Can You Name Every Band/ Musical Artist You've Seen Perform Live?

[Igor]

Seeing Elvis Presley on Gregg's list - kudo's on that one.

[bryanbutler]

i'll try to compose a list this weekend - work is slamming me too hard to do it before then. it will be hard to remember them all, as, like DMT, i was extremely drunk and stoned at many of them. i have stubs from the bigger shows, but when i was in pasadena for 6 years seeing pretty big name acts in small venues, there weren't any tickets . (one of those shows that comes to mind was seeing Blur in a small bar in hollywood. they had multiple full marshall stacks per performer in a venue that was tiny. i couldn't hear for 3 or 4 days after that!)

[Ryno84MVP]

Not all-inclusive, but here is what I came-up with off the top of my head…

Bryan Adams
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Coldplay
Genesis
Green Day
Gwen Stefani
Hannah Montana (Miley Cyrus)
John Cougar Mellencamp
Johnny B and the Leisure Suits
Midnight Oil
Pearl Jam
Peter Gabriel
Pink Floyd
Pursuit of Happiness
R.E.M.
REO Speedwagon
Smashing Pumpkins
Styx
The Airborne Toxic Event
The Cure
The Eagles
The Fixx
The Hooters
The Jonas Brothers
The Killers
The Police
The Replacements
The Who
The Wiggles
Tom Petty
U2

[BuckyBuckner]

Hard to remember all of the shows, and I have a feeling that a lot of them are bands that no one (except maybe Bucky) has heard of, so I won't bother listing all of them, but here are some of the more mainstream ones:

Billy Joel
Hall and Oates
Paul Simon (2x)
The Alarm
The Fixx
Living Color
Primus
Oingo Boingo
James
The Church
Big Audio Dynamite
PIL
Guns n' Roses (3x)
Soundgarden
Metallica
INXS
Weezer (3x)
Green Day (15-20x, pre-1996 or so)
The Get Up Kids
The Decemberists

You should list them anyway, though I left off a ton of bands as well.

I saw Weezer too, forgot about that.

[BuckyBuckner]

When/where did you see Tsunami? They were great.

For me:

#1: Opening for PJ Harvey at the TLA in Philly, 1993
#2: At the Khyber Pass Pub, essentially Philly's equivalent of CBGB, 1993
#3: Opening for Jawbox at City Gardens in Trenton, 1994
#4: Opening for Velocity Girl at the Trocadero in Philly, 1994
#5: At the Khyber, 1995-ish

I saw Velocity Girl, they played my college and it was around '94 so maybe Tsumani opened up there. After I posted that I saw them I was thinking it might have been Tuscadero, not Tsunami. cause they opened up for Weezer and the Archers of Loaf. So maybe I saw both.

[Erik]

I didn't know you were a Gov't Mule fan. I've got a great copy of their show from a couple of years ago in Little Rock if you're interest.

I like them but am not a die-hard; one of the three was at Farm Aid 2006. Quite a few of my friends are die-hards, so the other two were as much about seeing friends as the show. At one of them, I bumped into Bernie Worrell as I was heading to the bathroom. Sure enough, he jammed with them during the encore. No need to copy their show, I've got a big backlog of listening material already. But thanks for the offer.

[Erik]

Tori Amos (2003 or 2004) - I've seen her 3 times but the last time she was touring with Ben Folds and I actually fell asleep during her set. Strangely enough, I met someone a couple months ago who was at that same show who claimed she nearly fell asleep too.

This reminds me, I had completely forgotten about the most random show I've ever been to.

A friend of mine owed me a favor because I had gotten him in to a sold-out Ween show. His then-wife was working for Clearchannel and through her he ended up with 2 tickets to a private gig at the Roseland Ballroom in NYC. It was for the winners of a contest put on by Miller. Their prize was to be flown to NYC for this show, which had a combo you'd otherwise never see: Ben Folds, the Strokes, Cheap Trick, and Velvet Revolver. And Alice Cooper sat in for a few songs with Cheap Trick. So, more for my list.

That show is also notable because I don't think I've ever been more stoned than I was that night. My friend always partook of a strain that really knocked you for a loop, and he shared way too much of it with me that night.

[Lucky]

I forgot about The Fixx. They were very good.

Geez, I forgot about what was maybe the best show I've ever seen...Tom Waits on the Small Change tour in 1977 at The Ritz Theater in Memphis. I actually got a copy of the show from a guy in Denmark about six years ago.

Geez, I forgot about Johnny Winter, too, in 1974. I really wasn't messed up for these shows, I just let them slip my mind.

