For as long as I can remember, I've been going to see bands play. I don't mean in the local-band-at-shitty-club thing, though there was some of that. I'm talking more about seeing a touring act. In junior high and early on in high school, it was mostly summers at the Jones Beach Amphitheater. By the time I was 16 or so, my mother used to let me head into the city with friends to see others, at places like the Wetlands, Roseland, and Irving Plaza. At 18, upon heading off to college, I got involved in student radio, seeing that many more. Coming back home eventually, the city thing resumed.
Point being, I've seen a shitload of bands in my 31+ years.
I've had the chance to see almost every band I've ever wanted to, and a few I haven't given a shit about. I've been to see bands who I was off-the-wall-excited to see and been massively disappointed by, and others I couldn't have cared less about who managed to floor me.
And in the course of this, I've created a list of those bands I want... screw want... need, to see, before either I or they drop dead. Today, until science figures out a way to bring Kurt Cobain or John Lennon back from the dead, there are just two left on the list (granted, the poetry of this would have been much, much better if there were only one). But first, this is who's come off the list, and how:
- Foo Fighters @ Roseland Ballroom, New York, NY (11/12/2000): These guys were great once, but the truth is that I've seen lots of great bands who weren't "must see's" in my time. Dave Grohl's membership in Nirvana bumped these guys up on my list. While it's not like the Foo's strutted the stage playing Dave's old classics, it was the closest I'd ever come. Nirvana was the inspiration for the list, as I'd once memorably passed up a Nirvana show at Roseland, saying to a friend that they'd be around for a while and I'd have plenty of chances to see them. After Cobain diedthe list was created. It was fitting that the Foo Fighters were the first to be crossed off the list.
- Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band @ Thomas and Mack Center, Las Vegas, NV (8/18/2002): Probably the best pure Rock God in the world. You can take your Clapton or your Townshend or whomever else, but Bruce is it. He still does all of the heavy lifting himself (unlike lots of his contemporaries), and he still puts on a show longer than anyone else I've ever seen. In 1984, The E Street Band were the greatest band in the fucking world, and then they were gone. Sure, Bruce was still around, and he was still pretty good, but when he decided to hold a reunion tour, how could I pass that up? Especially when my friend Mike got the idea to fly to Vegas to see them, partly since tickets in the NY/NJ area for him were nearly impossible to come by and partly because it was an excuse to go to Vegas for a weekend. Our seats sucked (high up, straight back on the opposite side of the oval), and I've since seen them play way better shows with some great seats, but this show was mind-blowing. It was "The First Time I Saw Springsteen."
- Rolling Stones @ Madison Square Garden, New York, NY (1/16/2003): It's the fucking Stones. I can honestly say, and I freely admit that this runs contrary to every single other person I've ever met who's seen them perform, that I did not enjoy this show. I thought they sucked, to be honest. But, it was one show before (two actual nights, there was an off-day in between) an HBO telecast. We were pretty sure they phoned it in, saving their energy up for the big show two nights later. Sure, it was disappointing. But, I can say that I've seen the Rolling Stones, so I'm ok with it.
- Pearl Jam @ Madison Square Garden, New York, NY (1/16/2003): I'd fallen away from Pearl Jam by this point. In high school, and even early on in college, they were one of the biggest (and best) bands in the world, and there was no way to get tickets when they toured. But their popularity had waned, and their last couple of albums hadn't been so great. Tickets were easier to come by, only very slightly, so we chose to go. Still, they sold out two nights at MSG, which is no small feat, especially for a band who were supposedly washed up. We showed up at the Garden, and upon seeing the huge crowd, thought that maybe this wasn't just some stupid nostalgia trip after all. Maybe they would still be that good. And they were. Eddie Vedder kept control over the room, and Stone and McCready ruled it. One of the best live bands I've ever seen.
- R.E.M. @ Madison Square Garden, New York, NY (10/4/2003): Similar situation to Pearl Jam, but I'd still been into them. R.E.M. had been huge, both commercially and for me personally, for a long time, and their last couple of albums had been widely considered busts. The difference here is that I actually liked the recent music that everyone else hated. Still, we didn't know what to expect, and were hoping for a smattering of the old stuff. I went because I'd had the chance back in the classic Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe days to see them and passed (for the same reasons I'd passed on Nirvana, "plenty of time"). Now Bill Berry was out. Realizing that with commercial failures (which I hate to admit can lead to a band's too-soon demise) their days might be numbered, we went. What we didn't know walking in was that R.E.M. were on tour to support a greatest hits package. I'm generally not a great hits kind of guy, but it's hard to argue when it's R.E.M.'s best. They played songs from their entire career, with heavy focus on the old stuff. Whenever I see a band, I always have a mental list of specific songs I'd love to hear them play, usually some standard and some obscure. R.E.M. hit just about every single song for me (made all the more impressive when you consider they had what was then 12 studio albums), starting with Finest Worksong. Seriously. Fifteen years after it came out, they opened the show with it. As soon as they kicked into it, we knew things were going to be good. Here's to Bill Berry performing with them at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
Everyone has music that defines them. There are select albums that define a specific stage of your life, that when you hear a song from it you're instantly taken back to that day on the playground in 5th grade or whenever. And then above individual albums, there are whole artists, bands whose music has stayed with you, where different albums stir memories from all sorts of different time periods. I have three like this.
The first is Living Colour, who were like a religious thing for myself and 3 friends growing up, and they've stayed with me for that reason. I've had the pleasure of seeing Living Colour live a bunch of times, at places as big as Roseland and as small as CBGB.
R.E.M. are the second, and I've already talked enough about them today.
The third band on my lifelong list are also one of the two left on my Need-To-See Concert List: The Police. And would you look at that, they're back together. I was too young to be around for their best times, seeing how they more or less stopped being a band when I was 8 years old. I have distinct memories of Synchronicity's videos being all over the MTV, but my real appreciation for them came later on, when their box set came out. Since 1993, The Police have been a constant sidebar and comparison to most music I listen to. I'd been a casual fan until this point, and what makes them different is that I didn't get to experience that progression of new albums every couple of years, but had to ingest it all at once. I almost think that gave them a mythical status, especially for the concert list. The Police's live shows were renowned, and knowing the hatred between them we thought this might never come. But whenever my friend Jason and I discussed bands, and the dream list, the comment about The Police was that we'd pay any amount we had to in order to see them play just once.
And now we can, hopefully without the Stubhub'ed prices. The idea that I might know tomorrow whether I'll have tickets in my hands to halve my list is exhilarating.
Now I can go back to waiting for Leonard Cohen's rumored 2007 tour to close this list out...
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