Unexpected best concerts

Rasher,

I saw the Alarm at the Hammersmith Odeon in the late 80's, 88 or 89 I reckon and you are correct - they were really good, also saw them at Leicester De Montfort and they were good there too. Most of their albums are available on CD now and yes they were very much underrated, certainly the first three Albums and the live albums are excellent.
Dave

David Gilmour on a solo tour was an absolutely unexpected superb concert.

Around the mid-1980's, Roger Waters and David Gilmour both were touring the States on solo tours. Roger Waters had a hyped release to promote (The Pros and Cons of Hitch-hiking, or something like that), and Eric Clapton was playing guitar on the tour. It was a major tour and tickets were difficult to come by. On the other hand, David Gilmour was touring with a band using a far more low-key approach, and I seem to recall that he was playing smaller (though not small) venues. I managed to catch both shows about a week or so apart.

The Roger Waters show was OK but, in comparison to the David Gilmour show, came in a distant second place. Perhaps I had lower expectations for the David Gilmour show (I can't really recall now), but my memory is that David Gilmour was great; I thoroughly enjoyed the show; and when I saw Roger Waters it was disappointing compared to the David Gilmour show.

I probably could name others in response to the thread title, but this was the first example that popped into my mind.

Mike

I also saw the Cult, somewhere in London, they weren't that great that day but the support were superb - Balaam and the Angel before they went big stadium Rock, shame they took that route and didn't last too long!
Dave

Sylvester, him of the You Make Me Feel Mighty Real variety. There was only about 200 people at the gig in a hall that held well over a 1000. The Record Co. and promoter had given the rest of the tickets to me to stand outside and try and give away. We were lucky to get about another 50 or so people as nobody wanted to go.

We were congo-ing up and down the ailses and dancing on our seats. The crowd being in such a good mood seemed to spur the band on to great heights.

He even played some of the stuff he wrote when he was a Motown staff writer which he apparently didn't on the rest of the tour.

Don't think he ever toured again. Wonder why.

The Pogues, Manchester Apollo around 1987. Men with broad accents shaking green buckets for donations at the entrance, front rows of seats taken out to make a pit. McGowan lurching off stage regularly to swig from his pint of vodka. And most of all stupendous music! What a night. caught Strummer with the Pogues as well at the same venue. Those were the days!

A couple come to mind.

1) The B52's at the Hammersmith Palais around 1980. Although they were the headline band, I had actually gone mainly to see the support band who were the Au Pairs, and were one of my favourites at the time.

The Au Pairs were fantastic, and after dancing around like demented beings for their set, we retired to the back to take in the B52's set.

Although I liked the B52's music I was not really expecting them to cut the mustard live, how wrong I was. A couple of numbers in and the crowd were going mental, and we had dived back into the mass of bodies, despite being knackered from the first set.

A lot of expat Americans had gone along, but were not expecting the mosh pit conditions at the front, and a lot of of them had to be extricated. The band were a bit shocked as well and had to ask people to move back to stop people being crushed. Once the more delicate individuals were removed, the band carried on and everyone went nuts again. Excellent for reasons of exceeding my expectations by a country mile.

2) The Stray Cats at the Rainbow in Finsbury Park 1980. They had just released Runaway Boys and were suddenly hot property, but apart from the single nobody had heard anything else they had done.

For three guys with a guitar, double bass and the most basic set of drums you have ever seen, which were played from a standing position thoughout, they played an absolutely blistering set where the audience danced non stop. Not bad considering only one track was known prior to the gig.

The bottle of gin smuggled in in lemonade bottles helped get us in the party mood, but even so they were amazing live.

Regards

Nic

quote:

Originally posted by Rasher:
I call U2 the poor man's Alarm.

I once bought a Great White CD, without listening first. When I heard it at home, I was very surprised that it sounds so totally different than the previous records, but I thought it was a real evolution and by far their best album. After some time I noticed that the titles on the cover didn´t match the music on the CD. So, I went back to the record store and asked the dealer... it then turned out, that it was a false pressing. Optically a Great White, but the music was the Alarm

In the end, instead of a replacement Great White, I chose the real Alarm CD

brgds...TC

I saw Hard-Fi at the Barrowlands in Glasgow in Nov 05. I was enjoying the album but the tracks were being over-played on the radio a bit much. I wasn't holding out too much hope as the band seemed to be everywhere at the time and i had got to thinking that they would be a bit lame live. However they were absolutely amazing. The front man far from being up himself as i had assumed from his popularity was excellent, confident but not arrogant. They were musically very tight too.

I saw them in last years coverage of T in the Park and his voice sounded worn out, as if they had been touring for months which they probably had.

Most recently New York Dolls here in Stockholm 2006.
John Cale also last year.

Another one that springs to mind were Blondie around -98 also in Stockholm.

Both are all time fave´s that I thought I go and see just for old times sakes. Had no expectations.

I went to the Waterboys a couple of years ago in Groningen. Didn't even know they (well, he, Mike Scott) still played because I stopped buying their albums after Fisherman's blues. I did not expect much and thought it to be one of those concerts of an old guy going through the motions playing old hits to make some money (really, I did not know where I got this idea from...). How wrong I was. The sound was spot on, they played the right mix of old and new (which I did not know of course) and it rocked.
And that Mike Scott is kind of pigheaded. At some point he started playing a slow song without the band. The crowd starten to clap in tune (well, kind of). He stopped playing and told the crowd to stop clapping because he was quite able to accompany himself on the piano. So he started the song again, the crowd started clapping againg and Mike stopped playing again, bruskly stood up and they started another song.
No slow songs for Scotty I guess.

When I went to see Planxty in the early seventies I didn't know what to expect - but by the end of the gig I had decided to buy all their albums: fantastic group. When I saw them Paul Brady was standing in for Christy Moore: so I didn't even see them at their best and they were still amazing.

Amazingly The Kursal Flyers at the the McRobert Hall in what is now Robert Gordons University in Aberdeen.....must have been 28 years ago I guess....just a great set that night.

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by ROTF:
When I went to see Planxty in the early seventies I didn't know what to expect - but by the end of the gig I had decided to buy all their albums: fantastic group. When I saw them Paul Brady was standing in for Christy Moore: so I didn't even see them at their best and they were still amazing.

I was once partaking of some acoholic beverages with Planxty(Christy and all) and on my way back from the bar with a round of drinks I tripped and spilt the whole lot over the group 10 mins before they were due on. They weren't veryhappy and the start of the gig got delayed. Needless to say it was a great gig.

Saw Ian Dury and the Blockheads a few years ago on (what I imagine was) his last tour. He was clearly very ill and had to be assisted onto the stage and we weren't expecting much TBH. However once into the first few songs the music appeared to have an extraordinary effect on him - giving him strength and energy so that he seemed to be getting visibly stronger....quite amazing. The Blockheads were absolutely on fire as well and sounded like they last played together about 15 minutes before, rather than 15 years....one to remember.

Went to see a show called "Daddy Cool" with my 22 year old son (we had comp tickets, to be fair). Our expectation of a musical based on the songs of Boney M was not very high, but in fact it was a cracking evening.