my most memorable concerts for famous musicians were: bb king, flaming lips, scorpions, u2, ravi shankar. covid cost me a chance at jacob collier. venue hasn’t even refunded me, i think they are holding out hope.
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Is there any word on whether RTJ and RATM are going to re-do their scheduled tour post Covid?
Reminds me, I really enjoyed going to Taylor Swift with my girls when they were like 8 and 10.
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RATM hasn’t updated anything since last year as far as I can tell but when they announced the rescheduling they said RTJ would still be there for the opening dates of the tour.
The last update i got for my tickets said July 2021 but that was sent to me in May 2020, nothing since then
i love concerts. i usually attend 20-30 concerts a year and at least two good sized festivals. I’ve been to Bonnaroo 6 times, absolutely love it.
my favorite shows have been u2, Billy Joel, the lumineers and Muse. i enjoy being up close in the pit or in the back just chilling. i remember being in the pit for u2 and people clearing out because they didn’t recognize a song then just feeling trapped when they played a hit afterward. only time i can remember being uncomfortable.
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I think my favorite concert experience was seeing Wu Tang (minus ODB) perform 36 Chambers in entirety. I’m not a big fan of live rap shows but that one was perfect
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Oh thats reminded me of a great one. Saw the Beastie Boys and Run DMC back in 86/87. Top entertainment.
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About the same time I saw The Pogues play Brixton on St Patrick’s night.
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My first Phish show was '95 Minneapolis. Then I did several mini tours around the midwest before moving to Colorado to snowboard. Deer Creek, Alpine Valley, Omaha, etc. I moved back home and went to college and didn’t go to many concerts out of town those years but the last decade or more I’ve been going to as many as I can. I also have seen a bunch of Moe. shows. I sometimes forget I saw a band until a song of theirs comes on lol. I was supposed to see Jerry in Chicago at their last shows but my friend’s car broke down and we had no way to get there at the time. Sad about that but like micro said Jerry was not in the best shape then. I had Phish tickets for Tahoe last summer but COVID obv.
ETA: I’ve gone to a dozen or more Dead & Company shows since 2015 and the Farewell shows in SF and Chicago. Lockn’ Festival once recently and others.
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A lot of the best experiences are in smaller venues. Just tough to get the same vibe in an arena, stadium or festival
My greatest concert experience is Foo Fighters at the Cubby Bear in 2014. I’ve been a fan of the band since before the first album, trading live bootleg cassettes with other nerds on the internet. Anyway, one of those fellow nerds ended up doing some work for the band’s website and we’ve stayed in touch throughout the years. He let me know the band was playing the Cubby Bear and that he was flying in for the show and I could go with. FUCK YES. For those that don’t know the Cubby Bear, it’s a crazy small place kiddy corner from Wrigley Field.
So I end up meeting this dude (we’d never met IRL before) at a bar before the show. We grab some beers and head over. I’m just psyched that I get to get in without having had to try and win tickets. So we see the back of the line to get in the club, and I’m ready to take my place in said line, but my new friend walks over to the special entrance for VIPs. I follow along and I’m let in as his +1. Hell yes! We get those badges to hang around our necks and after that, we can literally go fucking anywhere in the entire place.
We walk up to the security next to the stage and I’m fully expecting them to tell us to fuck off, but they part like the red sea and backstage we go! We head upstairs and boom, I’m backstage with the Foo Fighters. One of the coolest experiences of my life. Free booze and beer everywhere you turn, free food (Piece Pizza catered as it’s co-owned by Rick Neilsen, who would go on stage for a Cheap Trick cover during the FF set.)
I had met Dave a few times before, but certainly nothing he would remember me by, so I’m introduced to him again and he’s just a super nice and easy guy to talk to. We shoot the shit for a few minutes with me telling him my first ever show was FF, and he told me some fun anecdotes about that particular show. He wanders off to do whatever the fuck huge rockstars do, and we just wander around. David Fricke of Rolling Stone magazine is there, the aforementioned Rick Neilsen, and probably lots of other “names” that I don’t recognize.
This show was the first promoting their new album, which was recorded in many different cities for the purpose of making an HBO series (Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways - Wikipedia). The first episode of said series was airing the night of this show, and sure enough, they bring out a huge TV and we all watch the fucking episode of TV together. Pretty weird to be watching a Foo Fighters show on HBO and you look to your left and Dave Grohl is watching intently 10 feet away. Surreal.
So after that, it’s showtime. We head down and I finally got to be one of the people on the side of the stage watching the show (I always wondered how people get to watch from there) and it was a total blast. One of the best nights of my life.
Honorable Mention: the following year the same guy came back and we had the exact same experience but at Wrigley Field.
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This is an insane story and I’m super jealous. Awesome experience.
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I’m hoping to get in a quality small venue show of random decent seeming bands at least once a month when lockdown is over.
Have some great concert experiences.
Saw them a few times in LA. Great shows. Missed a tiny Pittsburgh show in 1998 that was like a year before I got into them. Top 10 band for me.
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Saw Arcade Fire in a 300 person show in LA in 2011, the year they won a grammy. Waited in line for 5 hours and got the last three tickets. Epic show and experience. (Also saw them at Coachella when they did the lighted balloon drop.)
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Two disappointing shows were porno for pyros at a club in Mexico and frank black at college rec center. Both were decent shows, but a shadow of Jane’s Addiction and the Pixies, which i missed (saw them in the 00s, but not the same).
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Anyone go to any of the Vegoose festivals from 2005-2007? I slept for a week straight afterwards.
Oh man, I saw him live in the mid 2000’s, one of my favorite concerts ever.
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Went to a lot of great shows in jr. high and high school, mainly because our indy radio station had real clout, and were able to draw a lot of great bands to play in my little town. Of course, I didn’t understand how amazing this was at the time, it was just something to do. Looking back, it’s mindblowing thinking about the names that played in Oxford fucking Ohio.
It’s been a while, but I’ll try to remember them.
Sting (this was mid-80’s right after The Police and before he got boring and lame)
Public Image, Ltd
REM
Jane’s Addiction
Wang Chung
Indigo Girls
Toad the Wet Sprocket
Talking Heads (that was in '84, I was only 9 but my parents took me anyway)
UB40
Flock of Seagulls
The Fixx
Ray Charles
James Taylor
So I went to the Air Force Academy. My freshman year, they announced that INXS was going to be playing in our indoor venue, and that tickets would go on sale at 10 am on a certain day. I had class, but my god I wanted tix and I knew it would sell out fast. So I went to the box office the day before and asked the nice lady if she could hold my credit card and put it in in the morning. She said, “ah, I’ll just do it now,” and BOOM, I had two seats front row center to INXS.
Back then, freshmen were not allowed to wear civilian clothes anywhere (even out in Colorado Springs). Well, my friend and I determined that the absolute worst and least cool thing on the planet would be to be in uniform right in front of Michael Hutchence (omg he was so hot, RIP 
) and the boys. So we found wigs and put on a ton of weird makeup and dug our civvies out of storage and went to the concert. We felt so edgy…and we even screamed so loud that Michael looked at us and called us crazy chicks during “This Time”. This of course made us act even crazier. I’m 100% certain that we didn’t fool anyone, but they let it slide.
My California era of life (2004-present) has many other good shows, but I’ll put those in a separate post.
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