[Controller Jacobs]

As I recall, these were the best shows I ever saw:

The Dead Milkmen (in high school, around 1986)
Nine Pound Hammer (in college, around 1993)
At "The Horseshoe" in Toronto: The Smugglers, Duotang, Danko Jones, and a couple members of Pluto (around 1997).

Most popular acts I've seen would probably be Springsteen, REM and the Ramones.

[senorsheep]

Adding: The Call. Sonia Dada. And Cowboy Mouth (that was in inexcusable miss, I saw them only a year ago). And who opened for Cowboy Mouth... Dash Rip Rock.

Oooo, and The Radiators from Fresno Bob's list.

My best concerts list:

1) Camper Van Beethevon at The Boulder Theater (1989)
2) Stevie Ray Vaughan at Fiddler's Green (1990)
3) Flaming Lips/ Primus at Red Rocks (2011)

I dropped quite a bit of acid for #1 and #2. Coincidence?

[Kevin Seitzer]

I really liked Ben Harper's early stuff, and we went to see him in the early 2000's ... sadly it wasn't a very good show. We put it down to a one off bad show. So we arranged to go see him again a few years later, and we were so bored we left early. Apart from some shows at jazz venues that run until the early AM (meaning we'd miss our train), this was the only show I've ever left early, and the only one I've walked out off because it sucked.

Lamest shows I've been to:
1. Galactic
2. Ben Harper
3. Michael W. Smith

[Erik]

Most disappointing (country shows (plus Bon Jovi/Nickelback) that my wife dragged me to excluded):

1. Vida Blue, Page from Phish's side band, was a snooze-fest to the extent that I almost really did fall asleep. Openers The Slip were far better.
2. I saw Robert Randolph in the midst of when he was first being hyped, and I didn't get the appeal at all. His songs were all similar and the arrangements were all repetitive.
3. Though I wasn't there to see them (they were opening for Teenage Fanclub), the biggest gulf between reputation and performance for me has to be Yo La Tengo. Their set was a brutal combination of sloppy playing and hipster posturing. I've never delved into their records as a result.
4. I did see one of Sonic Youth's opening sets for Neil Young in 1991, and it was as bad as its reputation. You could tell they just didn't want to be there. When I saw them again almost 20 years later, they were much better.
5. TAD's set when I saw them at a club in 1993 was so loud that you literally could not hear the vocals. It was as if Tad Doyle was lip synching. They were much better in a theater a year later, opening for Soundgarden.

[DMT]

Some more jam bands added after I checked the lineup from the inaugural Bonnaroo in 2002: Particle, Jurassic 5, Gran Torino, Donna the Buffalo, The Big Wu, Soullive, Amon Tobin, Acoustic Syndicate, Disco Biscuits, Drums & Tuba, Col. Bruce Hampton and The Codetalkers, Blind Boys of Alabama.

And Brian Jonestown Massacre, not sure how I forgot that, awesome show. There was a documentary about them called Dig that is worth seeing.

[BuckyBuckner]

Most disappointing (country shows (plus Bon Jovi/Nickelback) that my wife dragged me to excluded):

1. Vida Blue, Page from Phish's side band, was a snooze-fest to the extent that I almost really did fall asleep. Openers The Slip were far better.
2. I saw Robert Randolph in the midst of when he was first being hyped, and I didn't get the appeal at all. His songs were all similar and the arrangements were all repetitive.
3. Though I wasn't there to see them (they were opening for Teenage Fanclub), the biggest gulf between reputation and performance for me has to be Yo La Tengo. Their set was a brutal combination of sloppy playing and hipster posturing. I've never delved into their records as a result.
4. I did see one of Sonic Youth's opening sets for Neil Young in 1991, and it was as bad as its reputation. You could tell they just didn't want to be there. When I saw them again almost 20 years later, they were much better.
5. TAD's set when I saw them at a club in 1993 was so loud that you literally could not hear the vocals. It was as if Tad Doyle was lip synching. They were much better in a theater a year later, opening for Soundgarden.

I've heard such awful things about Yo La Tango live and I never got into them so I never bothered going to a show. I think they opened up for the Archers of Loaf once but my friend who did see Yo La Tango refused to go into the club until they were done. So we hung out at a bar till it was time to see the Archers.

[Erik]

Some more jam bands added after I checked the lineup from the inaugural Bonnaroo in 2002: Particle, Jurassic 5, Gran Torino, Donna the Buffalo, The Big Wu, Soullive, Amon Tobin, Acoustic Syndicate, Disco Biscuits, Drums & Tuba, Col. Bruce Hampton and The Codetalkers, Blind Boys of Alabama.

And Brian Jonestown Massacre, not sure how I forgot that, awesome show. There was a documentary about them called Dig that is worth seeing.

Just realized, I have seen Col. Bruce with the Codetalkers as well as with ARU.