fingers, resulting in a huge and happy crowd with dots, stripes and zigzags all over their faces, spontaneously uniting in what was a genuinely special moment.
Aaahhhh, I miss Glasgow.
So there you have it – for me, the right gig is a combination of the right band at the right time, in the right venue, and with the right crowd.
What’s your favourite live music memory?
In no particular order…
Radiohead (in the rain), Thunderbird stadium Vancouver 2008. WOW
Crowded House (in the rain) Stanley Park, Vancouver 2007. Neil Finn singing “message to my girl” with just a piano for accompaniment brought shivers down my spine
Bruuuuuce Sprignsteen (indoors but it was a rainy night) GM Place Vancouver 2008
U2 (in the rain) Sydney Football Stadium, 199something. “One”, with the lights off, in a raging thunderstorm.
Crowded House “Farewell” (until they reformed recently), Sydney Opera House forecourt 1997.
Nirvana + Violent Femmes (bonus points ’cause I jumped the fence and got in for free) 1990, Gold Coast.
Numerous smaller relatively unknown Australian bands in very small pubs.
hm, I think it would be either Pet Shop Boys as a young 15yr old in Stockholm at the big arena The Globe (the first and best time I saw Suburbia live, awesome!!!), Depeche Mode the year after in the same arena (a whole massive place shouting “reach out and touch faith” while streching their arms or here Dave’s voice in a raspy version of “Stripped”), or Mesh at “Arvikafestivalen” when I ended up in front and stood like a star struck teenager although I was clearly 25 but I am sure he saw me and sang to me!!!! 😉
The cutest/most unexpainable once would be Kaizers Orkestra, in Uppsala – when my friend and I got to go backstage due to bladdermouth here…. since she was (is) a HUGE fan. Funny enough, I could not really form full sentences when we finally got backstage and they asked us if we wanted to party with them through the night…. I remember something about saying “well, better go home before it is too late”. yeah… a room with cool norweigan guys… free beer… and you talked your way in there… duh.
Second cutest, “Iris” at Arvikafestivalen. their first gig in Sweden and the singer had a broken leg with a cast up to the midtigh. He stopped singing after the first song, looked out over the about 300 people who huddled under the roof of the open air scene since it was raining a bit, and said with a broken voice. “I can’t really believe this, we are a small band from the US and here in the middle of the forest in Sweden you know the whole song with the lyrics” and that was after the first song…. when the audience kept knowing all the songs after 20 mins he tried to dance a little and you could see he was very moved that we all loved the band and the song. A truly humble guy and it was soooo fun to see them having a fun time. Cast and all…
I once played violin in a somewhat impromptu and wonderfully hotchpotch orchestra/band in a really great (pop) concert in 2004, with Kevin Fox , that is easily my favourite concert experience. (Link goes to him on cello, but he does guitar songs too) There was a DVD recorded and I think it’s currently being edited, so you can be sure I will plug that all over the internet when it’s out. I played a couple of similar gigs, but that was the coolest.
Second is the Prinsengracht Concert in Amsterdam, 1998. It’s always in August and it’s always outside, and always televised as well. One year it started raining so badly that the musicians went back inside, the TV broadcast was interrupted, and everyone just waited. And waited. And waited. The streets next to the canal were PACKED with cold and wet people. And it’s classical and free, so there were all kinds of people there, packed together. And it just kept raining. Then Jose Cura – because he was the featured performer that year – came back outside and he sang “Singing in the Rain” for everyone. And the thousands of people there all started singing along and smiling, and people started twirling their umbrellas =) It’s on YouTube , because it was AWESOME.
