Squeeze - several years running in Reading, though the venue is no more.
Gotta be said the best live act I have seen in the past 10 years was Tori Amos at the Royal Albert Hall. She gets completely lost in what she is playing.
The best for me was 2 Litre Dolby, who were supporting Yo La Tengo in Sydney some years ago.
It was the week before my birthday. I noticed that my favouritest band were coming to Australia, BUT NOT TO PERTH. I was slightly miffed by that. My friends, being the wonderful people that they are, got together and bought me a plane ticket to Sydney for the weekend. I love my friends.
I got up as usual on Friday morning and went to work. Came home, packed, and headed off to the airport shortly before midnight. By 6am I was in Sydney.
During the week, some American friends of friends who had been visiting Perth had left and gone on to the next part of their holiday. You guessed it - they were in Sydney too. We met up and did the usual touristy things.
Then it was nearly time. I found the venue. I got my ticket. I'd had no sleep since the previous morning. Then this band came on. I'd never heard of them before. The music they were playing was slow and dream-like. It started with the occasional note played here and there. No structure to it at all. Mostly silence. Over the next half hour the gaps were gradually filled in, and by the end they were playing some beautiful instrumental rock.
That half hour of music fitted the state I was in perfectly. I forgot that I was in a small and grubby pub, and was transported into a wonderful other world where nothing existed except this beautiful music.
Then Yo La Tengo came on, and as expected were brilliant. But they couldn't quite recreate that magic.
Meatloaf - live at 8 concerts in Newcastle and Glasgow in the late 80s/early 90s
Sting's first ever solo concert at City Hall
Runrig at Edinburgh Castle - closely followed by their farewell concert at City Hall - Donnie stood next to me whilst he was singing 'Loch Lomond'!!
Del Amitri at an obscure venue on Newcastle Quayside - long gone and now a nightclub
Morie Kante at the same venue...
but not on the same bill!!!
ALL the Hue & Cry concerts, except the one when their mother knicked my seat!
And, surprisingly enough, a very weird concert given by Tiny Tim (RIP) in a very small hall in the middle of the Australian outback - think it may have been Dubbo or further west (Kalgoorie??). It was just a large pub... I think he's been reincarnated as the lead singer from The Darkness!
Best live concerts...in no particular order
Ricky Ross of Deacon Blue solo in Dundee in pre DB days in the very early 80s
Paul Simon about 8 years ago... if he and Art G play UK I will be there
Bruce Cockburn back in the 80s and again last year at Manchester Uni
Aussie folk band called Roaring Jelly at a folk festival in Wick Caithness in about 79
An impromptu concert by U2 using borrowed instruments at an Arts festival in the early 80s
Baka Beyond anytime
Flamin Norahs Ceilidh band anytime
Thinks now kids are older I will have to try to get out more...
Gmanxxx
Some good fun ones I went to were
Soulwax
Kings of Leon
Electric 6 .... Gay Bar nearly bought the roof down...was superb
Jaine
As I thought, some fine taste in the SH forum.
I wish, wish, wish I'd seen a) Pink Floyd and b) Queen
Christy Moore - fabulous! No need for embarrassment!
Jags - I saw Del Amitri in London about 12 years ago - they were great.
Also remember, with some embarrassment, that I went (under duress, you understand!) to see Curiosity Killed the Cat with my girlfriend in 1986!
Who mentioned Ricky Ross - sex god in a white wet Tshirt -with a fab voice as well. He's very under-rated as a singer.
(just needed to touch my sexual being after the events of today)
but best live act I have ever seen is Christy Moore - he was amazing. Played the huge Albert Hall, just him and an acoustic guitar, and it was mesmerising (he was better still at Hammersmith Apollo).
ops: Saw Paul McCartney at Earl's Court on his 2003 tour :oops: - he was fab.
