New Wave Outpost Forum

Best concert was Chris Isaak at Humphrey's By The Bay in San Diego last year. Great stage presence, nothing before and after has been able to top that. There is also Roxy Music's final show of their world tour ended at the OC Fair! Not only was it rare to see them live, but they were in top shape as if time hadn't passed for them.

Worst concert? Gene Loves Jezebel last year. Wow. They could barely make it through 35 minutes of material before they slinked off stage. There was also Bright Eyes (a recent band). We only stayed for three songs and they were three songs too many[xx(]

Best - Pink Floyd '93 Yankee Stadium. WOW! What a show. Amazing from start to finish and I'm not a big Floyd fan.

Worst - New Order Brendan Byrne Arena, NJ. I think it was '94. I'm trying to forget. I should have stayed home and played the CD's. The lighting was awful with the stage in a deep blue or purple, so you couldn't hardly see them. And the songs sounded like they were right from the albums. What a disappointment as I really like these guys.

Best for me - Debbie Harry in '89. I never got a chance in the heyday, and she was always my favorite. It was at the Channel in Boston, she sounded and looked great, and was pretty wild.

Worst - I saw Stevie Nicks when she was really high, concert was a mess, it was surreal, but very memorable, so I don't think that would count as a worst.

Probably the Police for the Synchronicity tour - I was so bored....

best: holy crap, I went never to a show that I hated. I loved

Echo & The Bunnymen ([i]Echo & The Bunnymen[/i]
(On stage, Ian had the air of being totally arrogant and smug… and it was incredibly sexy!)

Siouxsie and the Banshees ([i]Peepshow[/i])
Front 242 ([i]Up Evil/Evil Off[/i])
Covenant ([i]Northern Light[/i]) (and surprising good opening act, Melotron)

worst: not concert, but an act. Leather Nun opened for Echo & The Bunnymen and I was just bored. Dark and plodding. I like goth, but this wasn't my thing.

Best: Rod Stewart i think it was 94
Worst: Billy Ray Cyrus at the height of his achey breaky fame my wife made me take her to it ugh[:(!]

I'm not sure if I've been a bad show; I can't remember.

best: Duran Duran on 2/2/84 in Seattle...man, that was awesome. High energy, super fun, lots of dancing. I know mygreen was there![:)]

Worst: Replacements - 1985. I love the 'Mats, but they were drunk as hell and couldn't play at all. They would start a song, play a few riffs, then stop abruptly and say, "Oh F*ck! We messed up. Let's do that again." They didn't play one good song all night. I was very disappointed.

Best: Elvis Costello - 1983, for sheer energy.


Other worsts: the dozens of baaaad southern rock (Molly Hatchet: eew!) and 70's rock (Journey: eew!) concerts that my friends dragged me to before I became a new wave convert. The memories make my skin crawl...

Sadly that was typical of a Replacements show. I made it a point to never see them live, despite being an active member of the Minneapolis punk scene in the early 80s.

Top 3 concerts:

3: Cyndi Lauper - final show of the 18 month long "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun tour. The band was tight as Hell but loose at the same time, having fun with the songs and the set.

2: Roxy Music 2001 - one of my favorite bands that I never thought I would get to see. Great set, top performance.

1: Kraftwerk - 2005 Chicago. This replaces the previous best show ever which was Kraftwerk in Chicago 1998


I can't list the worst shows. If a band sucks I usually leave. Most boring show was The Wolfgang Press in the early 90's. Most unintentionally funny was Laibach in 1989. I walked out of Front Line Assembly in 1989. They came back in 1991 and I went to see them, thinking that maybe the prior show was just an off night. Nope, I walked out on them again.

Best: The Clash @ Palladium NYC Dec 1979
The Clash @ Bonds 1981

These are the shows that cemented this band as the best I'd ever seen...a couple of bands have come close over the years (Rage Against the Machine comes to mind), but I've never seen a better live band...

Worst: a weird conceptual thing called Jazz Odyssey at the Themeland Amusement Park in Stockton, California in 1982...here's a review I found...

Jazz Odyssey: Written by Derek, this instrumental premiered at Themeland Amusement Park in Stockton, California, during the 1982 tour despite David's reluctance to "do a free-form jazz exploration in front of a festival crowd."
As it turned out, only a sparse crowd was on hand to witness...

the page is all messy after that, I must have gotten a finger sandwich wrapped up in there...

