Since we’re on a music theme with multiple threads. This one is what is the best live performance you have ever attended? Can be any genre.
Most memorable as a tween: I saw Rick Springfield live at the Capital Center in his Jessie’s Girl days. It was a Toys for Tots concert where you got in for a low ticket price and canned goods or toys. The other acts were Quarterflash (also very good), The Spinners, and Juice Newton!
Added Bonus: My first concert was a few years prior---my poor Dad had to take me to see Shaun Cassidy.
Most memorable as an adult: my H is a big Billy Joel fan and I got him tickets for a birthday early 90s. Even though I am not as big of a fan, I have to admit it was a very good show; he played in the round so there were no bad seats and every song was familiar. Eric Clapton was also very good.
I also want to mention seeing La Boheme at the Met was very memorable and I saw the original cast of Rent on Broadway as well. That was something special.
Concerts: 1) The Rolling Stones in 1965 when I was 7 years old; 2) two shows over the course of an amazing weekend in Washington D.C. featuring the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers when I was in high school in the early 1970s; 3) NY Philharmonic (free in Central Park) doing the 1812 Overture with a particularly amazing fireworks show. Theatre: HAMILTON!
No particular order:
1)Springsteen, 10th row Carleton Theater (now the Count Basie) in 1976. Right after Born to Run came out.
2) Bob Dylan and friends–“Night of the Hurricane” Madison Square Garden, 1975.
3) REM 2004 at MSG. It was the night after the Presidential election. we all mourned together.
4) another REM–more recent. Jones Beach amphitheater–enormous lightning strike hit the stands. The remaining faithful watched the concert through a steady rain.
5) Michael Franti and Spearhead–a couple of years ago in Montclair, NJ. Franti hugged me!
Other favs–Kinks twice, many Bruce and U2 concerts, Dropkick Murphy’s, Cranberries, Black 47.
Looking forward to Flogging Molly and Frank Turner in Asbury Park this summer.
That must have been something, to see the stones when they were just coming up.
I was really into the punk and post-punk bands in the late 70s, early 80s. The most intense performance was strangely by the Undertones, a power pop band out of Northern Ireland, sometime around 80 or 81. They were really excellent as a live band and the energy was unbelievable. Other memorable shows were the first Pretenders tour in 79 or so at NYC’s Palladium. Extremely loud, and full of energy. Chrissie Hynde was wonderful, and Martin Chambers is an excellent drummer. Saw U2 on their first “Boy” tour around 80, also at the Palladium, in a triple header concert. I had front row seats and Bono even threw water on me 
Saw the famous Clash concerts at NYC’s Bonds. Was at 3 of the shows, including the infamous one when Grandmaster Flash opened and was booed through the entire performance, which upset Joe Strummer to no end and he berated the audience when the Clash came on later.
U2 outdoors in Austin, in 1983. They had a huge flag which they handed to an audience member - the idea was to pas it around the crowd, symbolizing peace. Uh, not so much - a couple of people started fighting over it. That’s the main thing I remember, but the concert was good, too.
In chronological order, more or less:
- Grateful Dead in the Live/Dead era -- Dark Star, St. Stephen, Love Light. Life changing.
- Catalan political troubador Raimon at the Palau, Barcelona, 1971. Cars were burned.
- Pretty much every time I heard the Whiffenpoofs.
- Joni Mitchell around 1976, backed by Tom Scott. Broke me of my fascination with jam bands. Everything tightly, beautifully controlled.
- Joan Armatrading in a San Francisco club, 1981.
- Troublefunk, D.C.club 1982. Go-go!
- Sleater-Kinney several times, from 1997 at the Trocadero to their farewell tour in 2006 at the Starlight Ballroom.
- Ryan Adams solo acoustic at the North Star Bar, 1999, just after releasing Heartbreaker, and a few years later at the Tower Theater. (I should probably mention that Ryan Adams is responsible for at least two of the worst shows I ever saw, too.m Maybe three.)
- Several Marah Christmas shows at the Trocadero in the early/mid 2000s.
- Rhett Miller solo acoustic at The Point in 2004. Hardest working man in show business.
- Rachid Taha at the Perelman Theater around 2009.
- Raphael Saadiq at the TLA 2011.
- The David Rawlings Machine with Gillian Welch at the Union Transfer a few months ago.
- Grateful Dead at the Hollywood Bowl, 1971. two shows in one - the band and the fans.
- Summer Jam, Watkins Glen, NY, 1973, 600,000 fans, Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead, and The Band.
- Loggins and Messina, San Diego, 1972, an opening band that stole the show.
- Pink Floyd, San Diego, 1972.
- My son's Sax Ensemble performance at Hamilton College, 2013, his final music concert.
