BEST LIVE PERFORMANCES
I’d like to hear about some of the best live performances you guys have seen. I’ve experienced a lot of
great concerts, but two of them seem to stand out—King Crimson’s Lark’s Tongues tour ( the warm-up
act was Gentle Giant), and Jethro Tull’s Aqualung tour (the warm-up act was Yes).
December 9th, 2005 at 10:10 am
Oh boy, that’s kind of a hard one. Have to think about it. Off the top of my head:
Martin Sexton
The New Pornographers (with Neko Case)
The Magic Numbers (just recently)
The Pernice Brothers
Ben Folds (solo at the piano)
Nine Inch Nails with David Bowie
The Decemberists (January this year)
December 10th, 2005 at 12:48 am
CSN at Frontier City Ampitheatre
And if anyone ever finds a cassette tape marked that way, there is a reward!
December 10th, 2005 at 1:18 am
I saw CSN at the OKC Zoo Amphitheater once and they threw an excellent
concert. They did Wind On The Water complete with Crosby’s madrigal vocal
intro and I was in awe.
December 10th, 2005 at 2:36 pm
Moody Blues at the now defunct OU fieldhouse.
Jethro Tull Civic Center OKC (Yes opening act)
Leon Russell OKC Fairgrounds arena.
You’re askin’ for people to give their age, right?
December 11th, 2005 at 10:28 am
Giving this more thought, there are a couple of more I would include.
Rolling Stones Ft. Worth Convention Center (1972?)
J. Geils Band OKC Fairgrounds Arena
December 13th, 2005 at 9:06 pm
My picks for best shows of major acts consider performance, material, sound quality, and my mood at the time. Unfortunately most of the shows I went to in Oklahoma fail in the sound quality category. The one Oklahoma show that really stands out is the ELP “Black Moon” concert at the Brady Theater in Tulsa. They were really on that night. Wow! The sound was pristine. As usual, Keith stabbed and tortured his B3. I believe that was shortly before he got his wrists chopped open. (ouch!)
My other fave is the Yes “The Ladder” concert at the The Paramount in Seattle. Unfortunately no Wakeman, but what a scene. Steve Howe was churning out the good stuff!
December 14th, 2005 at 9:00 am
Trey Gunn at the OK Hotel. What a dive, but incredibly inspiring. Decent sound for a dumpy club.
Trilok Gurtu (David Torn opening act) in Ballard. (Why can I not think of the name of the club?)
(distant third) Rush at the Gorge, 1996. Finally, a Rush show with good sound quality.
Jek saw the first two. I was at the ELP show he nominated, and it was good (and sounded absolutely great).
December 14th, 2005 at 12:31 pm
Oh yeah! Those were awesome performances. Please add them to my list. Trilok and Torn were at the New World, which is no longer. Thanks HuskySooner for the reminding me of those shows!
December 14th, 2005 at 2:15 pm
Of all the concerts I’ve attended over the years, and that’s been quite a few, as will be shown in future posts, this is the one that impressed me the most, although the first concert I saw of Devo gives it a close run for first……
As the ticket states, this was “A Special Evening with Neil Young”….. No opening act, no band, just Neil Young…. On stage, when the lights came up, were nothing but a chair, an acoustic guitar, a full-size piano with bench, a few mikes, and Neil Young….. For the next hour or so, he went through most of his earlier catalog with either the guitar or piano and playing the harp (harmonica) parts with the harp in a rack that sits around your neck…. This in itself was worth more than the price of admission, as he performed acoustic versions of his songs that I had only heard on “bootleg” albums….. But, the night was long from being over….
After this opening set, a 30-45 minute intermission occurred with CSN&Y songs being played over the PA system….. When the lights came up for the second set, the stage was crowded with electronic equipment – drum machines, sequenced synthesizers, large tape decks, voice synthesizers, and lots of unidentifiable foot pedals, etc., etc….. And, of course, Neil Young, alone, no back-up band, just Neil…..
At this time he went through the entire “Trans” album, playing the guitar parts, using a headset for the synthesized voicing, and running around the stage starting and stopping all this electronic equipment in sync with the music at the same time….. If you closed your eyes, you would swear there were at least 6-10 people performing on that stage….. As you know, in 1983, any kind of computer capable of handling this level of sophistication of control didn’t exist, or at least not in any portable format….. Neil was way ahead of his time and I still wonder to this day how he accomplished such a feat….. Maybe I’ll get the chance to ask him one of these days…..
December 15th, 2005 at 10:33 am
Sorry, Ttop, but I don’t have any info on the concerts you list…. You just don’t see those groups in Oklahoma, but, concerning J.J.’s comment #2…… Does this ring a bell?:
Seems to me you were accompanied by two others, and the group found a hill located behind the concessions stands, and there was something about a couple of cutie-pies, and someone had a tape recorder, but, I wouldn’t know anything about the whole affair…. or do I?…. Just how much is that reward anyway?……
December 15th, 2005 at 1:39 pm
I have always been a huge Neil Young fan. His first four solo albums are among my favorites. I don’t remember being aware of this concert. I saw Neil in 1973 (right after the Myriad Convention Center was built). Linda Rondstadt was the warm up act.
Was terribly disappointed with Neil. He appeared on stage, carrying a half empty bottle of tequila, sat down at the piano & gave a truly drunken, sucky performance. Although I was (am) into Yes, King Crimson, etc., I thought the Trans album was a little too far “artistic” for a Neil Young album (May have to pull out the old turntable so I can listen to it again). However, I still buy Neils’ CD’s & DVD’s.
