Best sounding concert I EVER WENT TO. David Bowie Glass Spider Tour.

I HAVE WAY TOO MANY.

Prince 2004 - Twice, each time my daughter got to sing with him. Especially Houston 8/6/2004 when Prince and my daughter sang a duet on the bridge of "Take Me With U"

Prince 2006 - When I got to sing "Play That Funky Music White Boy" with Prince on guitar. Also, I've never seen anyone shred the guitar the way he did that night

Bruce Springsteen 2008 - I asked my daughter what was her favorite part of the show and she said, "Seeing how happy he made YOU!"

Dan Fogelberg 1981 and 2005 or so - Just an absolutely incredible musician. I will never, ever get within 100 miles of him as a guitarist. In 1981, after his show, I could see backstage and I saw him pumping his fist. NOTHING gets me off more than seeing an artist truly love what they do!

The Del-Lords 1983 - Best American rock band that never made it big commercially

Tons of others but those popped in mind first!

janet, run dmc, luther vandross, whitney, new edition...im going to see stevie wonder on the 14th of this month,im sure this will be a great experience.

Sade's Soldier of Love Tour. Absolutely stunning. Great setlist, excellent musicianship, Sade sounded (and looked) amazing, and the stage design and production value were out of this world.

Kenny G...He opened the show playing the Sax from the back of the Arena and we gave him a standing ovation.....He played all the way to the stage...I was not prepared for him to be that amazing..His trademark Hair is even bigger in person...

Prince 2004: Twice. In March at NYC's Club Black and in August at DC's MCI Center. Amazing. Limped away from both concerts with a hoarse voice. It was way too exciting. Will never forget it for the rest of my life.

The Robert Glasper Experiment 2012: At the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA. Truly amazing. Made me want to pull out all of my Miles Davis, Coltrane, J. Dilla and Common cds.

Prince, Live Music Hall, Cologne, Germany, 1998: The only Aftershow I witnessed, and boy, was it good. I even got to dance on stage with him.

Pink Floyd, Müngersdorfer Stadion, Cologne, Germany, 1994: Simply fantastic. Stadium concerts don´t get better than that.

Metallica, Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, 1992: Black Album Tour, Metallica at their peak. 16-year-old me loved every minute of it.

Jamiroquai, E-Werk, Cologne, 1993: Early Jamiroquai were one of the funkiest, grooviest acts I ever saw. Sadly that didn´t last more than two years. It all went downhill after "Return Of The Space Cowboy".

Radiohead, E-Werk, Cologne, 1997: Early gig of the OK Computer tour. I couldn´t believe how perfectly they captured the magic of this album on stage.

Morrissey, Große Freiheit, Hamburg, 1997: Close to a religious experience for me. Having been a huge Smiths/Morrissey-Fan for many years this was the first time I saw him live.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Royal Albert Hall, London, 1997: The "Boatman´s Call" Tour in a perfect venue. Haunting and magical.

U2, Butzweiler Hof, Cologne, 1997: Pop-Tour. Critizised by many, but I loved it.

hands down, peter gabriel's 'secret world' tour.

1- Prince ! Too many shows to mention. With Prince, it´s much easier to mention the few average or the one bad show I´ve seen over the decades. Some highlights were the Paisley Park/2002 Xenophobia Celebration shows, the Gold Experience concerts, Lüneburg 1993, and the ONA tour.

2-D ´Angelo . The Voodoo tour in 2001 and of course his latest tour,Black Messiah. Real soul, real energy, amazing band.

3- Master Ace- This old school MC from Brooklyn is one of the best rappers I´ve ever seen live. Very humble, very energetic, and just very good at his craft.

4-Ice T and the Rhyme Syndicate tour with Hijack in 1991. Great show. Ice is such an underrated rapper.

5- Sezen Aksu- A Turkish singer, a legend and true diva. I think it was in either 2008 or 2009. Great concert with great new arrangements of her classic songs.

6-The Roots and AZ at the Hamburg Docks. The Roots...what more can I say?

7- Erykah Badu at the Horseshoe Casino in Indiana. Seen her two or three times over the years. This one was a great concert, and being there with one of my best friends was an extra bonus. The venue was not really my thing (I hate casinos) but the sound was good and the seats were comfortable. That young drummer she had back then was good, and I liked some of the new arrangements and the old school musical quotes.

