First Gig/Best Gig/Worst Gig

[Jazzy G]

On 2/6/2023 at 10:42 PM, pitseleh said:

I've went down a Dylan live rabbit hole since reading this thread and eh...

Incredible. 

Does it sound like that because he's translated it into Danish for the locals? Reminds me of Glastonbury in 2007. Sunday afternoon I was walking past the main stage to catch up with my friends as they'd just been to see some stand up, or Tony Benn. I can't remember which, and Van Morrison was performing. He had a "backing singer" who was singing all the words while Van was just making noises to the melody of the song. Also saw the start of Paul Young when he headlined a local free festival a few years back and he'd either forgotten to turn his mic on, or they'd forgotten to start playing the backing track for him to mime along with. Dreadful. 

[DavidB6937]

I had such a weird relationship with music when I was growing up.

My mum listened to a lot of classical music so for a time that was really all I knew and I genuinely had no idea what the majority of the stuff people talked about at school was.

Then in a weird logical progression of sorts I got into Queen. I say logical. Probably not but if you're going from classical to something, it almost made sense in a weird way.

One of my best friends was really into pop and I'd always listen to his CDs round his house despite not really knowing what any of it was. This led onto being dragged to Party In The Park in Hyde Park that was put on by Capital FM. It was more of a social thing for me, especially not really knowing who the fuck half the people were, but looking back there were some bloody impressive people over the years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_in_the_Park - I definitely went from 98 to 01 and then I went to uni so probably didn't go any further.

I think some of them could've been my 'best' gig if I'd had the appreciation for some of them that I do now. Lionel Richie, Tom Jones. Some of Queen. Bryan Adams. Kylie. Elton. Madness. Hell, even Natalie Imbruglia AND Louise the same year! I imagine I enjoyed that a lot.

I'd say Muse at Wembley probably my best gig from a pure spectacle enjoyment and seeing My Chemical Romance as support. Yes Bellamy is 90% breathing but it was still fucking cool.

Hell, I even enjoyed the Robbie Williams gig I got dragged along to. Yeah he's a twat but also a good showman and Angels with that many people is a pretty emotional experience.

My worst gig was definitely my brother in law's friend's band down the local pub where they tried to flog you a dodgy looking CD for a few quid. I don't think my ears have ever quite recovered from their "music" and I've never talked to him since.

 

[Tamura]

First gig was Napalm Death, Obituary and Dismember at the Queens Hall in Bradford in 1992. There's some videos of it online, but the quality sucks since microphones on camcorders weren't too good back then especially when combined with the need to film surreptitiously to avoid trouble with bouncers.

Best gig was probably Sex Dwarf, Svaveldioxid, Honnör SS and Stress SS, Gaki-Fest in Stockholm in 2017. It was a warm-up gig on a Friday night for two bigger gigs on the Saturday and Sunday that lots of international travellers (like me) were in town for, and the venue only held 120 people (officially, but I'm prepared to wager there were plenty more) and there were no pre-sale tickets, so cue lots of elbowing and shoving. Sex Dwarf were on top form.

And for anything thinking the sound quality on that isn't so good, that's how it's supposed to sound.
 

Possibly not worst gig overall, but definitely worst band was Grip Inc at the Dynamo Open Air festival in Eindhoven in 1995. Travelling to festivals in the early internet days was much different, you paid your money to an event company and they sorted out festival tickets and organised a coach and hotels for people that didn't want to camp (me!). I remember getting on the coach at the first stop in Leeds, and the journey to the ferry still sticks in my head to this day. We had further pick-ups in Huddersfield, Halifax, Bury, Manchester, Birmingham and London before finally getting to Dover about nine hours after getting on. But anyway on to the band. Groove metal was in the in thing back then and the band had Dave Lombardo from Slayer on drums, but the crowd absolutely hated them. The Billy Idol wannabe singer didn't help much, and neither did them covering Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones. For reasons they came to regret, the organisers had drinks trays that were a sheet of stiff cardboard with six holes in, that were perfectly aerodynamic and flew through the air like frisbees. They were flying about intermittently during the festival, but when Grip Inc played business picked up somewhat, as you can see on the video at 1:20 onwards (which doesn't quite capture the number of missiles, but it's a decent indicator)

The oranisers learnt from this the next year and the trays were floppy cardboard in a box-type design, no doubt far more expensive to produce but no use whatsoever as missiles.