Best Concert You Saw This Year ?
 

This board seems to have a lot of concert goers and Im sure you all went to a lot this year. I went to my most ever (17) in one year this year. But what was everyone's favorite show?

Mine was The Meat Puppets 9/5/07 in northampton,MA. I've always loved this band and they were amazing live. They played for over 2 hrs, played some of their classic material from II, Up On The Sun and Too High To Die and mixed in some new ones and great country covers. Curt Kirkwood went out on this unbelievable extended solos during the show like Hendrix acid rock style and it blew me away.

It was a tie between:

Acid Mothers Guru Guru, Triple Rock Social Club, Minneapolis

Skoal Kodiak, Heliotrope Festival, Minneapolis

Sonic Youth at Stubbs in Austin where they played Cross The Breeze and a ton of DDN stuff I had never heard live!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I listened to that Stubb's audience recording the other night...both the Sonic Youth and Meat Puppets sets. In addition to some DDN numbers, they also did "The World Looks Red" that night; Thurston's voice was great, but the music not so great on that one. I saw Meat Puppets on the Monsters tour. I was really dosed.

The Police, John Paul Jones Arena
Animal Collective, Satellite Ballroom
Deerhoof, Charlottesville Pavillion
Cracker (acoustic David & Johnny), Starr Hill Music Hall
Battles, Satellite Ballroom

Mlevins reunion show.

I hardly remember the gigs I've been to, but I remember liking these alot. There are others too but I've seen quite a lot concerts this year so...
boredoms, nomeansno, kemialliset ystävät, alamaailman vasarat, aavikko, cleaning women, fun, sunburned, gallhammer...

Not in any order. Of these I'd say the Boredoms gig I liked the most.

sonic youth at mccarren park pool doing DDN, 7/28/07

1) The Brian Jonestown Massacre (even if they are assssssssholes)
2) Sonic Youth (where amazing, just not as good live as the brian jonestown massacre are)(sorry)



(had to change my list when i realised that the flaming lips show was Nov 06)

grinderman

1. Sonic Youth
2. Mono
3. The National

Haven't gone to a real gig in decades. A few local bands now and then, but no major things.

gmku, I am gonna have to go up to Yankee Land and drag your ass to a rock show man!!!!!!!!

no couch-rock for us either, straight ahead fucking RAWK!

If you go to Yankee Land, you'll need to take a hard right and make a beeline for the east coast. For better or worse, I'm in the palmetto state now. South Carolina.

I guess I don't go to gigs for a couple reasons.

1. Expense. You go the show, it's over, and what have you got?

2. It's money I'd rather spend on: a. LPs b. clothing c. beer, and d. caffeine.

3. I'm a lot older than the usual crowd what likes the music I do.

Okay, make that three reasons.

Sonic Youth Daydream show probably.

he don't know the hip and kool dance moves, he he he he he :)

1. Sonic Youth (back in october)
2. Tv On The Radio
3. Interpol

off the top of my head:

-sy with a really awesome noise act opening for them.
-yo la tengo (highlight of the manifest, second best band: chikita violenta)
-camera obscura + chikita violenta (beautifully haunted and cv played better than on manifest)
-xbxrx (although it was a bit short and not as crazy, best mosh pit of the year).
-otomo yoshihide and fred frith guitar duo (opposed styles make for very inspired shit)
-otomo yoshihide turntable and guitar show + norbert möslang, günter müllen and jason khan (the voice crackers did a great digital drone piece, then otomo got violent and almost destroyed his turntables after which he took out his guitar for a solo interpretation of ornette's "lonely woman").
-fennesz (amazing how he does everything, improvising AND playing songs from his albums).
-francisco lopez (such destructive, vivid sounds he conjures)
-helmet (the band play just like the original guys, page is a madman guitar genius and the nicest guy, the riffs stomped and it was heavy is it could be).
-explosions in the sky (not my favorite band, the place had sound problems, the openers sucks and the hipsters didn't shut up; but the moment where the bass player had his amp fucked but the band kept playing the lulled, subdued part until they fixed it to detonate in distortion and heaviness on the last song was priceless).
-descartes a kant with (the awful) 3 colores
-descartes a kant + sutra + a colores + silencios incomodos (this was probably the best mex underground show i have seen ever; s.i. played jl/amrep rock very authentically, sutra bridged branca/chatham with tortoise and isis, descartes played their schizophrenic brand of rock and a colores made the biggest atmospherics with the slowest build-ups to make for heavier than fuck music at key moments).
-bloodyminded + a shitload of electronica bands at a goth club.
-bloodyminded at an internet café/industrial goth pop club-at-night.
-sodom (from black metal to thrash to german punk to "ace of spades", a very complete show)
-job for a cowboy at the sounds of the underground (second best band...hmmm...this year it really sucked, darkest hour sounded cool but i only heard like one song; shadows fall were better than expected...that's pretty much all i remember)
-porter wagoner and grinderman opening for the white stripes.
-watain and some ok to laughable local bm and dm bands, the best one, i told the singer dude afterwards that i enjoyed and he was like freaked out, like how come i recognize him without corpsepaint to tell him nice things?

