I saw the Super Furry Animals at Leicester Summer Sundae festival in 2004. I thought they were OK on disc, but live they blew me away. Mad as hatters and when the set apparently ended we were treated to some awesome techno DJing by them to close the festival Saturday night.

By contrast The White Stripes at Glasto 2003ish were a massive disappointment

arctic monkeys in manchester last yesr, sounded fantastic live, not dissapointed in the least

Sneaker pimps at Oxford Zodiac just after Bloodsport came out. Class.

And The Cardigans. Although I might be biased by Nina Peerson who is a bit of a fox.

Mike Patten weeing in his shoe and drinking it at FNM show was mildly surprising, if not totally out of character.

The volume and lights of my bloody valentine years ago and the noise and videos of a neurosis show were unexpected treats.

Recently saw The TingTings with Ladyhawke. Liked Ladyhawke’s album and wanted to see her live, and I thought the TingTings looked fun on Later… Was amazed just how much rockier Ladyhawke was, and The TingTings were amazing live, managing to fill a large stage like a five-piece band, when there’s only two of ’em. Much better than expected.

motorhead in the 80’s, lemmy had a thick cold and bad throat. the sheer unitelligable wall of noise was astounding.

Quite how crap Prince was (in his artist formerly known as… phase)

at the factory/russel club sometime in the eighties
i got there early doors went to the bar and as i ordered a pint, realized the other people at the bar were iggy pop and his band
i gave him an ‘ alright iggy ‘-he gave me a ‘hey man’ we had a chat and i wandered off acting like i bumped into rock legends every day

just last night when I went to see Propagandhi in Sheffield. Half way through the set the plug was pulled and we were all sent outside. Apparently there was a big fire backstage. Then the Police came and looked after 1000+ punks on the street.
I’m really bloody annoyed about it. I love Propagandhi and they only come around about once every 4 years.

Another time (at the Duchess in Leeds – back in the day) I hung out with ALL on their tour bus and taught them how to swear in Dutch as their next stop was Holland.

…and you probably don’t know who Propagandhi or ALL is. That is not surprising, but still wrong. 😆

Joe Cocker at Glastonbury. When I saw the line-up I thought “Oh dear, some boring American hippy headlining the last night”

He was excellent.

(and not American)

Saw Divine Comedy who were fantastic support by some band called Duke Special – wow! Highly recommended.

first time we saw trail of dead at nottingham boat club. didnt know what they looked like or anything, just knew to expect a bit of noise and liveliness. even thought the support band was them at first.

then they came on and just blew us away. noise, feedback, band in the crowd, drummers swapping with singers. smashed all their kit up and chucked drums, guitars etc into the crowd. so we thought that was pretty good, lets go home now. but they piled into the crowd, got all the kit back, roadies set it all up, and they carried on playing. awesome. still one of the best, if not the best gig ive been to for being far better than expected.
they even set up on a boat on the river after and played acoustic stuff.

i love the trail of dead 🙂

Budgie supporting Ian Gillan at the Southampton Gaumont and being even better than Ian Gillan.

I must be getting old!

I once saw a 3 piece band playing covers round the local pub, they seemed a bit better than the run of the mill pub rockers, next time I heard the name they were playing stadiums in America, Feeder they were called, I daresay the stadiums paid a bit more than the £25 they got from the landlord.

1991 Rush at Sheffield

A giant rabbit came out of a top hat, that was quite unexpected.

Sneaker pimps at Newcastle Uni just after Splinter. Still one of the best bands I’ve seen live, although the as then frontman is doing some nice solo stuff as IAMX.

Mozza and the Smiths @ Reading Hexagon, lots of flowers in the back of the trousers

Just cheekily steering my original post to best live band, rather than most surprising, it has got to be Muse. I know it’s hardly original to say that, but they are truly awesome. But then Nick Harper performing Jeff Buckley’s Grace on just an acoustic guitar is something to behold too

bette than expected:
jimmy eat world: sheffield octagon, it was one of those very long hot summers and everything in life was good, unfortunatly the weather meant the venue got uncomfortably hot after the first few minutes, so they stoped with the normal set, and played through their singles whilst struggling to avoid drowning in their own sweat.

manic street preachers: playing to a MEN that was barely beyond filling the standing section!

Dissapointments:
soulwax/2manyDJ’s ; maybe i was expecting too much, but it was a bit pants
HopeForTheStates : distincly average live

Motorhead here too – made such an impression on me that I saw them another 4 times after that.

Fookin great live band, Motorhead.

