Favorite concert you ever attended?

For me there were two, one Rock, one Jazz. The former was in June of 1967 in Monterey, CA while the other a few years earlier on the other coast, in Newport in 1962. I made another run back up to NY in 1964 for the World's Fair (and spent most of the day at the Philippines' pavilion sampling free San Miguel) and we made the 1964 NJF again but it wasn't as impressive as the 1962 one.So what were your favorites?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Jimmy Buffet at Riverbend in Cincinatti is great every year but seeing Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys on a glorious summer night, playing from a makeshift stage in a field was the single greatest.

I never went to many, but Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen were the warmup for the Jefferson Airplane in Akron, Ohio, summer 1972. The former was great and JA sucked. We left early and got tear-gassed by the cops in the parking lot. Did you ever try to use the lug wrench to short across the solenoid of a Volkswagen so it would start with tears streaming down your face?Memories.......

At Ravinia in the summer of 2000. Larry Combs played the Mozart Clarinet Concerto accompanied by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.It was a special event because Larry Combs used the Basset extended clarinet instead of the regular A clarinet. Mozart originally wrote the piece intended for a basset clarinet. However, the design was lost about a century after Mozart's death and people just started playing it on the A clarinet. Because the basset clarinet can go down as far as the low C it sometimes sounds awkward to a trained ear if you listen to it being played on the A.Larry Combs had the basset clarinet made especially for him so he could perform it in its original version (well... actually the original version was lost so Larry Combs had to do some guess work to make the piece sound like what Mozart had intended it to sound).If there weren't too many people around, I would have broken down and cried. It was sooooo good! Larry Combs had such a unique and wonderful sound. In fact, he is currently a world leading clarinetist.I later heard an interview on the radio. Larry Combs said that he first approached the problem of trying to fix the concerto to make it make more sense about a decade earlier. What he noticed was that there were many instances where it just doesn't make any sense at all. So, he began to put the pieces of the puzzle together to recreate the piece. The result was a much better sounding concerto that did a lot more justice to Mozart.------------------------------------------------There was actually another concert that was just as great. That time, I actually had some tears coming out of my eyes.Chicago Symphony Hall in 2002. Pianist Lang Lang was playing the Rachmaninov Second Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony. Man was he good!!The concerto have been accused many times by music critics as being overly sensitive. I first heard the concerto when I was driving in the badlands of Kentucky on the radio in 1999. Although I was only catch the second part of it, it was so good that I had to stop at a rest area and enjoyed the music. I quickly picked up the emotion that was written into the concerto by Rachmaninov and began to cry. The recording was actually made by pianist Van Cliburn with the Chicago Symphony conducted by the legendary Fritz Reiner. Because of such sensitivity that was going on in the piece, I decided to do a research into the piece.Rachmaninov started out his career as a pianist in Russia at a very young age. According to his journals, although he had always yearned to be a composer, he thought that he had neither the talent nor the will to immerse himself into composing music. As a result, he spent much of his early years as a pianist performing for various parts in concerts, musicals, and ballets. At the age of twenty-five, he began composing a piece for the first time. At first Rachmaninov was reluctant to perform what he has composed, questioning how people would react to it and how it would reflect himself as a composer. As was best reflected by his comment many years later, When the coughing increases, I leave out the next variation. If there is no coughing, I play them in order ... The record so far is 18 variations. Following the urge of his friends, Rachmaninov premiered his Prelude in C-sharp Minor in 1892 in Moscow and, to his surprise, was met with great success. This success was short lived, however. His premier of his First Symphony was a great failure as the composer/conductor hardly had any applause at all. This disaster quickly put Rachmaninov in a deep depression, one that he was unable to recover from for many years. In 1897 the composer made an attempt to recover from his recent failure and premiered his First Piano Concerto. Again, he was frustrated with failure as many of the audience members began to leave in the middle of the piece. This undoubtedly put him into a deeper state of depression and he was unable to compose anything for four three years.After four years of doing little to no performances and failing attempts at writing music, Rachmaninov wrote the Second Piano Concerto. Despite his good friend’s urge to do a performance on the piece, Rachmaninov remained hesitant to hold a concert. After many months of his friend’s insistence, Rachmaninov finally agreed to do a performance of the concerto. The concert was a great success and quickly gave Rachmaninov great fame throughout Europe.Anyway, now you know a little more about classical music in the romantic era.This message has been edited by Lam, 12-14-2004 10:04 PM

