Best concert you've attended

That’s a real peach of a question as like many of us we’ve been to so many great concerts during our journeys. Rather than confine my answer to one I’d like to offer my top three, and why, and in order.

1. David Bowie & The Spiders From Mars - Finsbury Park Rainbow theatre in 1972. Why? Bowie at one of his peak times with all the glam and a rampant Mick Ronson and the amazing album Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars. Bowie was just unearthly.

2. This is perhaps a cheat as it was a 3 day event, however it’s The Isle of Wight Festival 1970. Why - primarily because of Jimi Hendrix (although I’d seen him prior to that at the Albert Hall). It was also a concert with lots of my favorite artists and bands to this day [strange thought as that is now 56 years ago] but who can resist The Doors, The Who, Chicago, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, The Moody Blues, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Donovan, Jethro Tull, Ten Years After, Free, Sly and the Family Stone, Procol Harum, Rory Gallagher (Taste), Supertramp. Miles Davis, John Sebastien, Ralph McTell and the Groundhogs?

3. Dave Gilmour with his Luck and Strange tour at the Hollywood Bowl in 2024. Why - a great album/music, a great artist, a great person and someone I personally knew a long time ago. The event was very special to me for lots of reasons. 

Like everyone here I’m positive we could name many more. I now live in CO, not far from Red Rocks, but nonetheless these three concerts are my rock and pop unforgettables. As always, too much great music and too little time!

The Ramones, October 13, 1979, at Cahn Auditorium, Northwestern University.  really powerful performance, no sitting allowed.  I even remember the contrasting dance moves of a gay couple a couple rows in front of me: the tall guy was smooth, the short guy just pogoed.  

Muddy Waters, May 23, 1981, outdoors on the lakefront campus, Northwestern University.  This was one of his last headlining performances, he died less than two years later.  I had gotten into the Chicago blues scene starting my freshmen year, 1978, seeing people like Son Seals, Koko Taylor, Mighty Joe Young, and of course Buddy Guy at various Chicago blues joints.  But to see Muddy Waters himself!  His health was declining, so he never got off the stool, but it was electrifying.

Stanley Clarke, August 2015, at Blues Alley in DC.  He played with a 16-year old pianist from Georgia (the country), and an 18 year old drummer from Texas.  We had the table next to the stage, about 3 feet from Stanley.  They cooked.  This was two years after my oldest son committed suicide.  I was just coming out of the darkest period of my life, and seeing live music with friends helped me find happiness again.  

Woodstock 1969

Sigur Ros, Chicago 2022 I think.

Pink Floyd, Chapel Hill, NC around 1987

2 very different concerts:

Igor Stravinsky conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra in Persephone, Hill Auditorium, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, May 3, 1964

The Righteous  Brothers and the Shirelles, at corporate meeting in suburban Chicago, approx. 1985