I mean brought the house down and made it hard for the headliner to come on afterwards.

[Edited 1/23/17 11:55am]

i don't know about 'best', but...

i saw the black keys open for sleatter kinney (who i had paid to see). sleatter kinney got 2 songs in and i had to leave...they just couldn't follow that.

i also saw the pretenders ruin the crowd for b-52s; i left that show, too.

nine inch nails opening for peter murphy in 1989 was pretty fucking serious, but peter managed to still put on a helluva show. he's an awesome showman.

The Time.

pt3121 said The Time, and they're up there. It seems they were Prince's Frankenstein.

Prince and Stevie opened for the Stones. The former was not well received so he doesn't fit the OP criteria.

I will say, though, that K-Dot opened for Kanye in '13 and gave a MUCH better performance.

I will always remember Muse opening for Live in The Hague december 1999. Didn't know them until then..

LittleBLUECorvette said:

I've always heard it was Mother's Finest.

phunkdaddy said:

The Time, opening 4 Prince on The Triple Threat Tour!!!! And on the same Tour, They played behind the curtain 4 Vanity 6!!! I saw the Show Feb 1983 in Buffalo, NY. They MOPPED THE FLOOR w/Prince N'Em!!!!

LittleBLUECorvette said:

phunkdaddy said:

Barkays. I've witnessed it first hand. Kool and the Gang and other big name r&b acts could testify.

Why was Bar-Kays openning for Kool?

Kool & The Gang were the bigger named act. This was when JT was on board and had 3 or 4

albums under his belt with them. Technically Evelyn Champagne King was the opening act but the

Barkays were the middle act and the crowd was feeling King and the Barkays. The Barkays had the Dangerous album out and Kool and the Gang had In The Heart out. Kool had a bad ass stage and were okay but the crowd wasn't feeling the pop stuff and started walking out. I saw Kool again the

next year when they had released the Emergency album and their show was much better.

daingermouz2020 said:

I'd love to catch a video of these old performances for anyone that was hot or even semi hot in the genres of R&B,Soul,Pop,Soft Rock, Jazz, from 1976-1984.

I've always listed my favorite period in music 1974-1984

phunkdaddy said:

In the mid 1970s I went to see Blue Oyster Cult in a small auditorium. They had two opening acts, with as tradition had it the least known act was the first one on stage. It was Kiss, who had just released or were about to release their first album. We had no idea about the show, but even back then it was quite the production with fire,blood, and their soon to be trademark makeup. By the way, the 2nd band was the New York Dolls, which at that time was supposed to be the one with the future. So much for that forecast. All in all, quite the concert for a stoned teenaged boy in Baton Rouge

woogiebear said:

Bob Marley and the Wailers opened for Sly Stone in the early 70s, Commodores and Stevie Wonder in the late 70s, but only in the US. Everywhere else in the world, Bob was the headliner.

laurarichardson said:

woogiebear said:

The Time, opening 4 Prince on The Triple Threat Tour!!!! And on the same Tour, They played behind the curtain 4 Vanity 6!!! I saw the Show Feb 1983 in Buffalo, NY. They MOPPED THE FLOOR w/Prince N'Em!!!!

--And he was laughing because they playing his songs and putting money in his pocket

Yeah.....and having Big Chick handcuff Jesse backstage, because Jesse was slicin' & dicin' too much!!! Everyone KNOWS Prince wrote the Music!!! But They were tearin' His ass up on that Tour!!!!

woogiebear said:

The Time, opening 4 Prince on The Triple Threat Tour!!!! And on the same Tour, They played behind the curtain 4 Vanity 6!!! I saw the Show Feb 1983 in Buffalo, NY. They MOPPED THE FLOOR w/Prince N'Em!!!!

Yuuuuuuup and Sheila E opening for Prince & Revolution's Purple Rain Tour in 1984.

I saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers get blown off the stage by three different opening acts at three different shows: Butthole Surfers (1989), Neil Young & Crazy Horse (2001) and the Stooges (2003). I may be the only one who felt that way, it's not like the audience turned on them or anything, but I knew it.

The one time I liked the Chili Peppers live, they were opening for Janes Addiction and Fishbone. They were not as good as Fishbone but MUCH better than the headlining Janes.

But the other time I saw Fishbone, THEY were blown out by their opening act, an unknown group recently signed to Epic called Rage Against The Machine. (It was a bad night for Fishbone, who clearly did not want to be there... I think it was a secret show that not all the members had agreed to, and they seems to be fighing with each other whether to do the show or not.)

I can't remember any where the headliner was "afraid to come out and follow that" though. Maybe at some club shows. No matter how good an opener at a big show is, there's usually at least half the audience yelling at them to hurry up and do their last song.

woogiebear said:

The Time, opening 4 Prince on The Triple Threat Tour!!!! And on the same Tour, They played behind the curtain 4 Vanity 6!!! I saw the Show Feb 1983 in Buffalo, NY. They MOPPED THE FLOOR w/Prince N'Em!!!!

That's why he removed them from a few shows in the major cities.They were too good,he was afraid of getting upstaged by them.He even admitted that they were "becoming like Godzilla"