Best Concert You Have Ever Been To?

[faisalbaig313]

Ive seen a lot of great shows, big name artists in the Boston and neighbouring areas........but the most fun was Billy Idol with Steve Stevens in 2000 or 2001 on their come back tour! Avalon Boston! I was 23 and everyone else was much older in the crowd! Seeing my hero Steve Stevens live was just epic!
1998 or so.....Megadeth with Marty and Nick Menza..... Dream!!!!

So many more but these were just great!
Seeing the first G3 tour and then meeting Satch n Vainafyerwards was also a dream come true!

 

[psychodave]

Saw Yngwie in a small club in the early 1990’s. It was like a Wednesday night and only 20 people were there. Yngwie took requests basically the whole night.

 

[jamesth]

it was festival Firene rocks 2019 - Dream theater, Smashing pumpkin and amazing Tool.

 

[vander]

1983 World Piece Tour....Iron Maiden...Saxon and Fastway at Lloyd Noble arena OKC.. First time i saw all three and seeing Saxon then changed my life. That with Fastway was unreal....and of course Maiden.
2nd place...Of Mice and Men opening up for Nothing More last year at Chicago House of Blues....just blew my mind....hundreds of concerts later.

 

[controlled_voltage]

Pantera summer of 1990 right before cowboys from hell dropped
me and 9 other people in the room
belleville NJ
dime rex and phill were on the floor moshing with us for 95% of the show.
i bet they even remember that one!
once in a lifetime gig and we smoked hell chronic & blasted black tooth grins with them afterwards
they played strutter and hell bent for leather and I think a celtic frost tune.
after that they exploded and i saw them many times and they always brought it hard but nothing was ever gonna be better than that show.

second place tied for first
The Scorpions MSG 3rd row front and center
On THE LAST DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL EVER
I was a senior and it was BONKERS.
Mathias KILLED IT and it was then i realized how underrated he really was.
those guys were hanging off the amps racks GOING BEZERKER
Klaus did several jumps off the drum riser that would have made DLR proud.
prime time scorps will go down as one of the best live acts ever in the 1980's.

That same month i saw the VH 1984 tour and had crap seats but the show was still killer and evh did the over hand part of his solo with the drop down stand from frankie.
astounding!!!

 

[romanianreaper]

KISS Reunion tour 1996 in Cleveland is up there as well. No cherry ripple, no doobie.

Agree!!! I saw one of the first few shows of the tour in Dayton. Wore Gene makeup on my face. When they first came out to "Deuce" I felt like my feet were concrete. I couldn't believe I was seeing the four original members up there on the stage.

 

[romanianreaper]

Good lord, all good stuff up above. We have all seen some phenomenal shows. I was due to see Rage Against the Machine, Roger Waters, and KISS all within a month or two of each other. All concerts purchased already. Then COVID-19 bent me and my buddy over, masked, sanitized, and left a gaping hole in my ass and my wallet.

 

[crwnedblasphemy]

It's a toss-up between Rush 'Moving Pictures' tour and Black Sabbath 'Heaven and Hell' tour. I would have said Frampton/Kansas/Rick Derringer, but I was puking throughout most of the show; due to a quart of cherry ripple and fat doobie.

That's awesome!

 

[crwnedblasphemy]

Kiss Animalize tour, early 1985.

Honorable mentions: Dokken on the Tooth and Nail tour, Metal Church touring for The Dark and Yngwie on the Trilogy tour. I was expecting Mark Boals and about shit my panties when Jeff Scot Soto walked on stage.

Dude...my brother and me to this day still watch that Animalize video. That guy in the crowd with the blonde hair and glasses just headbangs the whole show...so funny. Also, Gene's solo was killer

 

[harddriver]

1992 Kansas , A most excellent show, sound was just about perfect.

1996 KISS reunion tour, Most theatrical and entertaining... audio was also good.

2014 Alice in Chains, One of the best mixed, full sounding, (clarity of instruments/vocals/drums) shows where no one was buried in the mix everything was the most perfect concert audio I have ever experienced at a live show.

2016 Black Sabbath The End tour, Audio here was runner up to a great sounding balanced audio at a live show.

 

[crwnedblasphemy]

I have 3...and they were my first couple of concerts;

1st was WASP/SLAYER/RAVEN at the Orpheum in MPLS...Inside Electric Circus tour/Reign in Blood tour. It was killer and also my first experience in speed metal...

2nd was JUDAS PREIST/DOKKEN at St. Paul Civis Center...Turbo tour/Under Lock and Key tour.

3rd was SKID ROW/SOUNDGARDEN at Roy Wilkins...Slave to the Grind Tour/Badmotorfinger tour. Soundgarden were boring as fuck, but I was dead center front row and Skid Row were all energy. I could feel the pyro just blowing heat so much I had to turn away a bunch of times.

