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First Gig/Best Gig/Worst Gig


Hannibal Scorch

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First gig was 50 Cent in Cork in 2007. I was sixteen, decidedly not into the music and only went because some of the bigger boys I hid behind were going. I was absolutely steaming on Huzzar, left halfway through and had a much better time going through a box of smokes on the walk back in town. 

Best gig for me was Suede at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2018. Not that Britain's best guitar band's first show of the tour in their home turf is a low watermark or anything, but being a dirty metalhead there's not too many shows I consider stand outs in that sort of momentous, age defining way. You're much more likely to be seeing your favourite noise merchants countless times in your life, rarely sober, and mostly with a fairly conservative setlist (and set of beliefs from probably the singer).

Suede were electric though. It was my first time seeing them and it's the only time I'm going to see them. The set list was perfect for me and Brett Anderson has since adopted a fey, beat poetry sort of delivery for the notes he can't hit so that's my lot. I got to see them and I'm happy with that. Loads of Dog Man Star tracks, all the poppy bangers towards the end, and an acoustic version of Pantomime Horse without so much as a microphone. 

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Apart from local bands my first gig would have been Donnington '94.

Worst gig would be Iron Maiden at Manchester Apollo. Maiden were on their uppers at the time and to be frank, My Dying Bride in support nearly blew them away. Did see them about 10 years ago at MEN (or GMEX or whatever it's called) and had a great night.

Best gig Rancid/ANWL/Booze&Glory at Manchester Academy. 

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First gig outside of anything local was Reading Festival 2013 and I'd put seeing Kodaline as my first band there pretty high up there because I always remember back to the tent just singing as one to the final bridge and chorus of All I Want and having never been anywhere with that many people it sticks out.

But I think my best gig is Mayday Parade in Bristol back in 2016. What went from going by myself and probably having a good time turned into an afternoon drinking session where I found out my mate used to be a huge fan and was as much an emo kid as I was, buying a ticket, getting lost trying to get the bus from Bath to Bristol and back, her pushing me through to the barrier for Miserable at Best like a proud mother because I was too scared to ask people if I'd be able to go past and just having the best time.

Worst gig which is hard for me as I just love being around music, seeing Biffy at Download last year. I fucking hate Biffy Clyro potentially irrationally, I had just seen The Darkness sing Christmas Time in Sunshine in June while I was dressed as Santa.

Nothing was topping it and I just wanted a burger and to go through the playground in The Village with a reasonably priced beer. 

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8 minutes ago, Just Some Guy said:

Apart from local bands my first gig would have been Donnington '94.

Worst gig would be Iron Maiden at Manchester Apollo. Maiden were on their uppers at the time and to be frank, My Dying Bride in support nearly blew them away. Did see them about 10 years ago at MEN (or GMEX or whatever it's called) and had a great night.

Best gig Rancid/ANWL/Booze&Glory at Manchester Academy. 

I've somehow never seen My Dying Bride even though they were legit my fav band on the planet at one point, one day!

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First gig was The Bootleg Beatles with my dad and brother when I was 10. I remember it was December and I had to run out of a school Christmas concert as soon as it finished so we could drive for an hour in the snow to get to Maesteg Town Hall. Absolutely loved it.

Best gig was Stereophonics playing Word Gets Around in full at Hammersmith Apollo. It was an amazing gig and I loved hearing the album tracks and B-sides you wouldn’t ordinarily hear played live. That’s a concert I wish I could relive because it was just perfection. A close second would probably be Dropkick Murphys/Less Than Jake at Brixton Academy. I’m not a huge fan but went with a group of friends and it had to be the most fun gig I’ve ever been to. Lots of dancing in the crowd and proper merriment from everyone.

Worst gigs are generally ones I’ve been to accompanying other people. Red Sparowes at Scala were utter bilge and so incredibly loud that I thought my ears were going to start bleeding. I know technically that’s not their fault but I don’t even think being played at a reasonable volume could’ve made them sound that much better. Other notable mentions go to Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Coheed and Cambria and Ellie Goulding.

Edited by Spud
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First Gig - Fairport Convention, Manchester, 1989. I was a kid and my dad thought I’d like it. He was wrong.

Best Gig - Guns n’ Roses, London Arena, 2002. Axl was late as was commonplace at the time but the gig was bloody superb. Maximum effort from the whole band. No Slash but Buckethead was equally brilliant on lead guitar.

Worst Gig - Smashing Pumpkins, Manchester Apollo, 2011. Sound was poor and was probably the most self indulgent gig I’ve seen. Was Billy Corgan and what I think was a whole different line up at the time. Hardly played any famous songs. Just new stuff. People were complaining about the lack of famous songs. Very disappointed.