Lammastide said:

Sade's Soldier of Love Tour. Absolutely stunning. Great setlist, excellent musicianship, Sade sounded (and looked) amazing, and the stage design and production value were out of this world.

I was going to say the same. The Soldier of Love Concert.

Cherish The Day was my highlight from that show.

.

[Edited 4/7/15 6:19am]

The Who - San Diego 8/00. They'd been my favorite band forever, and this was the closest to their glory days they ever sounded, and I was in the front row. Hard to beat something like that.

Prince - Hard to pick one but the Sayers Club 2012 show with Andre Cymone was awfully special. As were the 3 to 4 hour performances at the Forum 4/14/11 and Palladium last March.

Brian Wilson - SMiLE show at Disney Hall 12/04. Had loved that album since constructing it from bootlegs; hearing it played live in that hall was totally magical.

Parliament-Funkadelic - Pick a night, any night, seen them regularly any time they hit LA since about 1992 and it's always a good time. The first one, Palladium 1992, was 5 hours long and had Bootsy walking through the audience, that was something else.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - LA Forum 1996 with Patti Smith opening. First time I saw full-strength, heavy-guitar Neil play those endless solos with the Horse holding him up, and it was super rad.

Buzzcocks - doing their 1st and 2nd albums in entirety at Club Nokia, then doing an encore of all the classic early singles from the same period. Phenomenal.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band with Trey McIntyre Dance Company - This was totally unexpected, I'd actually gone to see the Neville Bros, and the opening set of Pres Hall backing the dancers, doing a piece full of Katrina references, utterly blew my mind. I went back to see them collaborate a year later at Disney Hall and it was just as overwhelming.

Stevie Wonder - Both the Greek Theater show in 2007 and Songs In The Key Of Life show at the Forum left me totally high.

Best festival gigs I have been to were:

Bridge School Benefit 1999 - The Who, Neil Young, Brian Wilson, Tom Waits, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Sheryl Crow, Smashing Pumpkins and Victoria Williams with Emmylou Harris. Only the Pumpkins were disappointing.

All Tomorrow's Parties, Camber Sands England 2006 - I got to play this one alongside Mudhoney, the Scientists, Flesheaters, Black Mountain, Comets on Fire, and David Dondero. Sunday lineup I saw Jandek, Bert Jansch and Ramblin' Jack Elliott in a row and was totally moved by it.

Prince 1993, 1988, 1997, 2004 in that order

Sade 2011

Steely Dan 2007

Sting 1996

A Tribe Called Quest 1991

McCoy Tyner ca 2008

Van Hunt 2006

Janet Jackson 2001

Prince SOTT (1987): My first concert experience at a big venue, it was spectacular and absolutely fantastic!

Prince Lovesexy (1988): Even bigger venue, I was right in front of the stage and again it was mindblowing!

Miles Davis at North Sea Jazz Festival (somewhere end of the eighties): I just got hip to Miles (Tutu) and the concert blew my mind! What a band, what a band leader!

MeShell at North Sea Jazz festival (early nineties): She had just released her first album and her band was incredibly tight! Great show.

Joe Sample/ Randy Crawford: I saw them in Italy in 2010 at Perugia Jazz festival, open air in mid summer. Great wheather, fantastic performance and atmosphere, best sound ever at a concert.

D'Angelo (voodoo tour) at North sea Jazz festival (2000?): fantastic performance by a fantastic band!

funkaholic1972 said:

MeShell at North Sea Jazz festival (early nineties): She had just released her first album and her band was incredibly tight! Great show.

A few that jump to mind, some of them memorable for certain reasons and others just fantastic ...

- Prince at Hollywood Roxy in 1979 was his first West Coast concert; women swooned and some of the brothers chided him as "princess" due to his falsetto and bikini briefs and leg warmers outfit

- George Benson at Hollywood Roxy in 1978 when they recorded Live in L.A. (my screaming is on "On Broadway")

- Rufus and Chaka Khan at Hollywood Roxy in 1977 when she blew the damn roof off the building when she was not complaining about the spotlight in her face. Also she walked off the stage onto the tabletops where my friends and I were sitting (teenagers at the time) and ate some of our French fries! Always felt it was a telltale of all the weight she would soon gain.