Third is the first time I went to Hillside Festival. I saw Sarah Harmer for the second time there, and from really close. Close enough to take a picture that rivals Stephen’s U2 picture:
Fourth is a bunch of Ben Folds concerts. I think I saw him….3 times? There is always audience participation, which is really cool. Here’s an example of how that works
Fifth is another rainy one. A friend of mine was playing clarinet in another free outdoor televised classical concert in Holland. Every time my mom is like “just watch it on TV!” and every time I’d get on train to go and be there in person and GET SOAKED BY RAIN. The weather at this concert was much worse. It was on a beach, and they set up this big tent with lamps for the choir (they were doing Carmina Burana) and it stormed SO HARD that the lamps started swinging dangerously and they had to stop. I don’t remember if a lamp actually fell or not, I just remember being cold and wet and waiting really long for them too finish and getting the last train back, and my mom saying “I saw it on TV. Did you get very wet?” But it was awesome!
Sixth is Herbie Hancock at North Sea Jazz festival in…1999 I think?
So I like rain and outdoor concerts and things where I get to participate, but I’m not so picky on the music style.
(I am now ridiculously happy and cheerful from thinking of and reliving my favourite concerts. Thanks!!!)
Me too!
I didn’t include any outdoor concert experiences – my mind seems to put them into a different category. Coldplay at the Gorge in Washington State was pretty special – it’s an amphitheatre overlooking the Columbia river gorge, and I was there with a huge group of friends and my new boyfriend (now my husband), so it was very special.
Darren, I couldn’t get Radiohead tickets – boooo. And I am deeply, deeply jealous about Nirvana…
I’m also a bit jealous of Åsa’s 80s band experiences. Did you ever see Roxette? I loved them when I was a teenager, but I never got to see them – their gigs near me always coincided with other events. A tragedy 😉
And the Iris gig sounds like the ideal combination of band, venue and crowd.
Eva, gigs you’ve played in add a whole other dimension to the experience. And why is it that getting soaked in the rain so often adds to the atmosphere?
I forgot to mention that I was deaf in my right ear for 2 days after seeing U2 in Glasgow – we were pretty close to the speaker. I had to tell my boss that if he wanted to talk to me while I was using tissue culture hood #7, he’d have to switch from #8 to #6 if he wanted me to reply. I’ve probably done all kinds of damage to my eardrums over the years… even before I saw the White Stripes at the Plaza of Nations. I blame Jack White’s guitar for the structural damage that closed the venue… not one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to (although it was still great), but definitely one of the loudest!
Eva, I heard Sarah Harmer doing an amazing version of Gershwin’s “Summertime” the other day on the radio. You reminded me of a Ben Fold’s gig in the concert hall of the Sydney Opera House, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra… should’ve been on my list!
After some thought, here’s another gratuitous listing of great gigs I’ve been lucky enough to catch:
New Order – Sydney “Big Day Out” 2001
Garbage – as above
Placebo
Faithless
The Cranberries at Dublin Castle (on the day I found out my thesis had been passed – BIG night). jumped the fence for this one too 😉
and then 3 days later – FatBoy Slim + Chemical Bros at Fabric in London (does that even count?)
The Stray Cats – 199something
REM – 199something
God..i’m just turning green with envy at everyone’s live music experiences.
Gomez and Travis must have sounded awesome, the voices of the leads are just ethereal. Dang.
Eva. that's a gorgeous photo, and the lighting makes Sarah Harmer look like she has a blue aura.
Darren. how many rock concerts have you been too?!! I wish I could have gone to that Radiohead concert at Thunderbird Stadium..and saw REM and Nirvana (!!!)All the gigs I’ve attended were from the Indie Rock scene (what my slim wallet could cough up).
I caught Psapp and Jose Gonzalez at Richards on Richards (aka Dicks on Dicks, before Jose Gonzalez became a huge success. Dicks’s usually a seedy club, but I was surprised that its interior set up was actually perfect for an Indie concert. it was a smaller space, and the stage was closer to the audience.)
Another fav was watching Xavier Rudd at the Malkin Bowl at Stanley Park.
George Melly at Leeds University.
