Favorite Concerts and Least Favorite
Concerts I Never Went To
by Ian Wigley

Favourite Concerts I Never Went To

  1. Oasis at Knebworth Park, Stevenage, England, 1996
    As soon as the fireworks ended at about 11pm this Sunday night in July, Britpop died.  For two whole hours before, Oasis played their best ever gig.  I was at home, boy, how I wished I’d have gone now...
  2. Kiss at Rio, Brazil, 1983
    Vinnie Vincent played guitar at this show.  Kiss had make-up on, and rocked Brazil like no one ever had before and no one ever has since.
  3. Queen at Live Aid, London, England, 1985
    The best 20 minutes in music ever.  I think I wrote a Babblog piece on this.  Freddie Mercury proved to the globe that he was the greatest.
  4. Bruce Springsteen, Bramall Lane, Sheffield, England 1988
    I was 12 miles away from this gig, and I could hear it.  Apparently he played "Born to Run," knock me down with a feather.
  5. Iron Maiden, Castle Donington, Leicester, England, 1988
    Supporting acts were Helloween, Guns N’ Roses, Megadeth, David Lee Roth and….and…Kiss.  I’d have sold my Mum just to see Kiss back up Iron Maiden.  As for Guns N’ Roses, apparently they stole the show at about 3pm that day, and no one in England had heard of them.  107,000 people saw this feast.
  6. Iron Maiden, Queen Mary College, London, England, 1988
    Small secret gig, staged under the name of Charlotte and the Harlots, they were untouchable back then.  This show was two nights before the Castle Donington show, above.
  7. Ryan Adams, Queen Margaret College, somewhere in Scotland, 2001
    I have the show on bootleg CD.  He played the whole back catalogue (well, Heartbreaker and Gold) plus songs no one had heard.  He drank three bottles of wine, refused to stop playing after two-and-a-half hours, and got on the drums when he covered a Stooges song.  He had it all in 2001.  He’s never been the same since.  Been too long since he rocked and rolled…
  8. Kiss, Marquee Club, London, England, 1988
    Warm-up show for the Castle Donington Monsters of Rock Festival.  The place was packed to the rafters (about 1000 people).  My friend Tam was there; apparently you could reach out and touch Paul Stanley’s guitar.
  9. Evan Dando, The Leadmill, Sheffield, England, 1993
    He played two sets, one acoustic, one electric.  I would’ve killed for that dude at one point.
  10. Anthrax, Hammersmith Odeon, London, England, 1987
    Metallica co-headlined this show (and the rest of the tour).  Scott Ian, Charlie Benante, Danny Spitz, Joey Belladonna, Frankie Bello, James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Cliff Burton and Lars Ulrich…need I say anymore?  Thrash metal at its best time, ever.  Imagine putting on two bands of such a similar vein, and single-handedly catering for the whole audience?  Genius.
  11. The Rugburns, Belly Up Tavern, Solano Beach, San Diego, CA, USA, circa 1990
    Apparently they did residencies here back then.  I saw Steve Poltz twice in London, but it wasn’t the same without Rob Driscoll.  Poltz almost kissed me when I handed him Taking The World By Donkey to be signed; no one over here has a clue who they are.
  12. Kiss, Budokan, Japan 1988
    Saw this show on bootleg video.  The Crazy Nights album wasn’t that bad, and this show proved they were the business, even though they didn’t have make-up on.
  13. Van Halen, Castle Donington, Leicester, England, 1985
    Eddie and Dave weren’t talking, the band was a mess, but to hear "Panama" and see Dave in the flesh would be worth ten times the admission fee.
  14. Benny Goodman, Carnegie Hall, New York, NY, USA, 1934
    All the greats were there.  Enough said.
  15. The Stone Roses, Spike Island, Wigan, England, 1990
    Everyone who was anyone in Britpop years later was there.  Plenty say it was abysmal, but it didn’t matter.  It captured the zeitgeist, apparently.  The Roses were never good again after this.  That, my friends, is a crying shame.  If they’d released an album after Spike Island as good as their debut, they’d have surpassed anyone in music, ever, even The Smiths.

