Great Concerts You Have Seen

[Basil]

Concerts, theatrical productions, magic shows, piano recitals, poetry readings, puppet shows....what performances have you attended that made a lasting impression on you?

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Some years ago in Orange County CA, I was lucky enough to get front row center seats to see Valery Gergiev with the Kirov Orchestra.

It was great: Skryabin's Second Symphony.

[papayahed]

Great idea for a thread!

Before I moved to this podunk town I used to go to concerts quite often. The one that stands out most is Bob Seger at Cobo Hall in the late 80's. We had last row seats but it was so intimate it felt much closer.

[Basil]

Great idea for a thread!

Thanks!

My first concert was seeing R.E.M. at the Savannah Civic Center in 1985 with the Minutemen opening up. It was a fantastic show, although Michael Stipe became upset with the crowd because we were being too loud and inattentive while he was trying to tell us how great the band 10,000 Maniacs was and how we should all be listening to them. The Minutemen's singer died less than a month later in a car accident, so it was one of their final shows. There were probably only about a thousand people in attendance.

[Basil]

Best magic show: Penn and Teller in '94, in a very intimate and cozy performance hall. They were very enthusiastic and consummate professionals. See 'em if you ever get the opportunity (although I think they only play Vegas these days).

[Delta40]

my first concert was Adam and the Ants at the Perth Entertainment Centre. The costumes were marvelous and I was kissed too!

Still, I enjoyed Roger Daltry's Rock Legends concert with burnt out rockers like Alice Cooper on stage.

[Lokasenna]

A few months ago, I went to a concert to see the wonderful Pascal Rogé performing a selection of Chopin, Debussy and Fauré. Not only is Rogé an incredible pianist, but the setting was a church, which not only provided some wonderful harmonics, but also made it a profoundly intimate venue.

Furthermore, the man had chosen to play such a small venue, and was obviously enjoying himself immensely. He had compiled the programme in a very thoughtful way, and his superlative playing made for three of the happiest hours of my life.

[Emil Miller]

I have been to many concerts over the years but some remain in my mind as special occasions. One was the Leningrad Philharmonic conducted by Evgeny Mravinsky at the Royal Albert Hall London: the main work being Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony.
Another was Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic with Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben as the main work at the Royal Festival Hall London.
Then there was Leopold Stokowski conducting the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall with Brahms's 4th symphony as the main work.

[papayahed]

Thanks!

My first concert was seeing R.E.M. at the Savannah Civic Center in 1985 with the Minutemen opening up. It was a fantastic show, although Michael Stipe became upset with the crowd because we were being too loud and inattentive while he was trying to tell us how great the band 10,000 Maniacs was and how we should all be listening to them.

Were you wearing a ballerina outfit at the time?:D

Another great show was The B-52's at a smallish theatre. I can't imagine them not having a high energy show, I don't think I sat down once.

[JuniperWoolf]

My first concert was All That Remains. Some big metalhead went to put up his hand and sliced my face open with one of those spikey wristbands. Ouch, but memorable.

[dafydd manton]

Most incredible I have ever been to was at the Waldbuehne in Berlin, an outdoor arena built for the boxing in the 1936 Olympics. Two days previously I had been there for Queen, but this time it was the Berlin Philharmonic under Von Karajan playing the 1812 Overture with live guns (noisy, but very atmospheric) and then the Polish National Choir singing Beethoven's Ninth. What a night. Floated home on a cloud!

[JuniperWoolf]

Anyone ever been to a Rush concert? I went to one in Edmonton in 2008, it was very cool and they had rotisserie chickens on stage for some reason.

[tanchen]

The concert of Madness in Berlin was really great. Even the "show" was nothing special.. but I want to see them since some years. Nevertheless it was great - for me ;)

[papayahed]

Jimmy Buffett. There was one particular harbor, I mean show in Detroit where he opened for himself. It was at an outdoor ampitheater. There was a tall grass tiki hut in the middle of the lawn section. At the beginning of the show Jimmy was escourted to the hut. He was up there all by himself and his acousatic guitar and played some of the oldies he doesn't play much anymore.

[papayahed]

OK, don't laugh but Vince Neil at a small club back home. This was well after the 80's and he kept asking the crowd what we wanted to hear. So much fun!

[papayahed]

My first Kid Rock concert. Say what you will but he puts on a darn entertaining show. We had really good seats for this one, just to the left of the stage.