Anathema – I walked out after 30 mins as they were worse than HIM.
Apache UK (or was it UK Apache?) – brill.

Years ago I went to Edwards No. 8 in Brum to see Senser. They were supporting Eat Static who I hadn’t really paid much attention to – so was blown away when they turned out to be fantastic. Seeing them got me into clubbing, all nighters and delicious tablets…so life changing as well!

Massive Attack – wasn’t really a fan of their music, but was offered a ticket at the very last minute (literally) for an outdoor gig they did a few years ago in Queen Square, Bristol along with a few other bands including Goldfrapp and The Streets. Completely mind-blowing, and the stage show was mesmerising.

Sigur Ros – a mate had a spare ticket for a gig at the end of last year – I had heard they were good live, but had never knowingly heard any of the tracks (didn’t even know the BBC Olympic theme tune was theirs). Totally awesome gig, and the support band were equally stunning.

Radiohead – loved their albums, but saw them live at Newport in the early noughties – might just as well as stayed at home and put a CD on – no emotion, no audience interaction, just an exact replication of their album! Complete waste of money!

I fell asleep at an Ozric Tentacles gig. I was expecting them to be dead good as well.

Goldie Lookin Chain. They were playing support for Feeder and we all thought they would be aweful. They had the crowd in fits of laughter and weren’t half bad. Performing classic songs like ‘Your mothers got a penis’ and ‘Gun don’t kill people rappers do!’.

Feeder were very good too.

Don’t know who propagandhi or ALL are? – cheeky beggar,. Was wearing an old ‘rather be flag burning’ shirt yesterday at the farm with my little girl.

Getting a sax lobbed in your direction by a big bloke in a nappy was a little odd. Fishbone, great band.

Ben Harper at the Jazz Cafe in Camden in about 1995 quite simply stunning.

a real suprise was The Utah Saints at the Pheonix Festival around the same time, I was expecting them to be shit they were great.

Watching some bloke climb on the stage at an Exploited gig & then repeatedly throw-up over the audience,thank **** I was upstairs that night

Saw Goldie looking chain just recently on there asbo for life tour was quite surprised how good they were got the crowd going and singing along 600 people singing” your mother got a penis” at the top of there voice’s class i tell you

“Dumpys Rust Nuts” years ago, they were fantastic. They were support for The Blues Band who were rubbish compared to Dumpys. Lead singer drinking beer out of old 1 gallon metal Castrol GTX can during the show.

Saw Danzig in a festival just outside Cologne in 91, never head of the fella up until then but My word he had stage presence, I bought an album (Lucifuge)on the strength of that gig and while the lyrics are ludicrous it is a fine listen nontheless.

Smashing Pumpkin, their fairwell tour (at the NEC), goddam wish I’d saved my money.

Depeche Mode ’88 Music for the Masses tour – my brother was into them but had to work that night, I got given his ticket (only ever heard them though the bedroom wall before), been a fan ever since..

biggest dissapointment for me was the lemonheads in 94 in Hobart,i’d been doing my round the world trip and missing them by weeks in quite a few cities,finally drove for 5 hours to see them and they were sh*te. soo dissapointed.
post script saw them 2 years ago here in NZ and they were frickin brilliant. who’da thunk it?

seen loads of bands live.

worst is eric clapton

best is between rage against the machine,killswitch enegage and bb king

Did a return coast to coast with an overnight in Ullapool last summer. Went to the pub for dinner, and there was a band due on called Angus and Julia Stone. Decided to hang around to see them. Expected the usual folky traditional type band in a place like that, but got a couple hours of the sweetest, most laidback, beatiful and captivating live music I’ve ever heard. Brother and sister from Australia. The most amazing vocal harmonies. Think it was the surprise, and the intimate atmospehere, as have since seen them in Edinburgh, and not quite the as good. But that’s best surprise live music experience. Bought their records as well, and loved those.

Jedi said… seen loads of bands live. worst is eric clapton

Saw him at the North Sea Jazz Festival. He’s obviously talented but seemed to be going through the motions that night. I don’t know who was more bored – him or the audience.

Talking of going through the motions, Van Morrison. BIG disappointment

Taking my daughter to see Escape the Fate and enjoying it. She’s into that genre whatever it is so I buy a ticket and stand at the back nowadays rather than just drop her off.
It had a jolly good beat to it!

Macavity’s Cat, Kingston Poly SU, 1988/9. After 2 bottles of wine and eight pints of student beer, I accidentally bottled one of my mates and he didn’t even care, that’s how good a night it was.