 

[acalaf]

Metallica S and M with the Symphony at the Madison Square Garden in 1999.

 

[slyym]

Rage against the machine by light years!!!!

 

[Norton666]

Metallica in 97 in Denver. I’ve seen them 17 more times since , but that one was amazing

 

[Devin]

I've seen tons of awesome shows but my absolute fave was probably Strapping Young Lad + Meshuggah at the White Rabbit in San Antonio

 

[technomancer]

Hmmm tough call... in no particular order

Queensryche - Live Crime tour
Pink Floyd - Division Bell tour
Kiss - 1996 reunion tour
DLR - Skyscraper tour

 

[Kordoba]

Kiss Animalize tour, early 1985.

Honorable mentions: Dokken on the Tooth and Nail tour, Metal Church touring for The Dark and Yngwie on the Trilogy tour. I was expecting Mark Boals and about shit my panties when Jeff Scot Soto walked on stage.

Dude...my brother and me to this day still watch that Animalize video. That guy in the crowd with the blonde hair and glasses just headbangs the whole show...so funny. Also, Gene's solo was killer

Wow, my brother and I do the same thing. We used to rent the Animalize VHS in the 80s and he'd ask me all kinds of questions about what it was like to be there. Not sure why I kept renting and didn't just buy a VHS copy back in the day, but eventually did get an import DVD of the concert.

Another cool thing about that Kiss concert is Dokken (Tooth and Nail) opened. Right after Dokken finished I found a stainless steel guitar pick on the floor. I never did figure out if it belonged to George or Jeff, but I think I still have it along with a big red Winger guitar pick that I also found on the floor a few years later.

 

[ClintN667]

Man that's tough.

Prince on the Musicology tour
Anthrax, megadeth, slayer and alice in chains(clash of the titans tour)
The Cure on the Curiousa festival.

Honorable mention Bluesfest --Buddy Guy, B.B. King
Buzzoven
Outkasts

 

[napalmdeath]

Been to many, but the first 2 I ever went to are still the best. Dio Last In Line tour, and Deep Purple Perfect Strangers tour. Both amazing, and most memorable.

 

[311boogieman]

Wow. Great thread romanianreaper

So many great shows to chose from. I didn't post in your Worst Concerts Ever thread because I honestly couldn't think of one. Just reading everyone's responses here brings back so many memories. I didn't see Cinderella with AC/DC but I've seen them both at least 3 times on separate tours.

Choosing a 'best' one is so hard. Best at what? Best tone? Best time? Best note for note? Best impromptu jams? Best stage? Best crowd?

If I must choose it would be 1988's Monster's of Rock at Kansas City Arrowhead Stadium (See below). Kingdom Come. Scorpions, Dokken, Metallica, Van Halen. We smoked joints in the men's room because we were paranoid. We got busted outside while tailgating and had to pour all of our beer on the ground because we were underage. Got hauled to the city jail. Told my friend to come get us. He was asleep passed out in front seat so didn't technically get caught for drinking thank goodness. We grabbed the first row on upper balcony opposite center stage so although we didn't have the best view - it was perfect for what we were there - which was to enjoy the moment and enjoy the show.

That said, I have many other shows that I thought were awesome for different reasons:

2019 311 at Red Rocks (never been there before)
2017 Gun's & Roses reunion tour. Sounded great, overall kick ass
2016 Bad Company, Blue Oyster Cult, Boston (the 3 B's show)
2016 Van Halen (sounded amazing, 7th row, Eddie was sober)
2015 Slipknow - first show of theirs, was a rather new fan of their music
2013 Killswitch Engage at a small venue (absolutely brutal)
2008 Rush
2003 Korn and Limp Bizkit (quick meet-greet w Fred Durst)
2001 Lynyrd Skynyrd with Ted Nugent and Black Crowes
1993 Van Halen F.U.C.K. tour
1989 Motley Crue and Warrant
1988 Aerosmith with GnR
1987 Pink Floyd

I actually keep a 'scrapbook' of all of my tickets and ongoing list I update every other year or so

Was supposed to see Ozzy this year as his tour last year got cancelled due to his ATV accident or whatever. Covid has cancelled lots of shows. The new thing seems to be 'drive in' concerts. $40 a car. You tune in via your FM radio in your car. First decent show that comes my way I will go.

disclaimer... I don't watch shows to judge sound, acoustics, etc.. I go to shows to disappear, tap into the kid that still loves music.. the feel of it all. In my 40's... had some great 'rockstar' moments.. but Im still that kid when I go see my favorite bands live.. I turn my mind off and just enjoy the experience. Cheers

I subscribe to this as well