Best openings to concerts you been to?

[patswin]

I got a real fresh one...Neil Young opened Monday night with the national anthem, and saluting the flag. Nice touch. The band and all the roadies all came on the stage and removed their hats and stood like the rest of us. And it is on YouTube... Just can't post it right now.

[Steve-o]

Originally Posted by OffTopic

Back in '99 Primus opened up for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Fvcking awesome. They were better, funner.

I saw Primus in '91, in a tiny ballroom in Bloomington, Indiana. They opened for Fishbone. It was a real fun show. A year later, they were headlining Lollapalooza.

[O_P_T]

Originally Posted by patswin

I got a real fresh one...Neil Young opened Monday night with the national anthem, and saluting the flag. Nice touch. The band and all the roadies all came on the stage and removed their hats and stood like the rest of us. And it is on YouTube... Just can't post it right now.

Is this it?

[patswin]

Originally Posted by O_P_T

Is this it?

Nope, that ones from a Canadian show.

The Boston show is this one, although the video isn't as good. This is actually about the opening 20 minutes....
The Beatles "A Day in the Life" was while the roadies finished the stage prep.

[mikiemo83]

Originally Posted by Pyxis

Best opening band at a concert? It wasn't Bryan Adams at Journey.

Might have been The Fixx for A Flock of Seagulls.
Posted via Mobile Device

Sadly i saw this tour and Journey sucks, Bryan Adams was ok but Nick Lowe I believe also played and he was pretty damn good, I slept through journey.

I also saw fixed with flock of seagulls both open for the police

[PatsFanLisa]

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to see my hero, Eric Clapton, for about the 17th time, and he had this 3-piece band from England opening for him called Back Door Slam. We were blown away that these kids, and they were teenagers, could make so much advanced music out of three pieces. They were phenomenal.

[patswin]

Originally Posted by PatsFanLisa

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to see my hero, Eric Clapton, for about the 17th time, and he had this 3-piece band from England opening for him called Back Door Slam. We were blown away that these kids, and they were teenagers, could make so much advanced music out of three pieces. They were phenomenal.

Clapton. Is. God.

[Mark_Henderson]

I remember more strong finales from concerts than I do openings (maybe because that's what I go home thinking about). One of the cooler ones was Springsteen in Providence in '85 had done two or three finales and hadn't come out again for 15 minutes and people were leaving - and then Clarence and all of them came out in Santa Claus hats and did Santa Claus is Coming to Town - even though it was January 20th.

And, it's not what you'd think of as a rock show, but I went to a 100th birthday concert for Woody Guthrie this summer at a club in Soho that had Steve Earle, Billy Bragg, Amy Mann (Levon Helm's daughter from the band) & Joe Purdy, where for the opening, the house lights came up on a dark stage and they did a loud, pretty rocking version of This Train is Bound for Glory. That was a good show.

[PatsFanLisa]

Originally Posted by patswin

Clapton. Is. God.

This is the truest statement ever written.

[patfan64]

Most memorable for me - I saw U2 at the Hartford Civic Center on the Joshua Tree tour. (1986?) They opened with Where the Streets Have No Name. Crescendo from the Edge with the guitar riff was incredible.

Also saw Paul McCartney in Hartford (2003?) Opened with Live and Let Die. Very mellow beginning but when the band hit the hard note (just after he sings live and let die) the stage exploded. I was in the second row on the floor and I swear my eyebrows got singed.

Styx did the same thing with Rockin' the Paradise in 1982 but I was further away. Didn't have the same effect.

[BizarroAnnihilus]

I have a lot of memorable openings, including Marilyn Manson, The Cure, KISS, and a bunch of others. The most fun I ever had at an 'opening' may not fit the conventional definition of 'opening', but I am going to count it anyway.

I saw the Beastie Boys in Missoula MT on their first world tour (it was one of the first shows of the tour, opened by Fishbone, who were also fantastic). We were all waiting outside the small hall at the U of M waiting to get in when their bus pulled up towards the side of the building and they got out and threw a couple of snowballs at the crowd standing outside, which we reciprocated with our own. They entered the building and that was that, or so we thought. Turns out they had someone on their crew get one of those giant corrugated tubs that you store loads of beer and ice in and fill it with snow from a snowbank outside. They brought it into the hall and went upstairs and opened some windows overlooking the crowd standing out front and began pelting us with snowballs. This went on for a good ten or fifteen minutes before (we assume) they ran out of snow.

The beginning of the concert wasn't spectacular, but it was funny. Most people in the hall couldn't see them come on stage because all the lights were out, but I was at the rail and saw their silhouettes as they carried this massive tub out onto the stage. When the lights came up, we could see it was full of a ton of beer that they drank throughout the show and drenched us close to the stage with throughout the performance. It was a great show, despite the beer bath, and one of the Beasties (maybe Adam, but I don't remember for sure) busted a bottle over his own head at the end and the other two carried him off.

So maybe while not fitting the technical definition of an opening, it's the one I remember the clearest.

[Mark_Henderson]

Originally Posted by patfan64

Most memorable for me - I saw U2 at the Hartford Civic Center on the Joshua Tree tour. (1986?) They opened with Where the Streets Have No Name. Crescendo from the Edge with the guitar riff was incredible.

Good call. I remember that, though I saw it at the Worcester Centrum. I can't remember if it was late '86 or '87. I remember it was not long after I graduated college.

[O_P_T]

This wasn't one of the "best", but it was surreal.

Yes at Colt Park in Hartford ('76)

This was one of the first shows they did there, and they had these light towers in the crowd. They were basically scaffolding type towers


The show wouldn't start because people had climbed up the towers to see the stage.

Someone wasn't happy about that, because they supposedly hadn't been certified/inspected and they made an announcement that the show wouldn't start until the people got down.

Most people got down, but there were some who didn't.

Jim Koplick came out on stage and told the crowd "Look there are 20,000 people who want to see this show and there are 20 ass holes who are stopping it. I leave it to you guys to resolve this."

Bottles started flying out of the crowd at the people on the towers and they came flying down. I felt sorry for the people sitting near the towers since they were in the line of fire.

But that wasn't the strangest part.

Pousette-Dart Band was the opening act.

Not a horrible band for the time, but not really close to Yes.

Oh and this was the show that the crowd knocked the fence down, so the final crowd got much larger and much weirder.