The Best Performance

[Stress Puppy]

Bright Eyes at the 9:30 Club

The entire night consisted of various portions of his band playing, though it was actually 3 bands total. It started with The Bruces, a nice little indy band with decent songs. Then moved on to a band who's name I can't recall and consisted of a guy with a guitar mostly. It was beautiful music. Then Bright Eyes came on, which actually consists of Conor Oberst, with whomever he gets to play with at the time. This time it was a 14 piece orchestra. The show was one of the most energetically charged shows I've seen in my entire life.

If you're into any kind of Indy music, I highly suggest getting some Bright Eyes stuff.

[verbatim]

3 years ago, Dave Matthews Band at the Hersheypark Stadium. Particularly "Crush" as the best. Before all this new-dmb bullshit.

[Undertoad]

I forgot about Yes at the Hersheypark Stadium. The 90125 tour. Now that was a fine show.

[jeni]

Nine Inch Nails, Merriweather Post Pavillion, 5/12/2000.

ditto.

[frankPOOR]

I've been to (roughly) 500 rock concerts, 250 theatrical performances and 100 Opera performances and have fond memories of many of those evenings. Nevertheless, I'll be as concise as possible.

Best Rock performances:

I saw my first rock concert on 6/13 (Friday the 13th) 1975. The Beach Boys and Chicago. The first tour for Brian Wilson in many years. This show is not really on the list, but as my first ever concert, it set the standard for all the shows to come...and it was a great show!

The first truly great show I saw was on 3/10/76 (two weeks short of my 17th birthday). The WHO at Madison Square Garden. It was only 1 hour and 45 minutes long (because Keith Moon's life was falling apart at the time), but he and his mates kept it together...and even came out for a (two song) encore, when almost no one had left a full half-hour after the lights had come on.

I had a third row ticket to see Bruce Springsteen at the NY Palladium (now an NYU dorm), a 2000 seat theatre on the "Born to Run" tour (10/30/76). It was an intimate glimpse into the life and troubled times of a man who would soon be his state's favorite son. He played a song you won't find on any of his albums..."It's My Life". Not a remake of the Eric Burden tune, more of a re-working of it. He told story after story about how his old man did everything in his power to try to convince Bruce he was wasting his time with that "God dammed guitar" finally building to the powerful refrain..."It's my life and I'll do what I want". The playing of that one song is a personal touchstone in my life.

But that show (one song aside) is not the best I saw Bruce. The Palladium show was only 2 1/2 hours long. The show I would see (one of three) on the River Tour on 12/19/80 would be the one I'll remember best. Over four hours long! We stumbled out well after 1 AM. Bruce was carried from the stage by two women dressed as nurses.

By this time I was going to see several show a week, sometimes two or more on the same night. The best night ever. Halloween 1981. I saw DEVO at Radio City, went to a party, then Zappa at the Palladium late show.

Since my "glory days"...the early eighties I've seen two shows worth mentioning.

A "Private" Michael Jackson concert (it was at the Garden but billed as a private show since it was a benefit for the United Negro College Fund...and all the other shows were at 50,000 + seat stadiums) on the "Bad" tour 3/3/1988. I don't care a damm about his personal life...the kid can sing and dance. And this was about ten times better than the "Victory" tour a few years earlier, where he toured with his brothers.

But my favorite band of all time is not one you'll find on the play list of a classic rock station. I think the best band of all time is PEARL JAM. I was at one of the shows at Randall's Island, but I knew very few songs at the time so I couldn't really appreciate it. The fifth time I saw them, 9/13/98 at the Meadows Music Theatre in Hartford. They played a great show, and then for the encore, they played a song they had only played once (the night before actually) since the night Kurt Cobain died, "Breath". After they played it, Eddie Vedder, pissed off by the lousy attitude of the security guards, incited us to rush the stage...which I found myself doing (as the band played "Alive"). I'll always remember how I left one guard sprawled out behind me with nothing more than a head fake. Then as the band played my favorite song, PORCH, I realized tears were streaming down my face. It was the most emotion I had displayed in public in a decade.

Like the man said..."This could be the day..."

Best Theatrical Performance Drama:

A revival of O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night". Jason Robards, Colleen Durhurst, and (her son with George C. Scott...playing her son), Cambell Scott. Directed by Jose' Quinton. I saw it like ten years ago, but it haunts me to this day.

Musical:

Mathew Broderick and Sara Jessica Parker in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". Three or four years ago. Much better than "The Producers".

Opera:

Joan Southerland and Alfrado Kraus in "Lucia di Lamamore" at the Met. The late eighties I think. The Opera Club were showering her with so many bouquets after her encore for "the mad scene", she literally reached out of the air and grabbed one and waved it at us. I had to stop telling people I saw this when I drove them to the Opera (I use to drive a taxi). They would get angry and not leave a tip. Some people can be so petty.


Sports:

Compared to other events, I've seen very few live sports events, but I did see one championship awarded...to Jimmy Connors, at the US Open, 1982 over the hated Ivan Lendel.

[warch]

Holy crap he was good. A couple thousand people and one guy with a mic and a bottle of water. He killed us. At the end of the set my stomach, face, and head all hurt from laughing so hard. Punch (line) drunk.