What a thrilling, visceral post Cath – I loved it. I seem to have unleashed a great big happy monster! Your post and all the enthusiastic recollections in the comments reminded me of one of the the most memorable gigs I ever went to – by Elvis Costello. More later…
Fantastic photo Eva!
I once saw The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan performing at the same night in Buenos Aires. I clearly remember that not even the producer of the event was aware that Dylan was into sharing the stage with the Stones, and when he found out he decided to charge five dollars more for the tickets (that’s FIVE DOLLARS). Needless to say, I paid them happily.
My list of most memorable concert experiences inludes
Dead Kennedys, Berlin 1981. I listened to different music when I was younger.
John Lee Hooker, Seattle 1993. At the Bumbershoot festival.
Herbie Hancock, Newport 1998. Rain and thunder didn’t stop him in this outdoors concert at the Newport Jazz Festival.
Berlin Philharmonic with Simon Rattle, Berlin 2005. One of many memorable performances.
BB King, Berlin 2005. His 80th birthday tour.
This is so much fun!
Linda, Dick’s is a great venue, but I’ve never seen a really great band there. Super Furry Animals were, meh, OK. On the flip side, I once saw a truly awesome performance by Franz Ferdinand at the Orpheum – an old fashioned opera house with red velvet seats that just didn’t fit the music. My husband was there for a Pink Floyd cover band once, and got told off for dancing…
Cristian, five bucks sounds like the bargain of a life-time! What a night!
Martin, I keep meaning to make it down to the Bumbershoot, but I have a visceral hatred of being fingerprinted at the border. I think I’ll wait til I get a Canadian passport… how was BB King?
And, seeing as Darren is doing his full list:
Supergrass at Newcastle’s much lamented Mayfair, 1995
Ocean Colour Scene at the Telewest arena, 1996 – now they were good musicians.
The Waterboys, Barrowland 1998 – I only knew one song, but my Irish flatmate made me go and they were great
Saw Doctors, somewhere in Edinburgh, 1998 – ditto, although I could have lived without the frantic mad 2 mile dash in the rain to make the last train back to Glasgow
T in the Park was always good – Travis, Blur, Manic Street Preachers, Fat Boy Slim, the Barenaked Ladies (lots of audience participation, including pulling a random person out of the crowd to play guitar), Lulu (!), Bjorn Again (!!!), All Saints (their dance routines were abandoned as the rain on the stage was making them slide all over the place), and probably a bunch of others I’ve forgotten (1999, 2000 and 2001)
Ditto Glasgow Green, 2000 and 2001 – Travis again, Iggy Pop, Oasis (cheesy, but it was fun that everyone in the crowd knew all the words to every song), Green Day, Ooberman (who I’d never heard of before, but whose CD I bought the very next day), and lots of others. I missed Marilyn Manson and Eminem on the second day of the 2001 event though, which I do kinda regret now.
Doves, Commodore, 2003(?) – although it was spoiled a bit by the constant farting of someone just in front of us (seriously).
Sasquatch festival, Washington State, 2003: Coldplay, Jurassic 5, Sam Roberts, and a band whose name I can’t remember who dressed up in furry animal costumes and jumped around a lot.
We also see lots of small bands in tiny venues around the city. Here’s a fun story from one of my first few dates with the smooth mover who is now my husband:
Just after we arrived at El Cocal on Commercial Drive (another much lamented venue), he announced “This drink will put me over the limit so I can’t drive you home, but as it happens this bar is only one block from my apartment”. Yeah… There was an amazing jazz band playing (they were called the Damsels Undistressed, and I can’t find out anything about them or any more gigs), so we ended up staying until about 1 am. At that point the band were still going strong, and Mr Smooooooth confessed that he’d been hoping they would either suck or finish early so he could take me home (for the first time) instead! We’d been talking about my musical tastes, best concert experiences etc, so he said “if you like we can go to my place and listen to some U2”. “OK!” says the smitten English girl. When we got there he spent ages looking through his CD collection. “It doesn’t have to be U2”, I said. He replied with “Um, yeah, I don’t have any”.
