Bands you've seen live and been left thinking 'wow'…

Saw Corrosion of Conformity in the Concorde 2 in Brighton around 2006

I was at that gig, it was awesome, especialy the instrumental/jam session thing near the end.

Most recently it was Faithless at the o2 in december, didn know much about them and not a dance music fan but wow, absoloutley incredible; so much energy from the band and crowd. Definatley going to go again if the opportunity arises.

^ Funnily enough, Faithless was the most dismal gig I have ever been to. I like some of their songs, but felt they were going through the motions. Worse though was the crowd – it was at some shed in Birmingham, and as virtually everyone down the front was too busy taking pictures/videos with their phones there was no dancing! Idiots.

Madness at Dalby Forest – I thought, “wow they were great”. A balmy summer night in the forest with a mental crowd and a band who knew how to work ’em.

Pogues at the MEN – I thought, “wow, that was shit”, and walked out early to avoid the rush. Poor old Shane was sozzled and had to go offstage every other song, then he’d come back on and start falling about and gargling incomrehensibly into the mike.

I’m really enjoying reading about all your experiences – some interesting surprises there.

I can’t remember who wrote it (sorry) but the Misfits @ CBGBs sounds fantastic.

One band I’ve never seen and wish I had was Metallica. Can’t bring myself to go now ‘cos if I didn’t enjoy it, it’d really spoil them for me. (yeah, I know. Weird…)

RUSH (am seeing them on may 22nd for their time machine tour.cannot wait) they are phenomenally awesome live.also love the manic street preachers (saw them in november at bristol coulston hall.fantastic band!) have also seen marillion and jethro tull both great live bands as well. 😀 p.s was expecting those bands to be great though (haven’t seen many other bands live for a long time)

sparklehorse at the sheffield Leadmill around the time of their second album. incredible.

Ryan Adams at the live theatre in Newcastle a couple of months after Heartbreaker

The Who at Newcastle arena about 7 years ago. wasn’t expecting much, just another set of oldies going through the motions…. It was incredible

Lfo at the orbit circa 92 still think of that night even now. Derrick May played as well,awesome.

Spiritualized – last year at the Academy in manchester.
They played the whole of “Ladies and Gentlemen we are Floating In Space” with a gospel choir and strings, was immense.

Kevevs- Just read about Trish from Broadcast. Such a shame.
Some them at Night and Day in manchester, tiny bar, lots of people, ace gig.

Saw Orbital at Leeds O2 last year and was absolutely blown away. Whether you’re a fan of that sort of music or not, you couldn’t fail to be impressed with them.

Ianv – halcyon days. Many wild nights in the Orbit.

Bats for Lashes

me and a few mates saw PINK FLOYD live in rotterdam after spending a day in amsterdam.truely amazing.just recently saw RUNRIG in dunfermline and was way better than what i was expecting 🙂 🙂

killswitch engage rocked
rage against the machine in the 90’s at wembley areana
bb king at albert hall
miles davis at festival hall

awesome

Went to see the Datsuns a few years back and vowed to see them as many times as possible from then on. The mood was set by Dolph gesturing the sound man to turn it up full pretty much on the 2nd chord of the first song and screaming “WAAAAHH” about evry 30 seconds. Brillint energy live and really loud too.

Porcupine Tree @ Manchester academy in 2009 totally blew me away. Wasn’t expecting anything like it best gig ever been to. 😀

Sneaker pimps at Oxford zodiac about 6-7 years ago when bloodsport came out. Absolutely mind blowing.

Radiohead at v festival a few years ago were excellent too – although the full day of drinking and smoking meant I only have snapshot memories of the set! Ooops

Courtney Pine – the saxophonist.
Records are dull, live he’s something else.

Gogol Bordello at the UEA last year. Best gig I have ever been to, including Queen at Elland Road. Never seen anyone put that much energy into anything. Amazing. Go.

Doctor and the Medics (yes, really!) quite by chance in some pub in Aberdeen. I’d swear Spirit in the Sky lasted 25 minutes…

Rachel

Radiohead, Glastonbury 97. Went with a group of mates who were fans. I hadn’t really taken much notice of Radiohead before the gig but thought I’ll go watch them instead of being a Billy-no-mates watching some other band. Absolutely blew me away!
Went to Reading 09 and I thought they were the best band there as well.
Still not a huge fan though!

