Favourite Gig

[Guest]

What was your favourite ever live gig?

I'll opt for the Cocteau Twins, London Town & Country Club 1990. They'd just released "Heaven or Las Vegas", but insisted on playing mostly tracks from "Bluebell Knoll" instead. They played about an hour, and then came back for the most perfunctory of encores. The crowd was livid. The tension in the hall was electric. You had to be there.

Apparently it's available as a bootleg CD... if only I could find where to buy it.

[Surrealist]

thats way too tough - it's like asking a favourite album

1. meat beat manifesto - the venue, 1992 - jack dangers before he took mbm to america - the crowd was a weird mixture of rockers with their pints and ravers - the tour shirt said "i am a zombie" - they were still using this wall of rack-mounted weirdness that glowed and took up one half of the stage (jack bought it off phil oakey)

2. 808 state - last date on the Gorgeous tour, 1993 (i think) - they played for hours to a home crowd (manchester) - barney sumner was in the crowd trying to get noticed - people had home-made 808 state shirts - it was wild

3. a night of v/vm cabaret in the attic (cowgate), 1999 - utter madness which caused a lot of people to walk out - and they had just got NME's "single of the week" for a minced up version of lionel ritchie, recorded by loin el glitchie - also the v/vm gig which was so loud they shook dirt out of the ceiling tiles - it was raining ash inside the club - there were chunks of stuff falling into peoples drinks

4. i was at aphex twin's first gig. it's just a shame that the club (subterania in london) sound system was about as powerful as a BISCUIT TIN

that's my favourite gig - all 5 of them.

what about worst gigs too - and gigs where the support kicked ass and the main event sucked ass? or gigs where you just got bored and left?

i guess it's the price you pay - i'm just not sure it's worth damaging your hearing at bad gigs on the off chance that they might be good - i have been to far too many %^$£ gigs.

[Guest]

thats way too tough - it's like asking a favourite album

Damn! That was my next question...

Worst gig -- Sonic Youth, same venue, a year or two earlier. The keyboard player(?) did a solo support set, very avant-garde, very loud, and kept shouting for the f***ing spotlight to be turned off. Again, the crowd hated it. Great gig. Then Sonic Youth came on. Big disappointment. The songs all sounded the same. I walked out, got chatting with a guy at the tube station who had done the same, and went to the pub. That weekend, I read in NME that Iggy Pop had joined them on stage for the encore, and that it was the best ever... Bother

Worst gig -- Second candidate. Michael Gira's SWANS, the Astoria. They were LOUD. I was at the back of the hall. At the front of the hall, there was a big gap immediately in front of the stage. I walked forward. Big mistake. The space was in front of the bass bins. Felt physically sick. Didn't regret leaving that gig early.

Third candidate -- Psychic TV, secret gig, Stoke Newington Town Hall. Dull, dull, dull. All improvised. No focus, just aimless doodling. At the end of the gig, they apologised they couldn't play longer due to council regulations. This from the wreckers of civilisation. Took me hours to get home. Wasn't worth the bother.

How did I get onto this? I want to celebrate great music... not slag it off.

Okay, another great gig -- The Fall, The Venue, Aberdeen. This Nation's Saving Grace tour. I hated the band, was only dragged along by a friend. Brilliant. I was leaning on the stage, so close I could read the set list. Every song rocked. At each encore, the band had to walk through the crowd (there was no backstage). I danced so hard my cardigan fell off.

[Hell's Cat]

Well don't know if I would say it was the best or the worst but it was certainly memorable.
Marc Bolan at the Apollo in Glasgow in 1973 or was is 1972?
Didn't hear a lot of the music over screaming teenagers!

[Guest]

I was a huge Bolan fan as well. At one time his posters completely covered my bedroom walls. The Slider was one of my very first purchases and remains one of my favourites albums.

Fave gig - The Scars at the Netherbow a long time ago and The Rezillos last ever gigs in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

[Guest]

I never saw the Rezillos but I saw the Revillos once at Aberdeen University Students Union. Sadly not a very memorable occasion. I'm too young to have seen Bolan live (sorry for the dig! not often I get to say it) but I did see T-Rextasy live in Glasgow last year - excellent gig, and a great atmosphere from the audience.

[paulw]

Probably not the same taste as you guys but AC/DC in glasgow 2002 was amazing. They basically played their greatet hits.

Worst gig has to be Ice-T with bodycount at the Livingston Forum (1993 i think, could be wrong.) Although the Exploited supported them who were pretty good.

[Guest]

No problem with AC/DC Paul. I've never seen them live but I have a couple of their albums.

The Exploited supporting Ice-T? That must have been fairly surreal. You do mean http://www.newmusic.net/exploited/listen.html don't you?

Cool.

[paulw]

Yes the very same Explioted!

Bodycount was an attempt by Ice-T to get into the rock/heavy metal market. They were ok but nothing special.

The reason The Exploited were involved was due to a collaboration on the soundtrack for the '93 film Judgement Night (starring Emilio Estevez and Denis Leary among others.) Very good film and soundtrack. Ice-T and Slayer produced a song called Disorder which i think comprises of three exploited songs run together into one.

The gig almost descended into a riot between a group of hardline punks and the 7 foot giant that played guitar for Ice-T.

Very surreal.

[Skeely]

The first gig I went to was Motörhead at the Capitol in Aberdeen. It must have been 1980. I had a freshly sewn Motörhead patch on my denim jacket (rebelliously ignoring my Gran's advice that I wouldn't be allowed in to the Capitol without a tie). I don't think I've been to anything since that surpassed the excitement of hundreds of teenage boys storming past the bouncers to mosh at the front when they came on. The volume was incredible. In the programme, Lemmy was quoted as saying he wasn't worried about what the gigging volume would do to his hearing, because he'd be soon be rich enough to buy new ears. Coool.

Tom Waits at the Edinburgh Playhouse in the mid 80's comes a close second. Or maybe PJ Harvey at Glasonbury.

[Guest]

I saw Hawkwind at the Aberdeen Capitol on the Choose Your Masques tour... well cool! They had a bank of TVs behind them showing computer graphics. Until the program crashed, and then half the TVs just showed code scrolling down the screen.

That was my first "adult" gig. Bucks Fizz at the Caird Hall, Dundee, doesn't count.

[bellybabe]

The first gig I went to was Motörhead at the Capitol in Aberdeen.

That must have been great! My big brothers were into Motorhead so i grew up loving it. Favourite gig was Metallica (before they split and reformed) i think, although i passinately loved a local band called Bubblefrenzi who were very weird and very sexy... travelled all over Derbyshire and Yorkshire to see them in dodgy pubs... Simple Minds were great live. Support was rubbish - sound system was terrible until SM came on.

[Porty]

A tough question as there have been so many gigs. I believe that answers to questions like this one should be demanded instantly. The knee jerk pressure secures the true answer. (My next door neighbour's idea originally)

If I apply this theory to myself then its May 16th 1981 Bruce Springsteen and the ESB at the Edinburgh Playhouse, The River. Favourite Album is: Aja by Steely Dan. Favourite Single: Kiss by Prince.

I waited 23 Years for a serious challenger to the above show and I got it at Radiohead in the SECC last November. I had seen them before but this was something else. Its kind of sad but Neil Young is the only one left on my wish list.

Anyone like the Counting Crows?