It was the best of concerts...it was the worst of concerts.

[Scastles]

When Kira initiated the thread of who you would have stayed in line for all night long to get tix to see, I wondered what was the best show you paid good money to see, and what was the worst. Especially, bad concerts where the anticipation ran high and so did the cost, but for one reason or another it didn't turn out very well.

Best: The Who with Lynyrd Skynyrd (I didn't pay but it was still good).

Worst: CSNY, the Beach Boys and Jesse Collin Young. ( Actually it was probably a pretty good show, but when you're sitting on artificial turf for five hours and the field temperature is around 110, it makes for a bad show. Dehydration and delirium will do that to a person).

[scotty]

Best.......The Who Birmingham.McCartney/Floyd,Knebworth .Weller Movement Glasgow Uni.
worst Im too embarrassed to say but lets put it this way he was big on purple in the 80s Parkhead football club, the sign, you get the just......... yeah yeah he wore a raspberry bunnet.......

[kiramdear]

Wow, that's a toughie!

Best: Rolling Stones, Winterland, 1972. No need to explain except to say it was the best of times for them and for me.

Worst: Van Morrison, Great American Music Hall, sometime around 1980. Shortly into the show, Van threw a hissy fit at the audience for reasons that weren't clear, insulting and threatening a few of them in the front rows, then begrudgingly continued with a tight but lifeless performance for those who remained.

[captsandwich]

Best: Pixies, Arrow Hall, Toronto. Just because I had always regretted not seeing them in their first go-round. Honourable mention to the Waterboys at the Dublin Olympia or Midnight Oil at the Masonic Temple, Toronto.

Worst: The Sisters of Mercy at RPM, Toronto. Wall of indecipherable mud with overpowering pre-programmed drum loops and no actual drummer, so many fog machines that you couldn't tell how many people were onstage. We left before the show was over and the sound was actually better in the parking lot than in the hall.

[Scastles]

Scotty, I might have stopped just after, 'I'm too embarrassed'.

[beatlefreak]

Best - Pink Floyd, 1977 at Cincinatti's Riverfront Colliseum. Helluva show!

Worst - World Series of Rock, 1981 at Cleveland's Lakefront Stadium - The Rolling Stones, Kansas, Peter Tosh and some guy doing a highwire act on a bicycle over the crowd!?!? (What a strange lineup1)

[paologregorio]

The following first two shows I went to with my longtime friend Paul Sakry, who's been part of the last few Mini-confluences.

Best: Echo and the Bunnymen with Let's Active as the opener, Hollywood Palladium, April 1984. Festival seating, a great opener by Let's Active, and lots of smoke machine, mood lighting, and Gregorian Chant as the Bunnymen took the stage.

Worst: Probably a tie between the following two shows:

REM with Dream Syndicate at the same Hollywood Palladium about six months after the Bunnymen show. It was the tour for the "Reckoning" Album. The venue was baking hot. Dream Syndicate guitarist and lead vocalist Steve Wynn-no not that Steve Wynn- was fond of dropping acid before shows and he'd obviously dropped way too much before that show! Moving on to REM, Michael Stipe had somehow managed to break his leg just before the tour started and was forced to sing seated atop a bar stool. My friends and I thought the show lackluster, so after seven songs, we left! I probably only liked about three REM songs from their much smaller catalogue at the time so it wasn't a big loss for me.

or

Paul Weller solo at the Pantages sometime in the mid 90s. I love PW, but this was definitely not one of his best tours; my pal Jean and I were alternately lulled into dozing off, and my vintage BMW R60/2 motorcyle was almost towed away; we decided to leave the show early, and walking out front I noticed a BMW motorcycle all lashed down to a rig on the bak of a tow truck. I thought, "My goodness, some poor fellow with a Beamer like mine's broken down. I wonder what what broke? Hmm, it's got the big pipes like mine, solo seat...dent in the side of the fuel t-a-n-k...HEY, THAT'S MY BMW"!!!!!!

The tow truck driver was nice. when I asked him how much it was going to cost me to get my bike back, he replied with 'ah, just help me take it down".

[N.F.A.]

Best - Too many great ones to choose. Zep, Zappa, Alan Stivell, Grateful Dead, Glass Harp, among others..
Worst - This one is easy. I saw the Police on their final tour in Cincy 83 I believe. They raced through each song, no jams, their sound was terrible. Really deflated my great love of the band.

[scotty]

Scotty, I might have stopped just after, 'I'm too embarrassed'.

I agree.

[woodyng]

best-so very many...yes 1972,my first time seeing them live ,and again (76?) with patrick moraz and the 3 headed dinosaur rig.yes again on the talk tour with trevor rabin.david bowie and the spiders.mott the hoople with wishbone ash.todd rundgren's utopia. genesis drury lane theater 1974. california guitar trio. king crimson "red" tour. paul mccartney at the memphis liberty bowl. the pretenders in a small club in memphis. blondie with nick lowe. graham parker and the rumor. dave edmunds,dion,kim wilson,and friends with special guests stevie ray and jimmy vaughn. the original allman brothers band at the overton park shell. ted nugent (he actually used to be good) with mike quatro. crack the sky were great!

the worst-and i went in wanting to love it-was iggy and the stooges at the memphis auditorium. whoever produced their current album at the time must have been a miracle worker.....hmmm i take that back,i went to see the sex pistols and they were actually worse...which i guess was part of the schtick...apparently for me the rezillos and the b52's were more along the lines of punk that i could stomach.....punk # fun = funk?

[phlemmy]

Best: This is extremely difficult to choose but I'll say Twisted Sister 2005.

Worst: Van Halen 1991

[rictified]

Two very memorable concerts for me: Ten Years After/The Stooges in 1969, and Led Zeppelin/Zephyr also in 1969, both of these were at a place called The Boston Tea Party. Ten Years after/The Stooges were probably the best double bill I've ever seen and Led Zep were also unbelievable, Zephyr were also good, they had Tommy Bolin on guitar.
I really don't have any "worst" that I can remember, I've been to some boring and/or disappointing concerts in my life but nothing I really regret going to.

[godber]

Best - Joe Strummer and the Latino Rockabilly War, Bristol Bierkeller, 18 July 1988. Fantastic sweaty close encounter gig with one of the absolute best.

Worst - probably one of mine.

[winston]

The best: SRV and Double Trouble with Collin James as an opening act and guest musician. They put on an incredibly hot performance together and blew the doors and windows off the venue with just sheer musicianship.........not volume.

I have seen many huge acts from all genres and suprisingly........Shania Twain was a close second in my mind. Besides her vocal abilities which are amazingly great during a live performance, her band is very very impressive. Extremely tight and better than her recorded work demonstrates........ if that is possible to imagine.

The worst: Kraftwerk.............they were lifeless and stale.

[Scastles]

The best: SRV and Double Trouble with Collin James as an opening act and guest musician. They put on an incredibly hot performance together and blew the doors and windows off .

I caught SRV in '78 on a couple of occasions. Always a great show, and always here at the old Stubbs BBQ. Place probably held a hundred folks (about 30 over the fire dept. limit). Stevie played for a couple of hundred bucks (at best) and all the barbeque he and the band could eat.