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Best and Worst Rock Concert Moments

I will start this off. 1975 Jethro Tull concert at the Seattle Center Coliseum. About midway through the show an M-80 goes off in the crowd in the middle of a song and Ian Anderson holds his hand up in the air and counts to three with his fingers and the band stops playing in mid measure all at once as though some one had flipped a switch. The whole place goes dead quiet for about 15 seconds or so. Anderson says something like "Well, that was bloody ******* RUDE! If you want us to keep playing then you better cut that crap right out and have a little more respect for your NEIGHbor. Do you really want us to play some more?". The crowd slowly starts to applaud and then it builds to a crescendo. As the applause starts to die down, Anderson holds his hand up in the air, counts out loud to three and the band cuts back in full force absolutely mid-measure where they left off.

When the song ended I have never heard such intense applause in any arena or hall for any song at any show. I was completely dumb struck by how Anderson handled the situation and by the musicianship of the whole outfit. Maybe it was a staged event, but I doubt it. Either way, it was really something else...
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xiekitchen
821 posts
 
Best: Weather Report at (I think) the Eastman Theatre in Rochester NY July 1981. It was a beautiful night and I thought I died and went to heaven.. a 20 minute version of Tale Spinnin's "Badia". Jaco's "quadraphonic" bass towers doing his Hendrix solo.

Worst: Let's see now.. I'm gonna say Happy the Man opening for a brand new heretofor unknown band called Foreigner in september 1977. The crowd was of a primarily Pop/rock mentality. I was going ape crap watching/listening to an incredible Prog rock performance by Happy the Man; after about 45 minutes they gave up trying to "reach" the audience and Stanley Whittaker (guitarist) steps up to a mike and says "I know, you all came to rock and roll" and that was it - they left. I went out the next day and bought the 1st Happy the Man album. Foreigner was just "o.k".
prfont
89 posts
 


The Clash, New York City, Pier 54 - 1980? My roommate and I with 2 girls we had met that day, one gallon Gallo hearty Chablis that was consumed on the drive in. We get to the show, push our way to the front and as I recall the band opens with "Rock the Casbah". The crowd goes nuts. We are feeling great, immortal, but want to take it up another notch or 3, and a friendly and complete stranger offers me a large white pill. "What is it?" "Qualude". We'll take 4. Sounded like a brilliant idea at the time. Soon the world is tilting and the rest of the night is a complete mystery to me.

A couple hours later I wake up on the bleachers, it's raining and the place is deserted save for a few crew sweeping up. Amazingly, I stumble out into the streets and he's waiting for me with the car, the girls, and a couple of sixes for the ride home.
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has2be
555 posts
 
Best and worst at the same venue same night . Genesis mid seventies , Outdoors on old CNE grounds . Start with the worst , some absolute A hole picks up an empty glass mickey bottle and hurls it towards the front of the audience and some poor guy gets hit with it rite in the side of the face . He had to be taken away by ambulance and was a mess . Now the best , witnessing the A hole who threw the bottle beaten to a pulp 4 rows behind us by the people he came to the concert with and when they were finished or more apra-po when he was finished they handed him over to the large guys in blue .
kublakhan
717 posts
 
Best: Seeing Koyaanisqatsi with Philip Glass and his orchestra playing the soundtrack live. It was right after 9/11 so the film was especially profound and you could sense it in the audience who sat through the entire film w/o so much as moving a finger.

Worst & Best: My first and only Dead show. I spent virtually the entire concert alone in the bathroom freaking out from some bad mushrooms. Sublime!!
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rhyno
649 posts
 
best: metallica in 91, at the sam houston coliseum. it had the old wooden chairs that weren't bolted down, and by the end of the show (closing w/ whiplash!) everyone on the floor had thrown the seats into a giant stack, and created a mosh pit around it...couple hundred people moshing. awesome.

worst: was freaking out at dylan on some bad trips; asked a buddy for his pocket knife so i could peel myself (!). dylan cut into GD's "friend of the devil" and it fixed everything, and turned into a helluva good time.
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