The best concert / festival you ever attended

Barely squeaking out both California Jam in 74' and Cal Jam 2 in 77', I pick Day Two of US 83' !

There are alot of sweet Day On The Green's in both So. Calif and S.F Bay Area to be in consideration as well. Still this wonderful Sunday, merely a week before HS graduation takes the honor.

Quiet Riot
Motley Crue ( performing songs from SHOUT prior to its release)
Ozzy (very first show w/ Jake
Judas Priest
Triumph
Scorpions
The Mighty VH

What sets this apart is there were no lackluster performances by any of the bands, though a certain member of Van Halen had his moments.

It was one of those things that timing was everything. Upstart bands still hungry before success ruined things. Singers bouncing back from tragedy with a new freshness and fire from a new player. Seasoned veterans feeding of the energy of hundreds of thousands of folks. No lame band on the bill to soften the mood that escalated with each perfomance. The Scorpions took the show in my opinion, but I give a thumbs up to all the bands that day. They brought it !

For me.....

KISS
Gigantour
Iron Maiden
Buckethead
Rush
Devo (No, seriously)

God so many choose from but the two that come to mind right away are:

Deep Purple with Giuffria opening up at Lakeland Civc center in 1985

and jeff beck/Stevie Ray Vaughan co-headlining show at the Ice Palace in 1989

and to add a third Frank Zappa-in 83 (or was it 84) at Lakeland

1. Spring '78 Van Halen (the week of release of Van Halen s/t) Big energy!
Journey (pre-radio hits era, mostly Journey Mk I material)
Montrose
2. Spring '79 Judas Priest (mostly Unleashed in the East set!)
UFO (Strangers in the Night set!)
3. Summer '82(?)Judas Priest
Iron Maiden

Quote :

Deep Purple with Giuffria opening up at Lakeland Civc center in 1985

Man, if I could have seen that one. I love the Perfect Strangers album and would have loved to see the tour. Especially with Giuffria opening.

Best small venue show:
Savatage w/Trouble opening, Sept. 1990, Brooklyn New York (L'amour)

Best large venue:
Metallica on the AND JUSTICE FOR ALL tour, 1989, Meadowlands Arena, NJ

Festival:
"Operation Rock N Roll," summer of 1991 (Judas Priest, Alice Cooper, Motorhead, Dangerous Toys and Metal Church, all in one night!)

Sadly, I've only been to four concerts in my life, and only two of them I actually liked.

The best would have to be Crue Fest (Motley/Buckcherry/Papa Roach/SIXX AM/Trapt) last month in Detroit.

SAHB Healer wrote:

1. Spring '78 Van Halen (the week of release of Van Halen s/t) Big energy!
Journey (pre-radio hits era, mostly Journey Mk I material)
Montrose
2. Spring '79 Judas Priest (mostly Unleashed in the East set!)
UFO (Strangers in the Night set!)
3. Summer '82(?)Judas Priest
Iron Maiden

sounds good man...

I picked the Us 83' show due mostly to the energy
of hundreds of thousands of people being on the same page. The California Jam in 74' was my very first live rock n roll experience. Deep Purple, ELP. Black Sabbath, The Eagles and others.
The most intimate show I ever attended was Savatage during "poets and madmen" with more folks on stage than in the crowd, seriously ! They were amazing still and i have the utmost respect for those gentlemen.

Best small venue was Nick Turner's Hawkwind (Space Ritual '95). Helluva show. I also saw Johnny Thunders in a very small venue once, but alas, Johnny was (gasp!) really super hammered.

Tough to say - in no particular order:

Big shows:

Iron Maiden - SBIT tour (Merriweather Show)
KISS - Reunion Tour
Queensryche - Empire tour
U2 - Achtung Baby tour

Small shows:

Megadeth/Testament - Rust In Peace tour
King's X - King's X Tour
Live - Throwing Copper Tour (before it got popular!)
Stryper - THWTD Tour (My first concert!)

This would be hard to choose as the best I have ever seen,

KISS - Dynasty 1979 in Phoenix AZ was my first real show
Motley Crue, Axe, and Heaven was a great show first concert that I didn't have a parent or relative take me to.
Alice Cooper is always fantastic show.
Ted Nugent for Scream Dream was a really cool show (With Humble Pie)
Iron Maiden's Seventh Son Tour (Actually any Maiden show)
Blackfoot
Molly Hatchet,
W.A.S.P. (Animal tour)
Stevie Ray Vaughan (Free concert on the beach @South Padre Island)

Too many great shows over the years, guess I don't have an absolute fave.

Kings X in Dallas after Moonlight came out. It was at the Bronco Bowl, about 300 people there & the crowd was really into it. Stayed with Vinne Paul next to the soundboard all night. After the show Vinne & Dime took us back to the bus to meet Kings X, stayed for a couple of hours & had a great time.
Whitecross in Dallas on the Triumphant Return tour, again a small place with a crazy crowd, met & got autographs from everybody.
Bride / All Axess in Shreveport in 92. All Axess was my band, had over 2500 people show up & had to turn people back at the door. We played an hour & a half set & Bride played almost 2 & a half hours, played mostly older stuff & the crowd was really into both of us.