13th Annual Olympia Experimental Music Festival

But for single gigs that I didn't help put on...

Legendary Pink Dots at Berbati's in Portland, OR with Plants and Zoe Keating putting in excellent opening sets. The Dots were mesmerizing and Ka-Spel really is some sort of shaman.

Frenzal Rhomb by a mile. Although I did get backstage passes to a Good Charlotte concert, met the band and their current girlfriends (Nicole Richie, Sophie Monk) got acess to green room etc. Not to say i'm a fan of their music by any means, but they certainly were nice people.

Morrisey in Dallas this summer.

Ruins+Aids Wolf+Smoke Judo at Zaphod's, Ottawa
Ruins+Jerusalem In My Heart+Smoke Judo at La Salla Rossa, Montreal
High on Fire+Mono+Panthers+Coliseum at Les Saints, Montreal
Battles at le National, Montreal

Peter Walker @ The Hideout - SXSW Austin, TX

Also on the bill were Lord Fyre (bleh!), Warmer Milks, some guy from New Zealand and a T. Moore + Christina and Tom Carter trio.
I can't describe how beautiful Peter's set was, so just watch it.
The man Murston Thoore himself was sitting directly in front of me during the performance. He was wearing some big ass ugly green tennis shoes and his 15 ft 11" frame was spilling all over the the seats next to him. Great night!

edit: I forgot! Tetuzi Akiyama also played that night and was equally as wonderful
I also saw him a few months earlier do a fab-u-lous acoustic set, but that was probably '06.

'nother edit: boy, does youtube make music sound like shit or what?!

???

Error fixed. Thanks!

Grizzly Bear at the Society for Ethical Culture, which is basically a big seated church-type venue (incredible acoustics). A mindblowing show.

yer mom.

the national are fucking amazing live.

i put basically everything i saw this year on my list. they were all fun. against me! are a blast live.

I didn't go to any concerts this year. Well, real concerts anyways. I forgot about Melt Banana, TV on the Radio was sold out, and Dinosaur Jr. was on my sister's birthday.

Lou reed performing Berlin was a b-e-a-utiful concert.
Sonic Youth at Pukkelpop
last but not least Interpol, great live performance.

lol:D

Those are the ones I loved the most:

1. Sonic Youth - Prague
2. Sonic Youth DDN gig - London
3. Keiji Haino - Bratislava, Slovakia
4. Sonic Youth - Vienna
5. Wu-Tang Clan - Trencin, Slovakia

Neil Young
Sonic Youth (Berkeley DDN)
Yo La Tengo
M. Ward

To my own surprise, the most enjoyable one was by a French artist :
Adrienne Pauly @ l'Elysée Montmartre, Paris
Above Sonic Youth with the Flower-Corsano as openers, or Who Made Who in Aulnoye-Aymeries.

Erasure, The Brodsky quartet doing Verklarte Nacht and the GZA at ATP are probably my faves, with an honourable mention for Sunshine Republic,who were most amusingly hated by nearly the entire room.

I didn't really do much this year...

Dinosaur Jr. in Portland was fucking great. Awesome Color opening for them... not so much.

dino, shellac and sunn o)))

They're not bad but I found them a bit boring when I saw them (their music is too monotonous to my taste). I love "Daughters of the Soho riots" though.

It wasn't a great live year for me (unfortunately I couldn't attend any of the DDN shows).

I particularly enjoyed:

Jean-Louis Murat (La nef, Angoulême)
Klaxons (Garden nef party festival, Angoulême)
Muse (Garden nef party festival, Angoulême), surprisingly they ripped even though the latest record is rubbish
Bat for Lashes (Rock en Seine), they're better live in my opinion
Björk (Rock en Seine)
An Pierlé (Le chabada, Angers), she didn't play enough songs from her previous record though (only one)

It would be really hard for me to narrow it down because I went to a lot of concerts, but off the top of my head, in no particular order:

No Fun Fest, esp. Raionbashi + Kutzkalina, Merzbow, Pain Jerk, Burning Star Core + Zaimph (just looking at the list again, everyone was great)

Pitchfork Fest (CHi), esp Sonic Youth, Dan Deacon, Yoko Ono and Thurston

Lollapalooza (CHi): esp - Iggy and The Stooges and Patti Smith

77 Drummers at Brooklyn Bridge

20th Anniversary Knitting Factory at Town Hall (Lou Reed, Rebecca Moore, Zorn and Bernstein, etc)

Black Dice, Sightings, and Awesome Color at Highline Ballroom

William Basinski at Issue Project Room (my favorite place. I could probably name a dozen more there that were great, incl Lee Ranaldo w/ Leah Singer twice. or the show I just saw there last week:Tony Conrad + C. Spencer Yeh, Emeralds + Carlos Giffoni, Sam Goldberg )

Television (sort of) at Central Park Summerstage

Suicide at South Street Seaport

Bang on a Can 26 hour Marathon at Wintergarden (even with terrible acoustics)

Oneida, Sightings, Ex-Models, Dirty Faces at PS-1

CMJ friday night show at Knitting Factory- inc: HEALTH, Sightings, AIDS Wolf, Aa, Pre