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Author: Delvin
Date: 08-07-12 13:38
Have you ever seen a live performance that made you decide (even temporarily) never to see that artist/band again, for fear they wouldn't live up to the bar they'd already set?
The thread about Fishbone made me think of this.
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 08-07-12 14:24
Not exactly. In fact, when I see that golden moment, I go see that band as much as I can in the hopes that it comes again.
I have, however, been out during a music festival and seen a performance so good that I went home afterward, sure that nothing I saw afterward would be nearly as amazing, and so I could bathe in the afterglow.
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Author: HollowbodyKay
Date: 08-07-12 15:59
The Rolling Stones. Steel Wheel Tour. They were only going to get more and more geriatric.
Not that the show set any sort of bar based on musical excellence.
They were the Stones. Get yer "meh-meh's" out.
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Author: Jermoe
Date: 08-07-12 16:49
2005 was the last time I saw Steve Forbert. He played Eddie's Attic, an intimate, 150-person capacity "listening room" in Decatur, GA, often credited/blamed with spawning the careers of Shawn Mullins, Sugarland and one John "L. D." Mayer. There was nothing about the show that could be improved upon, and I made a decision to hang up my Steve Forbert spurs that night. Had a similar experience with Peter Case at the same venue a couple of years earlier, too.
On the flip side, the last time I saw Vic Chesnutt a few years back at The 40 Watt in Athens, I decided I didn't want to see him any more because it had become very unpleasant and his continued decline was heartbreaking.
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Author: erikalbany
Date: 08-07-12 21:21
It wasn't intentional to hold on to the moment, but I saw a pretty much perfect Paul Weller gig in NYC during the fall of 1993, right after Wildwood came out in the states. His rare US shows prevented me from seeing him again, and at this point I realize that I wouldn't want to see him in his current incarnation. That point when he was just starting to really soar as a solo performer was the perfect time to see him. (Steve Craddock and Steve White were phenomenal that night as well.) The "Live Wood" album (and video) really captures the raw magic of that tour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFbjXr5YTEk
Post Edited (08-07-12 21:26)
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Author: Jermoe
Date: 08-07-12 21:33
Having given the matter a little more thought, the one and only time I saw The Stone Roses (Atlanta's Music Midtown Festival, May 1995) made me want to punch each and every member of the band. They burned a whole lot of benefit of the doubt/goodwill that night.
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Author: rebelwithoutaclue
Date: 08-08-12 00:25
i saw u2 in 1983
[the alarm opened}. they werent an unknown band at the time but they werent monster artists either. you knew they were on the verge of being too big to play a smaller venue. since then my friends constantly had a extra ticket to see u2 and i never went.
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Author: Aitch
Date: 08-08-12 07:03
Echo & The Bunnymen just after Heaven Up Here came out. They were my favourite band at the time and I saw 'em 3 times in a week. Sunnyboys were the support at the big theatre gig which was a bonus. It's still one of my greatest weeks in rock and I've mentioned it here too many times (sorry). They've been out a couple more times but no way was I ever going.
On the flip-side, the Leonard Cohen show a few years back was brilliant. When he toured here again less than 2 years later, it was basically the same show (right down to the banter) but the touring had made his voice a lot stronger and it was an even better show. Tossing Avalanche into the mix helped, too. I know quite a few people that gave the second show a miss because the first was so perfect so I guess it can work both ways.
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Author: HollowbodyKay
Date: 08-08-12 08:49
Quote:
Having given the matter a little more thought, the one and only time I saw The Stone Roses (Atlanta's Music Midtown Festival, May 1995) made me want to punch each and every member of the band. They burned a whole lot of benefit of the doubt/goodwill that night.
Remove that debut LP from their oeuvre and you'd be forgiven for not giving a rat's ass about that band. And yet, there are still naysayers who'll wonder what's so special about it. Look at the rest of their recorded work! By all rights that debut should stink on ice.
I'm reminded of the old Steve Martin bit about the Mona Lisa being painted with one stroke of the brush.
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Author: erikalbany
Date: 08-08-12 10:27
"the one and only time I saw The Stone Roses (Atlanta's Music Midtown Festival, May 1995) made me want to punch each and every member of the band."
You were lucky (echoing the Four Yorkshiremen skit from Monty Python). I saw Ian Brown solo in the summer of 2000. Absolutely horrendous.
Started out like karaoke, with him only singing to a backing track. Then the "band" came on, consisting of guitarist, drummer, and an individual on synth/keys (no bass player). It was so awful--and the band kept having technical difficulties, waving at the sound booth so much that I thought it was part of their stage moves. And notice that amid all of the other shortcomings I haven't yet had a chance to mention Brown's voice. (I've used "horrendous" and "awful"--what's left?)
Oh, I forgot--he closed with "Billie Jean." Yes, the Michael Jackson song. And a debacle of a rendition at that (punctuated with a moonwalk--even that wasn't good).
Post Edited (08-08-12 10:29)
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Author: HollowbodyKay
Date: 08-08-12 10:44
Quote:
You were lucky. I saw Ian Brown solo in the summer of 2000. Absolutely horrendous.
Ah! Sheer luxury! We used to DREAM about getting to see Ian Brown solo!
We used to have to sit through Dee Dee King rehearsals after which we'd be forced to listen to bootlegs of Richard Marx covering "Freebird." Then, our Dad would lull us to sleep with all four sides of Tales From Topographic Oceans! If we were lucky!