Somehow, this approach worked… One of my other all-time favourite gigs was my brother-in-law’s band at our wedding, but that’s not going to impress anyone who wasn’t actually there 😉
How about worst concerts ever?
Divine Comedy, somewhere in Edinburgh, 1999 – they exclusively played songs from their new album that hadn’t been released yet, so no-one knew any of their songs. Begrudgingly sang “My Lovely Horse” at the end.
Elastica, Glasgow Green, 2000. Their “reunion” tour got off to a bad start as they were out of tune and out of time with each other. A couple of songs ground to a halt halfway through with an apology of “sorry, started that one too fast”. Just embarrassing.
Ahhhhh…
First choice: Mark Knopfler’s side project The Notting Hillbillies, at the Dominion Theatre in London in May 1990. My friend and I bought cancellation tickets the day of the show and ended up in excellent seats. Knopfler and the boys were loose and relaxed, playing on their home turf.
Second choice: Sarah McLachlan, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy tour, at the University of Toronto’s Convocation Hall, a surprisingly intimate concert venue. This was a great show, but honestly, Sarah could sing Lithuanian folk songs in a phone booth on runway #3 at Pearson airport in a hurricane, and I’d still enjoy it.
Third choice: U2, Zoo TV tour, Toronto’s dearly departed Exhibition Stadium, with the carnival attractions of “The Ex” in the background adding to the overall “Zoo-ness” of the event.
Fourth choice: Blue Oyster Cult, at another defunct venue, Rock’n Roll Heaven, an underground (literally, not figuratively) club in Toronto’s trendy Yorkville. As far as I know, one of only two dates this band has ever played in Canada (I almost went to the other one, but didn’t). Loud as hell in a small club.
Fifth choice: Buddy Guy, with support from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and Koko Taylor and the Blues Machine, at the also dearly departed Ontario Place Forum, an covered but open-air venue with a rotating stage. Buddy Guy was kind of ridiculous, but typically larger than life; the Bluesbreakers absolutely kicked.
Honourable mention: Gwar, Club Paradiso, Amsterdam, May 1990. Terrible music, but the festival atmosphere and liberal splashings of fake blood and other, less savoury bodily fluids, made up for it.
There are probably others too… Yes, Rush, Sting, Jethro Tull, all at Maple Leaf Gardens… *toddles off down memory lane.
I’m also a bit jealous of Åsa’s 80s band experiences. [what do you mena, 80ies?? come on, Depeche is still playing good stuff! Although I agree that maybe PSB has not really gotten their newer albums into my heart]
Did you ever see Roxette?
haha, no. I never saw Roxette. “Wasn’t that much of a fan at the time”. (ok, I was a fan but way to young to go to their concerts 🙂 )
I have to admit that I censoured one gig out. The Nirvana concert outdoors in Stockholm – Sjöhistoriska 30th June 1992. I had no-one to go to that one with (and didn’t dare tell my parents) and ended up outside alone staring at Teenage Fanclub through the enterence gate and talking to a gorgeous guard [sheepish smile]. He obviously took pity on the almost 15yr old and let me in for free when they closed the enterance before Nirvana started. I ended up backstage – they wanted people on stage for Smells like Teen Spirit – and I was too scared to go. I stood backstage and stared at the cool guys walk past me and had the band parade in front of me after the gig.
Autographs? Talking? Not a chance. I was terrified. Shouldn’t even have been there in the first place. And alone? [I also ended up walking home that night due to full busses, resulting in being terribly late and my parents were really worried and mad at me…. but I saw Kurt from less than a meter away, flirted with a guard to get in and survived without taking drugs. I guess it is a mixed memory?! 😉 ]
Richard, I’ve heard great things about Blue Oyster Cult, but never seen them. And I have to ask… fake blood? Really?