- Rolling Stones at L.A. Coliseum in 1981, was there when Prince got booed off the stage with shoes and bottles hurled at him as the opening act. I told everyone how he was going to be huge, and to this day people remind me of being his evangelist back then.

- Prince at Santa Monica Civic in 1980 for Dirty Mind Tour, just awesome

- Prince at Wiltern Theater in 1986 for Parade Tour

- Prince at L.A. Sports Arena for Lovesexy Tour

- Prince: multitude of aftershows and performances at Glam Slam L.A. One of best was when Stevie Wonder came out and they jammed Maybe Your Baby

- Prince coming out during Maceo Parker's House of Blues Hollywood show in 2004 to play a full set. I came home 3 am floating on a cloud ... and my only son was conceived that night. His first name is Nathan (after Nate reference in SOTT), middle name Parker (for both Maceo and Dorothy Parker) and his last name starts with a G so his initials are NPG.

- Parliament-Funkadelic's Anti-Tour with the Brides of Funkenstein at the tiny Starwood Theater in Hollywood in 1978 - UNREAL

- Stevie Wonder at L.A. Forum in 1980's Hotter Than July Tour

- Rick James and the Stone City Band with Mary Jane Girls at the Long Beach Arena in 1981

- Was at the Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Whodini show at Long Beach Arena in 1986 in which gang warfare broke out and I ran for my life along with most everyone else underneath the seats to avoid the violence before making a break for it outside and to our car.

Another great one was Bootsy's Player of the Year show at the L.A. Forum in 1978 with Raydio as one of the openers. Unreal show but a little freaky because I was the only white face among 17000 funkateers and there was a brother freaking out on angel dust right next to me.

That's just a small sampling of the hundreds of shows I have gone to.

Among the most disappointing was Earth, Wind & Fire who I saw in 1978 at the L.A. Forum and was shattered they did not do Shining Star, and the Isley Brothers at the Forum in 1978 - huge fan but they did not deliver live. Also one of the times I saw Average White Band we shouted at them the entire show to do School Boy Crush but they did not.

NorthC said:

You're cool, HardcoreJollies, great stories, but I also notice that your stories are from a long time ago. Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with that, but do you also have some good concert memories from more recent times? I'm asking because I used to go to concerts much more often when I was younger. These days, it's almost like one per year.

Shows have been far and few between the past 10 years due to the arrival of my son and moving from Los Angeles to North Carolina. Less time, fewer choices and not as much discretionary income. But in more recent years I have seen Prince, Stevie Wonder, Allman Brothers, ZZ Top, Bootsy, P-Funk, Black Crowes, Derek Trucks, Experience Hendrix Tour and many other lesser-known acts many may have not heard of.

On my current wish list would be Jack White, St. Vincent and Gary Clark, off top of head.

Chaka Khan - 1995 in Detroit, MI - Khan storms the stage, opening with "At Midnight", with such incredible ease, singing at the very top of her range and stays there for a sweltering hour and 15 minutes! The only time she calms down is when Keith Washington walks out on stage to serenade her. Her voice was like an earthquake! The entire place shook! The magnitude of energy released during that show was astonishing! I will never forget it.

Chaka Khan at MSG (Opening for Prince)...I've been to MANY concerts and seen (almost) everyone, but Ms. Khan is number one on my list. Hit after hit after hit. She had everyone from the audience to the security people to the food and tshirt vendors to the sound stage crew to ticket takers and a few policemen DANCING. I don't think I've ever seen that any concert before or after. Hate to say it but she blew P off the stage.

The only other concert I can think of was at the WMMR BBQ rock concert a few years ago..Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Cheap Trick and BuckCherry on the same bill.

WAR

Prince

Sade

Pfunk (Danced with Sir Nose)

EWF

Kool and the Gang

James Brown

Ohio Players

Isleys

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

George Michael

Lammastide said:

Sade's Soldier of Love Tour. Absolutely stunning. Great setlist, excellent musicianship, Sade sounded (and looked) amazing, and the stage design and production value were out of this world.

That show was positively sublime...

*Prince November 11,1988 at the Oakland Arena (Lovesexy tour)

*any of the numerous Santana shows I've seen