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Author: Delvin
Date: 08-08-12 10:58
You laugh, Kay ... but a date took me to see Richard Marx once. "Freebird" would've been a relief: his band desecrated "Layla" that night. (Yes, I did do it all for the nookie.)
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Author: zoo
Date: 08-08-12 14:17
I saw Fishbone on 'The Reality of My Surroundings" tour in Miami Beach at the Cameo Theater. It was insanely good...probably the best show I've ever seen.
I should have quit then, but I didn't. I saw them w/ Lollapalooza a few years later after Kendall left. They were OK, but not much more than that. I can be forgiven for that one since I didn't exactly set out to see Fishbone that day.
The next year, though, they came through Gainesville when I was a senior at UF. I should have skipped the show, but I was convinced by a friend to go. It was pretty lame, and the band stormed off the stage in disgust when campus security prohibited the audience from moshing.
To someone's point in the Economist thread about Fishbone and weed...they were already going there back in '94. I hadn't followed them in years when I checked out their website around 2002 or so and saw it was all about weed. It's sad--in my mind, at least--that that became such a focus for them. I could care less if anyone wants to smoke it, it just ain't my cup of tea as a fan when that becomes such a large part of a group's image and message.
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 08-08-12 14:28
I saw an issue of High Times several years ago on which Angelo appeared wearing overalls made of hemp, with a bunch of buds stuffed in his saxophone. Symbolic of a change of focus, perhaps?
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Author: erikalbany
Date: 08-08-12 15:22
When it comes to pot-smoking and producing music over the long term, I would point to the example of Lee "Scratch" Perry. I mean, if that cat decided that it was time to go teetotal, then the rest of the stoner musicians might want to take note.
Having grown up (at an early age) in communes and around growers and dealers, I'm convinced that potheads are generally boring and dull-witted (except to themselves and each other). It's the only drug that could convince millions that the Grateful Dead are anything other than a mediocre bar band.
Take the example of Lee Perry, Angelo. Quit the weed and move to Switzerland.
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Author: HollowbodyKay
Date: 08-08-12 15:53
Quote:
It's the only drug that could convince millions that the Grateful Dead are anything other than a mediocre bar band.
How true.
Fact: I've never been anywhere where the Dead's music was being played where the people playing it weren't stoned out of their minds.
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Author: M. Johnson
Date: 08-08-12 15:56
Quote:
I'm convinced that potheads are generally boring and dull-witted
Hey! I may be boring and dull-witted, but I am not... wait, what's the third thing you said?
I spent last year as a pothead and learned that I am unlike most of them. I hate sitting in a room being stoned. I've got to be outside walking, walking, walking. Walking for hours, with a great selection of music on my headphones. Paying attention to how different everything sounds and looks.
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Author: Delvin
Date: 08-08-12 16:42
Fishbone set the bar pretty high, as an opening act two years in a row — for the Femmes in '85 and the Chili Peppers in '86. Two of the most awesome double-bills ever, in fact. The band was a letdown at Lollapalooza a few years later, but I chalked that up to weak new material.
A few years after that, though, Fishbone was booked at a small club in Colorado Springs. OMG, was that show ever off the hook. The club happened to have several catwalks over the dance floor, which Angelo and the boys took full advantage of. A dizzying, unforgettable dose of mayhem.
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Author: hoip chiggs
Date: 08-08-12 16:48
Just wondering if it's those same exact potheads who took an okay movie like The Big Lebowski and turned it into a cult phenomenon.
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Author: satchmykels
Date: 08-08-12 21:00
Delvin wrote:
> Have you ever seen a live performance that made you decide
> (even temporarily) never to see that artist/band again, for
> fear they wouldn't live up to the bar they'd already set?
>
I walked out on Otto's Chemical Lounge once because I felt there was NO way the last few minutes of the show could possibly surpass what they'd already done that night. I like to think they did manage to top themselves and that I averted an early death by overdose of awesome. ;)
Haven't seen them since but that was merely an issue of proximity rather than a conscious decision.
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Author: MrFab
Date: 08-09-12 12:25
Brian Eno said he listened to a Velvet Underground once after it came out, then gave it away. He didn't want anything to sulley the experience.
I did that with Coltrane's "OHM." Poured meself a drink, turned out the lights, blasted the album, filed it away, and haven't pulled it out since.
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Author: Delvin
Date: 08-09-12 17:11
Wow ... That's purity of essence, folks. An album so pure that it can be heard only once. I guess all my most beloved touchstone albums — from Q: Are We Not Men? to Remain in Light, from The Joshua Tree to Lodger — are cheap, tawdry trash. Wait, that would include For Your Pleasure ... Shit, it'd include Here Come the Warm Jets too.
Oh well, I can tell that he's kind of smiling, But what does he know? We're always one step behind him; he's Brian Eno.
Best believe I'm talkin' 'bout Brian Peter George Saint John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno. That's right, muthafuckahs.
Post Edited (08-09-12 17:15)
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Author: HollowbodyKay
Date: 08-10-12 08:55
Quote:
Brian Peter George Saint John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno
Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo says "hello."
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Author: Delvin
Date: 08-10-12 11:10
> Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo says "hello."
What band was he in?
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Author: HollowbodyKay
Date: 08-10-12 23:24
Quote:
What band was he in?
Wasn't it the ...
... All-American Rejects?
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Edited to add:
Of course, in keeping with the original topic, that Denver Nuggets upset of the Seattle Supersonics (RIP) certainly counts as a performance so incredible that it's caused me to skip all subsequent chances to view a Nuggets game.
They never did top that performance ... did they?
Post Edited (08-10-12 23:46)
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