Least Favourite Shows I Never Went To

  1. Robbie Williams, Knebworth Park, Stevenage, England, 2003
    Robbie mocked Oasis onstage because he said they couldn’t sell out three nights at Knebworth (125,000 people each night) as he did.  Don’t forget Robbie gave away 10,000 tickets to Radio 1, and that Oasis’ management and Noel Gallagher confirmed, after their two nights there in 1996, that they could have easily sold out 14 nights.
  2. Prince, Sheffield Arena, Sheffield, England, 1995
    Lewis, I’m sorry.  Who is Prince?  Some short guy from Minneapolis with loads of guitars.  We just don’t get it.
  3. Live 8, London, England, 2005
    Scissor Sisters get a six song set, The Killers, Vegas’ finest, get one.  Need I say anymore.
  4. REM, Manchester, England, 2005
    Dude, when’s he going to retire?  When’s Michael Stipe going to pack it in with those Shiny Happy lyrics?  And when’s that guitar player going to find that fifth chord?
  5. Jimi Hendrix, Woodstock, NY, 1969
    Yeah, he played a guitar with his teeth, but he was never Eddie Van Halen.  Talk about hype?  This show is the live equivalent of The Beatles' Sgt. Peppers album.  Overrated and overstated, and canonised.
  6. Guns N’ Roses, Leeds, England, 2002
    A guitar-player with a KFC bucket on his head?  Where’s Slash and Izzy, and ‘Popcorn’ Adler, and Duff McKagen?  Anyone who thinks he can carry a band that were so great in 1987, with the shower he took to Leeds that night, needs himself looking at.  Axl, where did it all go wrong?
  7. The Rolling Stones, Altamont Motor Speedway, Tracy, CA, USA, 1969
    I’m glad I wasn’t there for the obvious reasons.  The Stones didn’t hit their stride until a couple of years later either, so I wouldn’t have missed too much.
  8. Nirvana, Reading Festival, Reading, England, 1992
    He was dying, Jack.  It all went wrong for Kurt.  I wouldn’t have wanted to witness such a crying demise…Apparently the show was great, but in my eyes it was crass voyeurism.
  9. Iron Maiden, Rio, Brazil, 2001
    Their best days were years before.  They’d done it all in a muddy field in Leicester in 1988, and they only had two guitar players then.  Why wheel in a third guitar player and spoil things?
  10. U2, London, England, 1993
    I never connected with U2 after The Joshua Tree.  I never connected with them much before, mind.  U2 were okay prior to 1987, but never as good as people said they were.  The whole Zooropa thing, and anything after that, was just an exercise in commercialism, and Bono running around in those glasses that made him look like a fly.  I mean, who needs sunglasses when it’s dark and the stage lights have gone down?  And as for the music, awful, anyone who was there, only went to hear the old stuff.
  11. Aerosmith, anywhere, anytime after 1990
    To think a band that regularly poured cocaine on their cornflakes and pumped out classic albums like Toys in the Attic and Draw the Line could go as low as "I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing."  I don’t know how Perry and Tyler could hold their chins in the air and maintain they were still a modern colossus of rock.
  12. The Beatles, Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, CA, 1966
    So, they stopped playing gigs not too long after this one, right?  Why?  Because they couldn’t handle the screaming girls, and they were too big to play stadium gigs anymore?  Give me a break.  You’re not indispensable, and you were never too big either, and you were also never as good as The Smiths, so cut the crap.
  13. The Allman Brothers, Fillmore East, San Francisco, CA, 1971
    Long widdly-diddly guitar solos, a show that had jams that lasted days, and played out to an audience of stoned hippies.  I bet Joe Strummer is turning in his grave thinking about this one.  Give the Allman Brothers their dues, they were quite a talent, but no one (other than stoned hippies) wants to hear a show that consists mainly of a couple of guitar players running up and down a few blues scales.
  14. The Lemonheads, London, England, 2005
    Some stupid concert promoter decided it’d be a damn fine idea to showcase a few gigs where bands played their best albums in their entirety in front of a live audience, hence The Lemonheads playing out the whole of It’s a Shame About Ray.  What a silly concept.  Granted, It’s a Shame About Ray was The Lemonheads finest hour, but why not let Evan play a handful of quirky little pop tunes he’s crafted over the years to complement the show?  It’s a Shame About Ray had some bad tunes, remember?
  15. Madonna, London, England, 2001
    Madonna’s Drowned World Tour was her first tour since 1993 (nothing like keeping the fans happy and touring regularly, is there?).  It featured material from the Music and Ray of Light albums.  Madonna almost completely forgot her early back catalogue for this tour.  Now I’m no leading authority on Madonna, but I do know this – "Borderline" kicks the pants off of "Ray of Light."  Do you get my point?

Ian can be reached at ian@babblog.com.

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