Best/Worst gig you have been to

[ubit]

On 01/07/2021 at 12:19, MacDaddy said:

 

Best: Twisted Sister, at the Rock and Blues Custom Bike Rally 2004.

Worst: Guns n Roses, Donnington 1988. Not because they were bad, but because that was when the 2 fans died.

Yup, I was there too. Right up the front. Axl was pleading with the crowd to move back.

[dmccombe7]

6 hours ago, JottoSW1 said:

One of the first big gigs I went to.

Still love a bit of earlier heavier Rush.

I preferred them back then but have always followed them.

[SurroundedByManatees]

One of the best shows I've attended must be Rival sons at de Boerderij in a town called Zoetermeer. The sound was good and felt close, and the feeling was really intimate. Another remarkable gig of them had been in Haarlem in 2013 when only a "handful" (my memory says around 50) of people attended. I could get a beer at the bar and walk straight back to the first row.

The other best show I've seen must be the one that Sully Erna (frontman Godsmack) did in Amsterdam about 4 years ago. His solo stuff is really great on record and evenly great live with his band and female guest singer. Really exceptional.

Of course there have been some lame shows too, but nothing I recall being exceptionally poor..

Edited July 2, 2021 by SurroundedByManatees

[ubit]

Sometimes it's the perfect storm that makes you love a gig. We went to see NIN at the Glasgow Hydro a few years ago. We were in the seating area but right at the front. The view was second to none and the sound was superb.

It was the same with Def Leppard. I have seen them may times over the years and wasn't bothered but Mrs Ubit loves them and had never seen them. For her birthday I bought really expensive tickets and when we sat down, again the view was brilliant. When they came on I can honestly say I have never heard such a good sound.

All the people who say The Hydro has a bad sound have obviously not experienced sitting/standing all over the place like we have because there are spots where the sound is superb.

We were seated  for Black Stone Cherry and their sound was rotten. Next time they played we were standing. Their sound was rotten again but Shinedown who had proceeded them had a great sound, as had Halestorm who started the gig. We decided that was the last time we went to see BSC. Love them on record, not so much live.

[Barking Spiders]

While I enjoy a good spectacle e.g. Rammstein at MK stadium, you can't beat a good old fashioned gig with a party vibe, plenty of banter and a touch of argy bargy so it's a big  👍 to the lads from Macc.  Honourable mentions to The Beat, Flook (the folk band), and Show of Hands. I don't care how technically brilliant a band plays or how big a spectacle a show is , if there's no charisma from the band and no bants then it's no good.

[Grassie]

Best one? Too many to pick just one, but the first is usually very exciting so I'll plump for my first - Level 42 at the Hammersmith Odeon (as it was then), December 10th 1990, as part of their 15 night run.

Can't say I've ever been to a gig that I would consider to be bad or the worst, but I saw Madness as the Isle of Wight festival in 2019, and man they were very disappointing. Came on late afternoon, I'm pretty sure they had all been on the ale, and everything was played S-L-O-W. Not like dreary or Lewis Capaldi dirge-like, but imagine something with the energy of One Step Beyond played a good 10bpm less than it should be. Half-arsed.

[Grassie]

On 03/07/2021 at 11:26, ubit said:

Sometimes it's the perfect storm that makes you love a gig. We went to see NIN at the Glasgow Hydro a few years ago. We were in the seating area but right at the front. The view was second to none and the sound was superb.

It was the same with Def Leppard. I have seen them may times over the years and wasn't bothered but Mrs Ubit loves them and had never seen them. For her birthday I bought really expensive tickets and when we sat down, again the view was brilliant. When they came on I can honestly say I have never heard such a good sound.

All the people who say The Hydro has a bad sound have obviously not experienced sitting/standing all over the place like we have because there are spots where the sound is superb.

We were seated  for Black Stone Cherry and their sound was rotten. Next time they played we were standing. Their sound was rotten again but Shinedown who had proceeded them had a great sound, as had Halestorm who started the gig. We decided that was the last time we went to see BSC. Love them on record, not so much live.

I saw "ver Leps" at Don Valley Stadium toward the end of their Seven Day Weekend tour in 1993, big one dayer with Terrorvision, Ugly Kid Joe, and Thunder on the bill. Great day out and my first stadium gig.

Saw them again at Wembley Arena on the Slang tour in 1996 (or 97...?) and they were Ok, but it was a bit half-hearted.

[bassbiscuits]

Best gigs for me have been Stereophonics at Morfa Stadium back in 1999 (as much for the atmosphere of capturing that particular moment as for the music itself), Rage Against the Machine at Download 2010 (considering I wasn’t that interested in seeing them but they blew me away), and a brilliant but lesser-known singer songwriter called David Ford at a tiny, intimate gig in The Donkey Pub in Leicester some time in the mid 2000s, which was just stunning, intense and held every single punter’s full attention for the entire night.

Most disappointing gig was Ryan Adams in 2015. Seemed to play everything at a dirge-like speed, including one of the only songs I actually recognised (the normally punchy New York, New York which was rolled out at a snails pace) punctuated with muttering asides and jokes no one got. Gutted.

Edited July 4, 2021 by bassbiscuits
Typo

[Pseudonym]

Best gig was probably the Pixies and Pere Ubu at the Kilburn National in July 1989. The Pixies were touring for Surfer Rosa and were on the cusp of major success -- always a good time to catch a band, in my experience. The energy levels were ideal, the sound was good, the sense of a common ethos was a joy, and I was in a pretty euphoric mood anyway. Honorable mention for John Zorn and Naked City at the Bluecoat Chambers, Liverpool, in 1988.

1988-89 was the best period for gigs I ever had. Throwing Muses, Fugazi, Cardiacs, REM while they were still doing smaller venues, Henry Rollins, Spacemen 3, Bob Mould, House of Love, Silverfish, Nirvana at SOAS during their first European tour, and a load of others.

Worst gig was probably the Ramones in Liverpool in 1987. They obviously could not care less and the audience returned the compliment. It was basically the same audience that saw the Damned a week later and went nuts. The Damned always seemed to make an effort that the Ramones clearly felt beneath them. Second worst gig, sadly, was Tom Verlaine at a museum event in Cologne in 1998. Perhaps he was jetlagged or ill, but he couldn't remember the words to his songs. An off night is particularly hard on a solo artist with nothing except a Strat to mask the loss of control.