Basia at Bimbo’s 365 Club, 2011.
So hard to say because for years I’d go to a dozen concerts or more. Saw J Geils 13 times and Aerosmith 12, including their impromptu “apartment” concert two years ago in Allston. I’ve seen nearly every rock star that has come to the Boston area since 1975. Now I throw in some country too and I’m down to about 3 concerts a year in my older age. If D invites me to join we see some alternative bands which are her favorites. Favorites include:
Elton John and BillyJoel together at Gillette Stadium, might have been 2002? Seeing Billy Joel again this August at Fenway.
Paul McCartney was crazy good two years ago.
Britney Spears, Circus Tour, maybe five years ago (took D).
Dixie Chicks, TD Garden, maybe five years ago (took D).
But my favorite of all time was Pink at TD in 2014, also with D…this show was unbelievable!!
Patti Griffin’s show at some place in Austin a few yrs ago, Bruno Mars’ first tour
Prince 2014
Stevie Wonder 2015
Pink 2014
Boyz II Men 2016
Rolling Stones, ages ago. Opening act, Stevie Wonder.
But also this: my relatives were into opera and though I appreciated it and willingly listened (and DH loved it,) I didn’t really get it. Then, DH and I went to an opera dinner, where singers wander among tables. Seeing them “work it” up close gave me chills. The memory still does. Instant conversion.
@NEPatsGirl We must have seen the same Pink Tour. My friends always raise an eyebrow when I tell them how amazing it was.
I have loved every Lyle Lovett concert I have been to. The 2 best were the first time I saw him in Colorado in the late 80’s and a more recent concert when he toured with John Hiatt, just the two of them with their guitars.
Bruce Springsteen on his Born in the USA tour was memorable.
Edgar Meyer, multiple concerts with various other musicians- Bela Fleck and Chris Thile were great, amazing musicianship.
Punch Brothers is my most recent favorite.
Wish I’d gotten to see Prince and hope to see Rene Fleming before she retires
Ooh, I forgot probably the biggest concert I ever went to, which was also one of the best–
1987, I was going to school near London at a DOD boarding school. A bunch of us went to go see U2 Joshua Tree tour at Wembley Stadium. Opening acts Lone Justice, The Pogues, Lou Reed.
Besides the sheer awesomeness of the stadium and the music, it was my first real taste of semi-rebellion. The dorm had a curfew but we would have had to miss the last 5 or so songs to make it in time. As it was the very end of the school year, I asked my parents if they minded that I got in a little trouble for missing curfew (yes, this was “rebellion” for my 17 yo self). They were fine as the punishment wasn’t anything serious and they were U2 fans as well. There were about 20 of us who got restrictions for the next week or so but it was worth it!
A lot of old Dead Heads on CC - who knew??
@NoVADad99 - I have such a vivid recollection of that concert – where we were (last row of the then Academy of Music on 14th Street in NYC; a teenaged girl in front of me let out a huge “Mick!!!” and fainted). The Stones were a consolation prize; my grandfather had tried to get us tickets for the Beatles at Shea Stadium but wasn’t able to.
@JHS - I have to agree with Joni Mitchell’s 1976 tour. Miles of Aisles is one of my favorite albums.
And I’d have to throw in two other concert/events - a Latin American New Song weeklong festival in Nicaragua in 1982 with musicians and protest singers from all over the world, and a Caetano Veloso concert in San Diego in which he performed the most amazing rendition of “Cucurrucuco Paloma” (a version of which is in the Pedro Almodovar film entitled “Talk to Her”).
And HAMILTON (but I already said that…)
I think the best was Johnny Cash, in Worcester Mass in about 1981 or 82. His charisma and connection with the audience was unbelievable. (And June was sick, so we didn’t have to hear her.)
Others that were especially good were Laurie Anderson (twice), U2 at Wembley. Fleetwood Mac (opening for the Eagles–the Eagles themselves, not so much), Waylon Jennings/Jessi Colter/Tompall Glaser, Amy Grant (early in her career), David Bowie at Norfolk Scope, Miss Saigon when it opened on Broadway with Jonathan Pryce and Lea Salonga.
Also, stuff with my kids performing, or written by them. Of course.
Has anyone seen a band at RedRocks? That’s on my must-do list. Would love to see Jack Johnson there.
Stadiums, arenas. giant outdoor venues – it’s not that I don’t sometimes go there, but almost invariably I prefer a smaller, more intimate place. I didn’t put a bunch of big-venue shows on my list, because, while great, they weren’t anywhere near as compelling as a great show in a smaller, more acoustically friendly venue. And while it used to be that small venues were not so acoustically friendly, that’s not true anymore.