Judas Priest/Iron Maiden 1980 Syracuse,NY(Point/Killers tour) Maiden made such a huge impact on me that night.

Motorhead/Malice/Savage Grace 1986 Wilkes Barre,PA

Slayer/Motorhead/Overkill 1988 Poughkeepsie,NY

Those three shows stand out the most out of 33 years of concerts

Def Leppard. 1988 or 89. I forget the exact year. Easily my most memorable concert experience, it being my first and all. But White Zombie/Rob Zombie has put on the best shows I've ever seen. Not the greatest live band I've seen, in terms of sounding like the studio stuff, but they've put on the most powerful, visually-stunning shows I've ever witnessed.

Rob Zombie is the man.

Bride/Stryper (1992? Canton, OH)

Pagan Fest USA (May 2008, Ft. Worth, TX)

Best small venue show was Collective Soul around 94 at Toad's Place in New Haven, CT. They were so much heavier live than on Hints, Allegations and Things Left Unsaid.

Best large venue show (and best concert I've ever seen) was The Rolling Stones at Giants Stadium on the Voodoo Lounge tour.

Eyesore wrote:

Def Leppard. 1988 or 89. I forget the exact year. Easily my most memorable concert experience, it being my first and all. But White Zombie/Rob Zombie has put on the best shows I've ever seen. Not the greatest live band I've seen, in terms of sounding like the studio stuff, but they've put on the most powerful, visually-stunning shows I've ever witnessed

Rob Zombie is the man.

Hey Eye.....did Tesla open up for Leppard at that show ?

James B. wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

Def Leppard. 1988 or 89. I forget the exact year. Easily my most memorable concert experience, it being my first and all. But White Zombie/Rob Zombie has put on the best shows I've ever seen. Not the greatest live band I've seen, in terms of sounding like the studio stuff, but they've put on the most powerful, visually-stunning shows I've ever witnessed

Rob Zombie is the man.

Hey Eye.....did Tesla open up for Leppard at that show ?

No, Queensryche did. I've told the story of how I booed them the entire time. It was the Mindcrime tour. At the time, though, I was like 12, and Def Leppard was the only band I cared about. Every other band sucked, in my eyes! Haha.

A few years later, I hear this killer song come on WAAF. At this point, I was heavily getting into music, all kinds of bands and genres. Anyway, the station never named the band or song. Eventually I was able to dub it to cassette (remember recording radio songs to cassette? haha). I heard it many times on the radio after that, and they never mentioned the band name. Pfffft! Finally, after like a month, they said it:

Empire, by Queensryche!


I kick myself till this day. I saw Queensryche on the original Mindcrime tour, and booed them all night, shouted "YOU SUCK!" all night long. Haha. They're now one of my all-time favorite bands. I suck.

Absolutely no idea. Depends on definition of "best". How many skiheads did I punch? How hot was the chick I left with? How many quarters did I throw at the opening band? Did I skank hard or just heabang? What stlye music was the band and did it fit my particular mood perfectly that night? Were they serving free peanut butter and jelly sandwichs [I actually saw the Muffs on a Sunday morning at about 10 a.m. and they passed out pb&j's! haha].

I was backstage for the the US Festival (all 3 days) in 83"

I would have to say that was the best one for me.

Deep Purple reunion tour of 84? or was it 85? Having been a huge fan of the Gillan era & thinking they would never perform together again, This was huge for me. Remember Gillan had been out of Purple for 11 years before they did this tour. Opened with "Highway Star" Wow!

UFO, Journey (Rollie era) & Montrose at Winterland was a night to remember.

assault_attack wrote:

I was backstage for the the US Festival (all 3 days) in 83"

I would have to say that was the best one for me.

Deep Purple reunion tour of 84? or was it 85? Having been a huge fan of the Gillan era & thinking they would never perform together again, This was huge for me. Remember Gillan had been out of Purple for 11 years before they did this tour. Opened with "Highway Star" Wow!

UFO, Journey (Rollie era) & Montrose at Winterland was a night to remember.

I thought I had it going on only living a few miles away from Devore, you must of had a blast being backstage.

I saw DP at Texas Stadium in 85' for Perfect Strangers.... good performance.

I saw UFO a few times in the 70's but only as an opener. Saw both Journey and Montrose on a lot of the Day On The Green bills in the mid to late 70's as well. I could only imagine how kewl it was seeing them all on the same evening. One of my older sisters took me to see The Dead at Winterland just before the doors closed. Alot of histoey in that place, for sure.

download 2006 and 2008

heaven and hell 15 nov 2007

ozzy w/ metallica just to pick one.

Wacken
Sweden Rock Festival
All the Savatage gigs I've seen.