Thanks, MR for starting this thread. Is very interesting, indeed.
December 15th, 2005 at 3:23 pm
I like Trans myself. Unfortunately the CD release has an alternate take of “Sample and Hold”. The original version released on LP is far superior. I wonder what brain was behind that.? There is plenty of room on the CD for both versions.
Actually Randalf started this thread. Thanks be to him.
December 15th, 2005 at 6:11 pm
Speaking of Randalf and his comment #3, does this look familiar?:
I wonder if Randalf would be interested in hearing that concert again?….. Just to see if he is still in awe of the performance of CSN that night…… I might know of an excellent recording of this concert which includes the song he mentions (Wind on the Water), an unreleased David Crosby song called A Thousand Roads up the Mountain, a version of The Beatles Drive My Car, A version of Midnight Rider, and the best of CSN and CSN&Y songs….. Almost 3 hours in all…. It was a great concert…. I was there…..
December 15th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
$12.75, $15, $19. Yea, those were the days, huh?
December 15th, 2005 at 7:06 pm
What a chubby Oklahoma in that CSN Zoo ticket.
December 16th, 2005 at 1:26 am
Randalf certainly WOULD be interested in hearing that CSN concert again. I hadn’t been
overly impressed with any of their live recordings, beginning with Woodstock, so I went
to that show with fairly low expectations. Then, I was just blown away. If I’m remembering
correctly, they had an excellent band with two keyboard players, but I don’t remember the
names of any of those musicians. Maybe MR could enlighten me. That wasn’t Nicky Hopkins on
piano, was it ? Anyway, the vocal harmony was so crisp and on-the-money that those boys
must have been reasonably sober.
December 16th, 2005 at 8:11 am
On the CSN Zoo concert, they did do “Band Intros”, unfortunately Nicky Hopkins wasn’t on piano, but there were two keyboardists….. Here’s the line-up for that night:
DAVID CROSBY – Vocals, Guitar
STEPHEN STILLS – Vocals, Lead Guitar
GRAHAM NASH – Vocals, Guitar
Tim Ballard – Keyboards
Machito Sanchez – Percussion
Michael Finnigan – Hammond B-3 Organ
Orbey Talman – Bass
Joe Barbetella – Drums
The concert was part of their “Live It Up” Live World Tour 1990….. This concert certainly blew away the Frontier City concert (Sorry J.J.), where Crosby was definitely not sober….. I’ve located those cassettes and will listen to them today to check the quality….. Randalf, e-mail me your current address and let me know if your e-mail address has changed and we’ll see what we can do….. Keep this under wraps though, ya know, “Loose Lips Cause Bad Trips” (is that how that goes?)…. Oh, well….
December 16th, 2005 at 12:15 pm
I may beat you guys for oldest. I havent been to many concerts over the years. The one that I remember the most was Ray Charles in the 50’s. Just Ray and his big band. No lights, nothing, just Ray. The crowd was black and white which was something then. And the music was great.
December 17th, 2005 at 1:36 am
anon,
What was the location of that Ray Charles concert ?
In 1965, my friend Roger talked me into catching James Brown & The Famous Flames at the
Civic Center Music Hall in OKC. I never felt so fish-belly white in my life. There may
have been a few other whites in attendance, but I didn’t see any. But our brothers and
sisters of color made us feel quite welcome, and the Godfather of Soul put on a monumental
performance, including the classic Please, Please, Please bit where he breaks down and
falls to his knees exhausted, then as his roadies or valets or whatever are helping him
off the stage, he gets a second (and third and fourth) wind and turns to run and dance
back to the mic. Also, the sight of Soul Brother # 1 spinning and sliding across that
stage under a strobe light is indelibly etched into this old brain–I saw a lot of bands
use a strobe light back in the day, but none as effectively as he did. Now, if you’ll
excuse me, I’m going to go watch Eddie Murphy’s parody of James–HOT TUB !
December 17th, 2005 at 4:40 pm
R.G.,
Talk about fish belly white, up here in the greater N.W. we look like lutefisk. I tried to blend in at the Ray concert. Didn’t work. Same experience you had at Brown concert. A few of us lutefisks but made to feel welcome. Its all about the music. That was at some auditorium in Tacoma WA. What, never heard of it? Ray used to play the clubs in Seattle and next door in Tacoma. Tacoma also had a big heroin scene. May have had something to do with it.
December 17th, 2005 at 6:50 pm
Randalf, we musta went to all the same concerts, but somehow managed not to run into (or over) each other…… I was at that James Brown concert with my older brother…. Wow, that’s weird….. Small world (Well, small Oklahoma!)….. I saw Ray Baby in the ’70’s, and also caught Elvis, Little Richard, B.B. King with Bobby Blue Bland, and Chuck Berry in the 70’s…..
December 18th, 2005 at 9:48 pm
I definately remember Frontier City, It was Me, you, Jek, and Booker. I seem to remember at the time that we said that the FC show was better than the 1st Zoo show? Didn’t we go to 2 Zoo shows? I seem to remember we saw them 3 years in a row. I was looking and cannot find my stubs you must have them.The 1st year at the Zoo didn’t it rain just before the show? I will contact you on the side about (Shhhh.)