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Swans in the To Be Kind era.
Top 3 concert for me
Band of Horses. Saw them live before Lola, buying their albums seem like a waste after hearing how much emotion they can pump into thier live act.
Almost all of them. Live music is one of the greatest things to experience.
Some people have really dropped the ball in recent years though. I was deeply disappointed by recent Kiss, Marilyn Manson, and ZZTop shows.
Sucks to go see a band you love and be disappointed. Hope your next show is better!
Oh, I’ve had great ones too - these were mostly for my stepson.
You sound like an awesome stepdad!
jethro tull played in grant park for the flutist society and due to that played like the most flute intensive songs. hearing that fock flute in person was amazing.
I’ll bet they are great live. I actually have only heard one song of theirs, which I found by accident years ago when trying to find something else. Everlasting Light, played live. One of very few songs that completely makes it obvious how much mp3 compression sucks, and even if you download the FLAC (sadly not high res) you can still hear everything wrong with your speakers and if you listen to it on good headphones then you can hear the deficiencies of the mic they used to record it.
Truly a huge amount of audio information in that track. I love it!
Oh yeah, seeing them live was an incredible experience, and very much agree regarding FLAC vs mp3. For some music it doesn’t matter, but when you have a lot of range FLAC really shines. This is my favorite album of theirs btw, pretty much every track is amazing https://monoofjapan.bandcamp.com/album/hymn-to-the-immortal-wind
Got to see Chicago/ Beach Boys double headline back in 1989 (I think). Both bands were great. Saw the Beach Boys at the old Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, OH about 5 years later and it was a great show.
Bad Company Holy Water tour. Brian Howe was front lining the band and he was great, but really would have preferred to have seen Paul Rodgers.
Black Crowes opening for ZZ Top on the Recycler tour. ZZ Top had a great show, but musically, Black Crowes was much better.
Duran Duran … I was a closet fan of theirs back in my teens. I’m not in the closet any longer. Soup Dragons opened for them and they suuuucked.
Linkin Park opening for Metallica at the Atlanta Braves stadium in 2003. They were great, Metallica was meh, but I’ve never been a huge fan of theirs.
Live… Not a big fan of theirs, but they did have a good live show. (see what I did there! Yes, I’m a Dad.) They opened for the Counting Crows who were great too.
Santana is a lot better live than anywhere else. I saw him on the Supernatural tour, or at least that was the album he had just released. Funny side story about this concert. This was in 1999 and was there with a friend. 25 years later, my wife and I were talking about concerts we have attended over the years. She mentioned she went to see Santana when she first moved to Cincinnati, which is where I lived at the time… Turns out we were at the same concert 5 years before we met and didn’t realize it until last year.
Yes, I’m old.
Tool, always. Propagandhi were also great.
I will forever kick myself for not trying to see them in Tacoma in (i think) 2023. One of the greatest bands of all time, and pure fucking magic on psychedelics
I saw Tool live at a festival in 2019. I had never heard of them before, I’m more of a punk rock guy. Their show absolutely blew me away. Surreal experience. I’ve listened to their albums a lot ever since.
I have seen them 7 times between 2002 and 2024, and they were exceptional each time (even if they only played my favourite song for the first time in the '24 gig). I also love that they don’t allow phones at their gigs. It’s great to not have a sea of screens in front of you. They usually have great warm up acts too.
Perfect Circle is also totally worth it.
death grips, quite literally as I started up front and got way overwhelmed and slowly started moving back as the show went on. it got to the point where I got outside and proceeded to puke in the trashcan. great show though!
There are lots of great live bands but maybe these were most memorable for various reasons: Magma (just hypnotic), Lazuli (very entertaining live band every single time), The Pineapple Thief (great prog rock with incredible drummer), The Musical Box (playing and re-acting old Genesis. Too young to see the originals but just in time to see the remakes), Le Silo (super high energy duo or trio, don’t even remember, but man that was wild), Aranis (they don’t exist anymore unfortunately)
Devin Townsend was without a doubt one of the best artists I’ve seen live last year. I limed his music for the longest time, and got tickets the day before the concert, and it was so damn good. It wasn’t anything fancy, just awesome interaction with the crowd and amazing music.
Seeing ok go with my future wife is one of my all time favourite memories.
Buddy Guy. the concert was pretty posh (think bankers in suits), with everyone having arranged seating, audience sitting still and quiet like at a classical music concert.
he was like ‘fuck this, this isn’t a proper concert, my guitar is wireless, let’s stand up, go to the entry hall and jam’. so he’s just standing in the middle of the crowd and going nuts, at like 83 years of age. That was amazing.
I saw buddy at a music fest once and he yelled at the crowd for not singing along in time. Dude is a hilarious legend
Not a band, but a DJ, Jake Beautyman, April 2024 in São Paulo. He started his set with the Severance OST and was a banger song after song. Still think about that party today
Joanna Newsom & Blind Guardian
