What are the 10 most memorable music performances you've seen? (Remember, "memorable" may not be good.)
Submitted by Bill.
Ten? Gosh, I hope I could stop at just 10. Or get to 10. We'll see. In no particular order (even though they are numbered):
1. Lollapalooza 1992, Montage Mountain, PA: This was the one with Pearl Jam and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I remember I wanted to go to the festival but it sold out. But a week or so before the show, they found some more tickets and put them on sale on a Wednesday. I didn't drive at the time so I had a co-worker take me up to the Gallery of Sound and I got one of the last tickets. I had my parents drive me up to the venue a little early. I walked around the grounds a bit, looking at all the vendors. And got to the stage at about 20 minutes before Lush got on stage. The front of the stage did not have any seats, which I thought was weird, so it was standing room only. I soon found out why there were no seats once the band came on.
I was a stranger to moshing prior to this. And you might not think that the dream pop of Lush would lend itself well to moshing, but in Northeast PA, they would mosh to Barry Manilow if they could get away with it.
So, I was bounced around for a few songs, and thought if this was moshing, then I could take it. Then Pearl Jam came on.
The difference in the moshing was like what the difference would be between boxing Steven Hawking and Mike Tyson in his prime. The pit jacked up a few levels and crowd surfing began. Usually, when you see crowd surfing in videos, one person gets up, is carried along the crowd, drops down and someone else takes over. Not in NEPA. There were about 5 people up at the same time and you needed to be an air traffic controller to keep them straight.
It was a stream of one person right after the other being passed over me. I wasn't liking in at all, being a man who gets exhausted watching TV. But what's worse is, I had just got done passing a person over my head and turned back to a person's ass. Yes, before I could even react, another crowd surfer landed assfirst right on my face.
As I passed him over, people around me were pointing at my forehead and giving me a high fives. I touched my forehead and, mixed in with the sweat was a smear of blood. The doofus pushed my wire glasses into my head, causing a cut.
I knew I had to get out of the pit. Of the two options: going out the back through thousands of moshing people (and probably getting killed in the process) or going through the twenty or so people in front of me and standing in front of the stage until Pearl Jam stopped playing, I chose the stage. This worked out well on two ways, I was closer to the water that the event staff were spraying on the audience (it was August, I think, and monstrously hot. People were passing out left and right.) and Eddie Vedder came over to the side of the stage I was on and leaned off the stage over us. I was about a foot away from Eddie Vedder.
So, after Pearl Jam's set, while the techies were setting up for Jesus and Mary Chain, I made my way out of the pit. I decided to just go home. I had wanted to see Pearl Jam, I did, and felt I could miss Soundgarden and Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make it to them anyway.
On my way out, I was stopped my a security guard. He was tattooed and had the look of a biker about him. He looked mean, onery and tough. But looks were deceiving. He was the nicest man I ever met. He saw that I was bleeding, walked me the medical tent, and then walked me out of the venue. Total coolness.
So I went home by a $40 cab ride because my parents accidentally shut off the ringer on our phone. But it was a memorable night.
2. Helmet/Faith No More, FM Kirby Center, Wilkes-Barre, PA, 1992-ish: This was an odd pairing. No, not the bands, but the style of music and the venue. The FM Kirby Center used to be a movie house that they remodelled into a performing arts center. Usually, you get acts such as Bob Newhart and Johnny Mathis performing there, not to many heavy metal bands. Well, not after these guys played there at least.
There was a little bit of space between the stage and the first rows of the audience. The moshing hungry NEPAites decided to make this a mosh pit. This would be a problem if A) there was a lot of room to mosh there, or B)the floor wasn't 80 years old. Supposedly, the moshers put a hole in the floor.
At least, that is what Faith No More lead singer Mike Patton said, when he asked the crowd to move back. But the crowd was hesitant, because, well, they were stubborn and loved their moshing. So, Mike Patton offered to do the rest of their set on the floor inbetween the seats and the stage.
This seemed to work, as the crowd moved back to let Patton on the floor. That is, until he actually made it to the floor and the crowd set upon him like pirahna and the proverbial cow.
Patton called up to guitarist Jim Martin to join him, who was naturally hesitant. Even though, Patton reassured him, the rest of the band remained on stage.
Where was I during all this? About 8 rows back.This was after the Lollapalooza incident so I knew that me and moshing didn't mix. Especially with my girth added to a damaged wood floor. But something interesting did happen to me, however.
When Patton moved to the floor, a girl next to me got up on the armrests of the seats to get a better view. She wasn't too steady on the seats, so I, who was standing next to her, offered my shoulder so she could lean on it and support herself. It being a rock concert, she misheard me. The next thing I know, she is swinging her legs over my head and has begun to sit on my shoulders.
So there I was, for the first time (and, so far, the only time) with a woman, one who I didn't even know, on my shoulders. A more suave man would have parlayed this in to a date or, at the very least, a phone number. I, instead, panicked and begun thinking of ways to get this woman off of my shoulders. After a few minutes, I came up with "I have to go to the bathroom" excuse and had her get down. I went to the bathroom, and made sure not to return to that row.
Why yes, I am a dork. Why do you ask?