[Azazael]

Fox Fest in 2006. My first time in a mosh pit, and my first real concert. It may not have been a really violent mosh pit, but being an eleven year old, and real small for my age, it was fun, and even the most.. intimidating looking people let me slip by - subsequently allowing my mom to come through because 'she had to watch me.' Hah. That was fun - I got us up to front and center, right at the rail, for most of the festival.

[Helga]

Nick Cave had a concert here a few years ago, so great... also I saw the play Faust last winter and Cave wrote the music for it. so cool!

[The Comedian]

Not much of a concert, show, theater guy. This evening the kids and I watched the full moon rise over the woods behind our house. That was pretty neat.

[Basil]

Not much of a concert, show, theater guy. This evening the kids and I watched the full moon rise over the woods behind our house. That was pretty neat.

How much did that set you back?

[Lokasenna]

Not much of a concert, show, theater guy. This evening the kids and I watched the full moon rise over the woods behind our house. That was pretty neat.

I was doing the exact same thing with some uni friends. Nature can put on one hell of a show!

[LitNetIsGreat]

Locally for me there's some good stuff coming in the autumn season (though I have misplaced the booklet). Amongst them is Hamlet at the Crucible and Vivaldi's Four Seasons followed by Mozart's requiem on at the City Hall. There are a few other concert's on that look good too, though not much in terms of theatre, it seems that they have to sell out to the popular trashy things too much these days to make it pay I suppose, though you get one or two good productions on in a season.

Great concerts/theatre I have seen would include an excellent Mid Summer Night's Dream at the crucible several years ago, it was a cracking production one of the best Shakespeare I have seen (including RSC productions).

Le nozze here at the Lyceum was my first proper opera earlier this year which was incredible for me, so that one has to be up there too. The production I saw in London was obviously of a higher standard, but the initial 'click' is always special.

I quite enjoyed the Woman in Black and Blood Brothers and have seen various productions, but I think that I have had all there is to be had from those now and I would pass over another viewing. Same with Romeo and Juliet, I must have seen getting on for about 8 or 9 productions of that in the last few years ranging from school/college productions to a couple of RSC ones in London and Stratford, so I need to give that a miss for a while I think.

It has got to be said though that I seemed to have seen a lot of poor or standard stuff. For every really good production you seem to have to be disappointed by five or six average or worse pieces, but that is the way it goes I suppose.

[Silas Thorne]

I saw the play 'Waiting for Godot' with Sir Ian Mckellen a wee while back. Incredible! The performance stayed quite clearly in my mind for weeks afterwards.
The two lead actors did a little skip and dance after we clapped them back onto the stage after their performance. It was a shame though that though the audience that did go to see them was very thankful to have them here in New Zealand, they might not come again due to the poor ticket sales they had here.

[Patrick_Bateman]

Radiohead (Reading Festival) and Radiohead (LCCC)

The best live band in the world

[Hurricane]

I'm seeing Ke$ha, 3OH!3, and the Goo Goo Dolls on Friday. I'm not really a fan of any of them except for the Goo Goo Dolls, who are okay, but the tickets were $10 and I'm not doing anything that night anyway.

I'm definitely reporting back on how that goes...

[Shalot]

I saw the Pixies a few weeks ago. It was amazing. They did a lot of stuff from Doolittle and some Surfer Rosa. I was disappointed that there wasn't more from Bossanova, but really the Doolittle stuff is more suitable for a concert. And Kim is just so smiley all the time. And there was lots of smoke and flashing lights and it was so great and I just wanted to stay in Pixie land forever. The show was in Nashville. On the same night there was a Reba McIntyre concert at the arena, and we were walking around trying to find something to eat you could tell who was there for Reba and who was there for Pixies based on the attire. There were no Wranglers and cowboy hats at the Pixies show...(go figure right).

[OrphanPip]

Ah, I would love to see the Pixies.

I've been to a few bad concerts: Bon Jovi, Madonna, Black Eyed Peas

Some mediocre concerts: AC DC, Green Day, The Police

And some pretty good concerts: Foo Fighters, Rolling Stones, Tragically Hip (several times).

I'm not a big concert goer though, maybe once or twice a year.

Edit: Green Day's opening act was AFI, and they were horrible.

[lillottezobel]

I havn't seen it live :(, but I have the dvd for Chess in Concert (with Idina Menzel & Josh Groban &Adam Pascal, etc) It's AWESOME! Love the songs especially. Gotta love Nobody's Side, Anthem, Pity the Child, and I Know Him So Well.