Best- Kiss (1977)
Worst - Prince (1998)

I saw Berlin and The Rainmakers at some Riverside university (I've forgotten where exactly), and both of them were awesome.

The worst, by far, had to be Dead Or Alive in their Memorex show--lipsynched to the max. What a waste of time that was.

[quote][i]Originally posted by Ollie Stench[/i]
<br>Sadly that was typical of a Replacements show. I made it a point to never see them live, despite being an active member of the Minneapolis punk scene in the early 80s.

Top 3 concerts:

3: Cyndi Lauper - final show of the 18 month long "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun tour. The band was tight as Hell but loose at the same time, having fun with the songs and the set.

2: Roxy Music 2001 - one of my favorite bands that I never thought I would get to see. Great set, top performance.

1: Kraftwerk - 2005 Chicago. This replaces the previous best show ever which was Kraftwerk in Chicago 1998


I can't list the worst shows. If a band sucks I usually leave. Most boring show was The Wolfgang Press in the early 90's. Most unintentionally funny was Laibach in 1989. I walked out of Front Line Assembly in 1989. They came back in 1991 and I went to see them, thinking that maybe the prior show was just an off night. Nope, I walked out on them again.
[/quote]

Ollie, you went to some kickass shows, and I'm jealous. I missed Laibach on their most recent tour. Aren't they usually intentionally funny anyway? And Front Line Assembly is always a risk! I've heard they were boring (like you said, both for the 1989 AND 1991 tour). By the time [i]Millenium[/i] came out, I was prepared for the worst but went anyway. (Hey, it was Numb and Die Krupps were opening acts, so I thought what the hell.) Believe it or not, I actually witnessed a decent FLA show!

I would kill to see Kraftwerk.

Best:
Big Venue: US Festival in 82 and 83

Small Venue: The Jam in 82

Worst: Morrisey in 91 at UCLA's Pauley Pavillion. Morrisey was being touted as the next big star with guest spots on the Tonight Show etc. This was to be the first "rock" concert at Pauley Pavillion in 20 years. At the conclusion of the first or second song Morrisey announced "You don't have to stay in your seats...". He starts the next song and a full blown riot breaks out. Morrisey runs off the stage, never to be seen again at UCLA. The riot continued outside, with LAPD's finest dressed in full riot gear and tear gas.[:(!]

Now you would think old Morrisey had learned his lesson at UCLA. A few nights later, Morrisey played again in SoCal. The concert was also broadcast on KROQ. "You don't have to stay in your seats..." was heard again after the first or second song with the same results.
If I could just get my hands on the the neck of little Stephen, I would beat the !#@$@%$@%$ out of him![V][V][V][V][V][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!]

Best: Kid Creole and the Coconuts at the Ritz, in their heyday.
999 at the Left Bank, Mt. Vernon, NY, touring "Concrete"

Kid Creole's shows were always like a carnival. The whole band was always in synch with each other, and played off each other like I've never seen before. Very visual show; there would always be something going on in one area of the stage and you'd miss it if you were focusing elsewhere. No band's/ singer's on-stage dancers can match the Coconuts for precision or synchronicity. August Darnell is the consummate performer in my book, and Andy Hernandez was the perfect right hand man/ foil/ comedy relief for all the antics going on. I always felt that I got more than my money's worth when I went to see them; it was like getting a Broadway production at your local club.

I discussed the 999 show on another thread somewhere, but this is one of the few, if not only, bands I've ever seen that you could tell were just plain happy to be there performing for the audience, and it showed. The band had stage presence, magnetism, and really got the crowd involved. This is they type of show that other bands could learn from.

Worst: Blondie at Belmont Racetrack (totally uninspired; I would have been happier just listening to the records at home. Rockpile opened for them, and were so much more enjoyable; considering all that Rockpile does is come out, play the songs, and leave).

Best:

Siouxsie-Peepshow Tour 1988. The elaborate stage, the backdrops and "Hong Kong Garden" as one of the encores.

Iggy Pop-Toad's Place, New Haven, CT. Total insanity. I remember just getting caught up in a sea of moshers during "Lust for Life". Though the opener Alice In Chains who were basically unknown at the time bored me

Roxy Music-2001

The Pixies-2004

Probably the 2 best reunion shows I have ever seen

Worst:

The Cure-Virginia, 1987, Kiss Me Tour. The show was ok. But, the seats were the worst. Last row right behind the speakers. My ears rang for days afterwards.