3. Weird Al Yankovic, Poodle Hat Tour, FM Kirby Center, W-B, Pa, 2005?: I am horrible with dates. You're only getting approximations, which are probably wrong. Sorry.
BTW, Weird Al is the best concert performer ever. Ever. If you have the money and the inclination, you must see him when he comes to your area. It's a moral imperative.
All of his shows are memorable, but this one more so. It was the first time my wife saw Weird Al. We went with some friends of ours, a husband and wife. They used their connections (they used to work at the place) to get tickets. When we got there there was some confusion. They didn't know if we had four seats together or separately. So they sat behind and to the left of us.
When Weird Al sang "One More Minute", he came out into the audience. He started singing to the audience members individually. Of course, my wife was one of the ones he sang to, looking longingly into her eyes. Totally cool.
Of course, he then proceeds to our friends and SITS IN THE LAP OF OUR FRIEND KAREN. Even cooler!
4. Lilith Fair, Montage Mountain PA, 1997: How's this for a line up: Jewel, Sheryl Crow, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, Indigo Girls, Sarah McLachlan. And those are only the acts that I can remember! The cream of the female singer.songwriter crop. And I went to this concert with the same couple from the above story, my concert going buddies.
I remember two thing about this, the torrential downpour during the Indigo Girls set and not getting out of the parking lot until about 1AM due to crappy traffic. (I am truncating the accounts so the blog post isn't the whole page.)
5. R.E.M., Hershey Park., PA 1995: This was the first time seeing my favorite band in the world. I went down with some friends I worked with. We had seats in the stands (the show was in an outdoor arena) which were about a mile away from the stage. My friends decided to sneak down to field level to get a closer view. We had absolutely no problem getting down there, and we were much closer to the stage.
Ed Kowalcyk from Live joined the band on stage to sing Begin the Begin. That was cool.
6. Billy Joel, Madison Square Garden,NY, 2006: The wife and I tried to get tickets for the first show of this series but they were sold out in a matter of minutes. I tried to get on Ticketmaster from my laptop from a Starbucks near MSG because we were going to a comic convention that is held right across the street. We also tried for the next show and failed as well. We decided to give up, unless he broke the record for most performances. We would get tickets for that one. Well, he did and that was the one we went to.
If he ever tours again, and you are a fan, try to see him in NYC. Nothing like seeing him in front of a "hometown" audience.
The show we saw, he had Marines join the chorus of "Goodnight, Saigon". This illicited the chant U.S.A from the crowd. When the chant went on a little bit too long, Billy flashed the crowd a peace sign and went back to playing. Awesome.
7. Foo Fighters & Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Arena at Casey Plaza, W-B, Pa, 2000?: This is a tale of two different acts. The Foo Fighters opened and played like they were put on Earth just to just to entertain us in the audience that night. This including playing after a monitor caught on fire and Dave Grohl walking around the wall of the hockey rink playing his guitar. before settling into a seat in the stands. Great performance.
In comparisson, on this night at least, the RHCP seemed tamed and subdued. It seems like they just went out and delivered a by-the-numbers performance. It was a good one, but not as animated or as up as the Foo Fighters.
8. Veruca Salt, PJ Harvey and Live, Lancaster, PA, 1995: As you can tell by the list, I like to get the most for my concert dollar. If more than one band I like is on the bill, odds are that I am there.
I am a fan of all three of these groups. So I was psyched to see them all perform together. I went with a friend of mine, one who I love with all my heart but is chronically late. Since she was driving, and the venue was about an hour and a half away, I was especially concerned. We just got there in time to hear Veruca Salt start their set. I was entering the doors just as the first chord was struck.
9. The Badlees, Jitterbugs, Numerous Wednesdays: It was through the above friend that I came to become a fan of this group. She invited to celebrate her promotion at said bar on one of their open mike nights. I loved their music instantly.
Since they played their every Wednesday, and my friend worked nightshift, I would get there early and get a table. I became friends with the waitstaff and many of the regulars. It was there where I gained my drinking tolerance. I'd start getting Zima's (go ahead, laugh) chased down with Liquid Heroin periodically from the moment I got there, usually changing to soda later on in the night. I am amazed that I am still alive. Or not still drunk/hung over.
But I have numerous great memories about those nights. The bar has changed owners several times, the band had a brief shot at national fame and is now quasi-broken up, and I have lost contact with many of the people I knew from back then. But I still smile fondly when I remember that time.
10. Tori Amos, Binghamton, NY, 1998: I am still in touch with that friend, even though she now lives in Las Vegas. She also plays a part in this memory. I never realized it, but it turns out that she was my concert going buddy too. How about that.
I had seen Tori earlier when she came to the aforementioned FM Kirby center when it was just her and a piano. And that was awesome. This gets the slight edge because this concert was a birthday present to me from the friend in question. And she carted my ass up their too. And Tori was backed by a full band.
I have two specific memories about this show. One. we got lost in Binghamton after the show. We didn't end up getting home until 2AM, even though Binghamton was only about an hour away from where I lived at the time. Second, I was working as a runner backstage for a play that the woman from the Weird Al anecdote above was directing, and the concert fell right in the middle of hell week. She is also a Tori fan, so I had to face the wrath of her mock rage for two reasons. Good times.