Someone asked me the other day about the best live show I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen a whole lot of them, so it’s a tough call. A while back I narrowed it down to a top ten that were clearly a cut above the rest: In no particular order:
- BAUHUAS (Electric Factory in Phila. 1998) Perhaps some of the best musicianship i’ve seen in a live show. In the encore, they did Bela Lugosi’s Dead (of course) and Peter Murphy was wearing a cape.
- ELECTRIC EEL SHOCK (SXSW 2005) Maybe the best show I ever saw at my 3 SXSWs wasn’t even an official show. This Japanese heavy metal trio played their official show and an afternoon show, and then did this one at a weird warehouse down by the train tracks. They were set up on the loading dock and the drummer played naked even though it was barely 50 degrees out. Halfway through the set the audience had to move to let an Amtrak train through. It was very high energy, low rent, punk rock.
- THE JESUS LIZARD (Upstairs At Nick’s in Phila. 1997) A former main stage band at Lollapalooza, famous for their live show, playing a tiny bar. It was almost as if someone had put a jet engine on the stage and turned it on. This show featured my favorite rock and roll moment that I’ve ever seen on a stage. At one point, in the middle of a song, the guitarist tossed off his guitar, jumped into the crowd and punched a guy in the face; and the punch landed before his guitar did.
- GARY NUMAN (Irving Plaza 2001) The guy most famous for the quirky 80’s new wave hit “Cars” has gotten way better over the years. His music is now darker and more aggressive. This show really caught me off guard. It had the energy of a full-on Nine Inch Nails show, in a relatively small venue. It made a big impression on me.
- RAMMSTEIN (Electric Factory in Phila. 1999) The lead singer was on fire during three different songs. They had a back-up singer in a burning cage. They shot a flame thrower over the crowd. The keyboardist looked like he’d been plucked from Kraftwerk. Just awesome.
- THE CURE (Roseland Ballroom 2000) My friend and I paid $100 each on eBay for this special promo tour. I was about 30 feet from the stage and they did almost every song from the album Pornography including my favorite Cure song One Hundred Years. The whole set was great, but that song in particular was overwhelimingly awesome.
- TOOL (Electric Factory in Phila. 1996) This was the Aenema tour. Maynard was painted half blue. It was musically and visually stellar.
- BJORK (Roskilde Festival 2003) At a festival nominally dominated by the likes of Metallica and Iron Maiden, it was an interesting vibe before Bjork took the stage to close the 4-day festival. A lot of people had left, but many thousand metalheads were still there either out of curiosity or exhaustion or because their girlfriends were making them. Bjork came out with a big stage show and video production (courtesy Matthew Barney) and blew everyone away. Her voice is just amazing.
-PIGFACE (Trocadero in Phila. 1998) At one point they had 15 people on stage 8 of whom were drummers. It was a big crazy party. I remember telling my friend, “I didn’t know live music could be like that”
- !!! (Coachella Festival 2004) This band was so good live it made several thousand cranky music fans forget how hot (108) and tired (very) they were. They put on a really high energy danceable indie-funk show. The singer remarked “I just called my girlfriend from high school and told her we were opening for the cure. then i laughed and hung up”.
