Your 5 Fav Rock Concerts


There are certainly more than a few geetar fanciers among us judging by all the threads on guitar bands and best guitarist. This thread is about the best rock shows you saw. Let's limit it to the rock shows. Not Blues or Jazz or solo performers. The concerts that raised the hairs on your neck or made you want to take up an instrument or raised your pulse through their sheer energy or just moved you through their performance on stage. The only ones that count are the ones you've seen. After making a list in my mind of the many rock concerts I attended, most from the late 1960's through early 80's, I have come up with mine. It was tough, I’ve seen well over 200 rock concerts over the years and it is really hard coming up with a top 5 but we have to limit this so here go mine. "Yes" - This group stands out as the 2nd best concert I ever saw with Steve Howe and Chris Wakeman. They opened for Emerson, Lake and Palmer and after their set I do feel that EL&P were disheartened and knew they couldn't match it; they didn't. Funny thing is like most, I was there to see EL&P. They were forced to have another concert the following night by popular demand. Virtuoso musicianship, “Poco” - This group could put on a show. I saw them 4 different times in the many various stages of their evolution. They never had the commercial recognition of some of the other great bands of their era but they sure made up for it in their live performances. No one stayed seated during a Poco concert. “Rod Stewart and Faces” - Ron Wood on guitar and Rod Stewart strutting all over the stage. Rod was probably the greatest natural Rock showman I ever saw, including Mick Jagger. His uninhibited manner and constant movement and soulful vocals brought the house down. The crowd wouldn't let him go after the 5th encore so he invited everyone ("especially the pretty young ladies") to his hotel to “party on”, and so they came; Led Zeppelin I had to include them because next to the Doors and of course Jimi Hendrix they were my favorites of that era and I never did get to see either of the other two. The acoustics were bad and they played so loud you couldn’t really hear the music. But they were great none the less and it was special to me. The best should be kept for last. "The Who" was acknowledged as the best concert band at the time. Getting tickets meant getting in line and waiting. I imagine at the time the only tougher ticket would be the “Beatles” and they weren’t even together then. They didn’t disappoint. The reaction of the audience was beyond anything I ever saw at a live concert before or since. The band was so cohesive and the energy they put out put them into a different realm. They just have to be on a very short list of the best live bands ever.
tubegroover
Great posts and now I feel really old! As disco began to dominate the airwaves and rock began to fizzle I began to gravitate towards jazz fusion. I'm afraid that most of my rock concerts date back to the cretaceous period.

The Tubes at Bimbos in San Francisco 1976. The whole show was Off the Hook and Out of Control. At the end of the show no one would leave. They had a hell of a time emptying the place.

The Stones at the HIC 1973. I believe this was the last time the lovely Mick Taylor played live with the Stones. Great seats and black roses at the end.

Jethro Tull at the HIC 1971. Tull had not received any air play in Hawaii and were mostly unknown there. The HIC could hold about 9,000 + people and there was probably less than 1,000 at the concert. Stunning performance.

Hendrix at the Waikiki Shell. I was around 12 years old and tagged along with my older sister and her boyfriend. Hendrix played for about 45 minutes before the police shut him down for being too loud. This concert changed my life forever.

Jackson Brown, Linda Ronstat and The Eagles at the Waikiki Shell 1974. Good music and great talent all the way around.
Dekay: Santana 1972 concert was in the Diamond Head crater and played on the main stage. The infamous Crater Celebrations! These were the "Hawaiian Woodstocks" so to speak. Really unbelievable events! I was there too and from what I can remember it was a great show!
1. Kiss, Destroyer Tour, 1976, Madison Square Garden, No Theatre tin pan alley theatre metal (bad acoustics and P.A., but I was too young to notice). 2.) Alice Cooper, "Killer" tour, 1972, Madison Square Garden, a guillotine meets a Boa Constrictor. 3.) Sonic Youth, "Daydream Nation" tour, 1987, Irving Garden, NYC, spinning in the rapids of a glass-stringed guitar river. 4.) Echo and the Bunnymen, "Heaven Up Here" Tour, 1981, somewhere in Westchester county, cyclical rhythm dark-days neo-expressionism implosion. 5.) Nirvana, 1989, NYC, Pyramid Club, creepy teen extra-terrestrial power riff potlatch.
Did anyone on here attend the concert at Timber Ridge Ski Area in Michigan in the mid 80's? There were quite a number of bands.

I live a couple of miles from there. It was a bit of a joke, half the people never got to see the concert as they were stuck in traffic and couldn't get there. A lot of unhappy people, including area farmers! We used my van to transport people that left there cars miles away and were walking, we knew the back way in; we also transported people back out, for a small nominal fee of course! *grin*