I’ve seen Metallica at Milton Keynes, Iron Maiden, slayer, etc at Donnington, guns and roses at Wembley and my stand out gig was the support act for Megadeth at Poole Arts Centre in about 1991.

It was Pantera doing their ‘Vulgar Display of Power’ material. Still blown away to this day.

Megadeth were rubbish live by the way – the stuff is too intricate to be good on stage – very static.

Primus at the Marquee club in london in 1991. there was no more than 50 people there and it was ridiculous.

at the same venue in 1990, some band from brazil called sepultura were playing their first ever UK gig supporting a german thrash metal band called sodom. through the entire sepultura set, the place was just rammed with people with their gobs hanging open, barely able to believe what they were seeing. then sodom came out on stage and their singer just said “i’m sorry, we can’t follow that” and they played their set (which, no matter how good it was, would never have held everyone’s attention that night).

saw dinosaur jr last year in liverpool and i hoped it was going to be good, but didn’t expect it to be THAT good…

an old band i was in played a gig at bradford rio’s with the misfits once. they were utter shit, and complete tossers too.

Saw the drums recently. Absolutely excellent, would happily go and see them again.

Pink Floyd at Wembley 1988 – completely blown away by it

Dave Lee Roth – SECC 92
Def Leppard – 1987 Edinburgh Playhouse
ACDC – SECC Money Tour
Plant and Page – 99 SECC
Def Leppard and Whitesnake Double Headline tour SECC.
Any Joe Satch or Steve Vai gig.

Wish I had seen Thin Lizzy in the Boys are Back in Town days and ACDC with Bon Scott.

Was looking forward to The Flaming Lips at Hammersmith Apollo a few years back, but still wasn´t prepared for the great show that we got! Only got into the after the Yoshimi album, but for a band with a singer that sounds like a really poor Niel Young tribute, they can´t half put on a show! Balloons, Crowd Zorbing and dancing Supermen with torches. What´s not to like!

Was a MASSIVE Radiohead fan from the beginning, and have seen them live 5 or 6 times (including Reading last year) for a bunch of “complaint rockers” they are a great live band.

Seen Spiritualized twice, once they were fantastic, the next time god-awful!

Crowded house have an uncanny way of shrinking massive venues, saw them at the NEC ´94ish and it felt very intimate. great musicians too!

Had lots of fun at an Electric 6 gig around the time of Danger, high Voltage!

Have been disapointed by a few acts, but I tend to forget them 😀

first ever gig (less than jake) was good. They stopped playing and insisted on a circle pit, it grew to about half the size of the room.

Rammstein were pretty special this summer too, at a french military barracks. Weirdly, i was most impressed by Pink…. she put on a fantastic show, even if the music was shire

Was looking forward to The Flaming Lips at Hammersmith Apollo a few years back, but still wasn´t prepared for the great show that we got! Only got into the after the Yoshimi album, but for a band with a singer that sounds like a really poor Niel Young tribute, they can´t half put on a show! Balloons, Crowd Zorbing and dancing Supermen with torches. What´s not to like!

Was a MASSIVE Radiohead fan from the beginning, and have seen them live 5 or 6 times (including Reading last year) for a bunch of “complaint rockers” they are a great live band.

Seen Spiritualized twice, once they were fantastic, the next time god-awful!

Crowded house have an uncanny way of shrinking massive venues, saw them at the NEC ´94ish and it felt very intimate. great musicians too!

Had lots of fun at an Electric 6 gig around the time of Danger, high Voltage!

Have been disapointed by a few acts, but I tend to forget them 😀

Mmm, Shonky internet = double post, sorry 😳

Saw the Worzels in Falmouth last summer, different class lol!

The Las
The Senseless Things
Pearl Jam
Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
Fugazi
Cud – every time I saw them
The Wonder Stuff
Jesus Jones – supporting the Wonder Stuff – just stunningly new and brilliant
The Rollins Band
5 Blind Boys of Alabama (utterly humbling and beautiful in an unearthly way
PWEI

Probably others.

Also saw Pulp at Glastonbury ’95 and agree that they were superb but the set of that weekend for me was Skunk Anansie. I’d never heard of them before & they only had time to do 4 songs as the program on that stage was running late but wow, stunning.