Åsa, there’s no shame in being a Roxette fan (that’s what I keep telling myself anyway). And your Nirvana story is awesome! I would have been just as terrified at 15…
Linda, I shudder to think at the amount of money I’ve spent on concert tickets and albums/CDs/iTunes downloads over the years. I have to say, the Commodore and Dick’s on Dicks are 2 of the best live venues I’ve been to anywhere. Saw The Shins and Augie March there respectively a couple of years ago.
Åsa, your Nirvana story is very rock and roll… right up to the point where you didn’t go on stage! My backstage experience at Barry Manilow concert can’t possibly compete (long story).
Martin, what I would have given to see the DK’s live, and in Berlin of all places! I used to “play” (and I use the term loosely) in a band with several DK songs in our repertoire.
@Cath – BOC are quite fun – they don’t take themselves seriously, but have some pretty good boogie-rock chops (after being in the biz for, oh, 35 years or so I guess).
Gwar is a parody heavy-metal band that, yes, sprays fake blood and things on the audience. Official site, or Wikipedia. Warning: not politically correct, not at all, and probably NSFW as well.
Oh, and Cath – the furry animals band was probably The Flaming Lips, I’m guessing.
Yes, that’s them – thanks! I can’t remember a single one of their songs, but the performance was really fun.
So that Elvis Costello concert I mentioned earlier. It was in a relatively small venue – a television theatre in Holborn in London as I recall. The band’s gear was set up on the stage and off to one side was a giant wheel (very Wheel of Fortune) with lots of their song titles written on it. When Elvis came on stage he introduced us to the suave Mr Valentino, a mustachioed and tuxedoed gent who would sashay into the audience to pick out a willing volunteer to go up on stage and spin the wheel. Wherever it stopped, that was the song that they played. But – there’s more! Before they started, the lucky volunteer would have to install themselves in the glitzy ‘Go-Go Cage’ on the other side of the stage and dance for our amusement all through the song!
It was a fantastic mix of theatre and rock and roll. I loved it – even though I sat on my hands through the whole thing!
Hahahaha! That’s awesome!
Cath, BB King was wonderful, I would love to see him again. Live 8 was on the same day and also in Berlin, so it was a little bit chaotic.
Darren, the Dead Kennedys played in the SO 36, which was a great venue for Punk and New Wave in the early 1980s.
@ Martin – Several years ago, I saw BB King at Floore’s Country Store in Helotes, TX. It’s a great venue with a lot of character (and characters). If you are ever in the San Antonio area, try to see a performance there; I can always provide appropriate Ford pick-up truck transportation.
I saw Elvis Costello at the Albert Hall; it was during his “I loathe Margaret Thatcher and all Tory b*******” phase. Which might be his ongoing phase, now that I think of it.
I think my favorite gigs were at the WoW Hall in Eugene OR – in particular Camper van Beethoven.
Cath: yes, I think it might have been better (????) if I would have been drunk or so….. which I wasn’t (not a drop) and no drugs either. Just little me and the famous stoners 😉
Darren> I am aware of the non-cool factor of the story which I one of the reasons I block it out every once in awhile. Otherwise there are endless possibilities… .. .. “Swedish teenager pregnant with late Kurt’s child” or whatever else … ^ ^
Yeah, well, we’ll sadly never know what might have happened if we’d got our passes and let my friend/flatmate loose backstage at the U2 concert! Her sister actually got Bono’s autograph for her last Christmas after spotting Bono on a smoke break outside a Dublin club. The sister told Bono “oh, my sister just loves you”. He drew my friend a little cartoon as well as his autograph. I subsequently got the most hilarious email from my friend, saying IMAGINE THAT BONO KNOWS THAT I LOVE HIM!!!!, among other things. I suspect that criminal charges might have been in order if she’d got anywhere near him. Either that or she’d have melted into a puddle.