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First gig: East 17, Steam Tour. Amazing.

Best gig: Mogwai, Reading 2001. High on mushrooms, pollen and a tiny bit of something else, I left my body and the whole tent was people made of jelly waving at me whilst my ears bled what I thought was jam. Incredible. 

Worst gig: Bob Dylan. Awful. His horrible cunt fans are the worst.

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11 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

 @Gus Mears

My first gig was REM Monster World Tour at the Milton Keynes bowl in 1995. They played 2 nights, both with some great support acts (Magnapop, Belly and Blur who were my favourite at that time) played the Saturday, but we could only get tickets to the Sunday.

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A Pre The It Girl Sleeper, Radiohead who were not yet too artsy (Creep was amazing live) and a band who seemed to be played on MTV Europe constantly at that time. 

All led up to the main event. REM were great. Really great. The played all their hits as long as a lot of their newest release Monster. I later found out Radio 1 broadcast REM live that night and I do have a CD bootleg copy of the gig, and a promo flyer of the poster. Amazing first gig really.

 

This was my first gig too and it's still one of the best nights of my life. I saw R.E.M. seven times before the split and this was the best by far. Anyone who's interested in hearing it it's actually on Spotify etc as part of the R.E.M. at the BBC boxset. 

Even though its tough to choose a best gig, and that first gig would be one of the options, I'm gonna choose something quite obscure. Back in the early 2010s 4 of my favourite bands of the time all shared the stage together at the Fighting Cocks in Kingston. Tubelord, Talons, Tall Ships and Tangled Hair were all on incredible form that night and although i saw them all several times everything seemed to just be spot on that night. Ask me another day and I'll choose a completely different show though. Other options were Rival Schools and Finch together at the Camden Underworld, the first time I saw American Football at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds, or Gallows original line up, again at the Fighting Cocks. 

Worst gig is easy. Always loved Dashboard Confessional and the time I saw them full band was good if not great, but seeing Chris Caraba solo at the ULU was boring as fuck. No stage presence. 

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Other than local bands I have only ever seen The Manic Street Preachers, with Catatonia as support. Around 1998ish, Sheffield arena. Incredible gig, though Catatonia had to finish early as Cerys was pissed as a fart, and Nicky Wire filled in the time by skipping (with a rope) across the stage for a while. 

 

I do have Pulp coming up, and I have high hopes for that.

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My first was a day ticket to V2001. I unfortunately went to the Chili Peppers day so missed out on Kylie, The Avalanches, Mos Def and Zero 7 - not that I knew who any of them were at the time. I was 14.

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The first actual gig I went to was the next year to see Foo Fighters at the MEN Arena supported by Cave In. I was 15 at the time and I went with my mate who was at uni in Liverpool and stayed at his halls. It was my first time travelling to a big bad city by myself on the train so I was pretty nervous as I had to change trains at Crewe. What didn't help my nerves was when arriving at Crewe, as the train doors opened, the bloke standing next to me said "ahh, Crewe station! The smell of heroin and prostitutes!" and exited the carriage. 

That weekend I only saw one person getting there head stamped on in the middle of a traffic jam during the early afternoon so I didn't have too much to be nervous about.

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While searching for that poster I found that someone has uploaded a bootleg of the entire Manchester show onto youtube. Winner.

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First was Dire Straits at the Auckland dome in 1991. I was on holiday and under 15s were allowed with any adult ticket (what a great deal!). 

Best was hard to decide. But I have fantastic memories of seeing Brian Wilson in 2009 at Guilfest with Midnight Zeus, warbling about the California sun while it pissed down in a field in Guildford. Sure the Wondermints did 99% of the work but there's something magical about listening to this doddery old man spin fairy tales in front of you, that I'd been singing all my life. 

I guess I've been lucky and never had a truly bad gig. But Silver Sun at the Esplanade in Southend 1997 had a terrible audience bar me and my mate and they just weren't connecting. We were loving it but nobody else seemed to have heard their eponymous debut album. No Lava for them. 

Edited by Onyx2
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1 hour ago, Onyx2 said:

First was Dire Straits at the Auckland dome in 1991. I was on holiday and under 15s were allowed with any adult ticket (what a great deal!). 

That was the On Every Street tour that went on forever. I saw them on that that tour as well. One of only 2 occasions I ever went to Maine Road. Dire Straits supported by Was (Not Was) and Lyle Lovett was infinitely better than Lincoln beating City in the second leg of a League Cup game 1-0 having beaten them 4-1 in the first leg. The goal wouldn't get past VAR today. Direct from a throw in with Lincoln's 6'10 striker Gijsbert Bos claiming it touched the top of his head on the way in. It didn't. 

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