For me a favourite concert is like a favourite piece of music - I have several different 'types' of favourite.I saw Pink Floyd - still with Roger Waters - perform The Wall at Earls Court in London twice ('80 and '81). Those shows stand out in my mind as the most profound concert experience I've ever had.Probably the most exciting and fun concert I can remember is John Cougar Mellancamp at Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa in 1988. It was just one of those nights when I was with a great group of friends, the band was brilliant and it was just great entertainment from start to finish. 10cc at the De Montfort Hall in Leicester in '76 runs it pretty close.Alternatively there was Genesis at Knebworth in the summer of '78. Not so much for the quality of any of the bands but more because it was the first open air festival I had been to (which was something I'd wanted to do for a while but couldn't afford it). Like they say, you never forget the first time.Finally there's the "what the Hell was I thinking" favourite. I'd been seeing in the New Year of 1982 with a friend who lived in London. We both got massively drunk and slept well into the afternoon. When we finally surfaced we decided we'd go see a band that night. We were in London - there's always plenty of gigs to choose from, we're bound to be able to find something laid back and mellow to soothe our hangovers we thought. The only band that we could get tickets for - Black Sabbath ! Trust me, this is not the best way to cure a major hangover

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Confused ? You will be...

I realize I am digressing, but Lam, I am from Kentucky. What part are you refferring to as the badlands?

Haha. Sorry for referring to it that way. I close close to Paduka (sp?) Kentucky. The reason I referred to it as badlands is because it was probably the most boring state I have ever been to. Hehe. Even in Paduka, there was one street where everything was and that was it.

Ah, Paducah. The far west of my fair state. Flat, uninteresting absolutely devoid of character.You need to come to the east, to the glorious highlands of the Appalachians.It's a local thing, but you would be well recieved. Everyone would assume you're a doctor.

tool.the only rock show i have ever been to that took on the guise of a religious experience. the atmosphere was like they say doors or led zeppelin concerts were like, only less drugs. everybody danced.it was magic. brennakimi can vouch for it too, she was there.

Huh?

I went with some friends to Red Rocks Ampitheatre in Morrison, Colorado to see a Grateful dead concert. My friends were nuts about this band, and I was mildly curious. we secured some wine coolers and I watched a mellow audience of Deadheads and their bizarre yet friendly rituals. Hacky Sacks, Bad Trips, Good soapbubble trips, funky tyedie and everything in between! The concert was delayed because it started to rain. The band came out and played their weird music. I never really liked it and I was annoyed that a guy had cut in front of me on the rail. I was about to fight him, but i was so worked up that I feared a bad scene. Moving to the side, I began to mimic the dancing whirling dervishes. Soon, I became entranced with the dancing and forgot all about my anger problem. The energy was felt and was possessive. I had a darn good time overall, but I never turned into a DeadHead!

The majority of Asian people we get in the mountains are physicians. I said it was a local joke.

I haven't really been to a lot of concerts, but the one that sticks out the most was probably Pantera and White Zombie about 10 years ago. I saw them in a small theatre in Reno and they were both at their best.A couple of years ago I went to see James Taylor in an outdoor arena. It rained and thundered and it was still a lot of fun.

Beck at Northwestern. It was maybe a 400 person show; he spent about five minutes between each song chatting with the audience.

Once when I was an undergrad at the University of Kentucky, I was dating a girl on the student government concert committee. Johnny Cash played a show there. I got to watch from backstage (due to my abject begging for her to let me) and meet the man in black. Hell of a show and a nice guy.