Faithless – have seen them a number of times but a few years back at Glastonbury they were awesome.
Muse – genuinely blew me away about 3 or 4 years ago at Bournemouth
And recently and most surprisingly – the Pet shop boys , also at Bournemouth, last year. Wasn’t sure before seeing them but what an awesome show – loved every bit.

support act for Megadeth

I saw that tour at Glasgow Barrowlands, Scienceofficer, ’92 I think; exactly the same result… Pantera destroyed the audience, & Mustaines mob sidled on after obviously knowing they couldn’t live up to that.

Unsurprisingly, completely the reverse was true on Meshuggahs’ last tour; the support band, ‘Trigger the Bloodshed’, are the first band I’ve seen who I could not hear any tune / riffs / music from at all, white noise was all they seemed to produce. While Meshuggah were as tight as you’d expect with 8-string guitar players + Tomas Haake playing..

Jane’s Addiction on their Strays tour. It was my first proper gig and I loved it 😀

Dredges memory banks……….

The Stone Roses supporting James at a Legalise Cannabis Campaign gig at Manchester Uni back in the 80’s was a cracker – early days for the Roses, James blew them off stage.

Faith No More at the International (just after Mike Patton had joined) and then a few weeks later a the International II.

Any Here & Now gig, but the Cheetham Hill Library gig stand out – support by Lemn Sissay, no alcohol on sale but free mushroom tea at the bar 😀

Subhumans at Hulme Labour club.

Misty In Roots at the same place.

Catatonia (who I’d never heard of before) supporting the Manics at a small gig in Blackburn before the Manics first American tour.

The last Manchester Beta Band gig at the Acadamy.

King Creosote at Dry Bar a couple of years ago, bloke is pure class.

Big Audio Dynamte at the Apollo, supported by Schooly D, to the complete and absolute bafflement of an audience of Mancunian scuffers who’d never seen a headlining DJ before. We didn’t know whether to dance or just sit there and applaud nicely!

Lost prophets at download a couple of years back.

Muse were good at wembley too, however when they played in teignmouth too many locals went along and got a bit miffed with all the moshing when all they wanted was just to sit down and have a picnic.

Big Audio Dynamte at the Apollo, supported by Schooly D, to the complete and absolute bafflement of an audience of Mancunian scuffers who’d never seen a headlining DJ before.

I saw BAD on the Megatop Phoenix tour. They had some odd bloke in a bowler hat supporting – Adamski. Totally nonplussed Geordie audience were similarly baffled.

Lots of gigs many been okay but highlights must be
David Bowie 78 Newcastle
The clash 81 Leeds
The Damned 80 Durham
The Smiths 83 london

Oasis – Knebworth – What a day…. Incredible

More upto date – Paperplane – A west yorkshire band, yound lads – loads of talent

Two gigs where I had no intention of going to but was offered tickets at the last minute.

Massive Attack (approx 2003) in Queen Square, Bristol – whole afternoon festival including Goldfrapp and the Streets – was never into Massive Attack but received a call from a mate saying he’d got a spare ticket about an hour before the festival began, and was totally blown away.

Sigur Ros – Colston Hall (2009) – had heard they were good live but had never knowingly heard anything of theirs (didn’t have a clue that BBC’s Olympic theme tune was by them). Again another mate had a spare ticket. Was transfixed by the whole visual and aural show. Their Icelandic support band was also awesome).

TN – Member

“One band I’ve never seen and wish I had was Metallica. Can’t bring myself to go now ‘cos if I didn’t enjoy it, it’d really spoil them for me. (yeah, I know. Weird…)”

I was surprised but they were better last time I saw them (Sonisphere 09) than they have been for years- the new album was overrated but they seem to be, well, awake again. New bass player brought them a lot more energy but they’re not just treading the groove any more- less cliched crowd chat, different takes on songs- Hetfield doing all the solos etc for Nothing Else Matters frinstance (not to mention shortening it by about a minute and giving it a whole new ending), Hammett improvising trying to so solos he couldn’t actually do and dropping notes rather than just knocking out whatever he’d been practicing in his bedroom since he was 10… It really was bloody good overall.