I was going to search for youtube videos, but I’m fairly certain that most of the shows that stick out in my head are away from the YouTubes.
The first show where I can remember thinking like I’d seen something special was about 13 years ago at Stella Blue. It was called Carolina’s Country back then, and then it morphed into 31 Patton, got bought and became Stella Blue. The band was called Minus Us and were a standard punk rock band with some covers thrown in. I remember they did a version of “99 Red Balloons” (which is a song that I hate) and just falling in love with the band. I remember dancing my idiot head off and the audience changing from several dancing loons ramming into each other into this weird sweaty pile of 20 something love. Grown men were hugging and singing this silly little song about peace, love and balloons. It sounds dumb, but that night was when I learned a little bit about what rock n’ roll and what it can do with people.
Another show that sticks out was a show by The Merle around the same time. It was weird watching a band that powerful take the stage. Before papers started noticing the band, and before they played Bele Chere shows, Chris Gear, Chris Yountz and Jamie Sterling were the only band that really mattered in town.
As I got older those life changing shows seemed to get fewer and farther apart, but this year has shown me a couple of great performances. My Morning Jacket at Bonnaroo were pretty damn amazing. I remember standing under a tree and staring at the sky as it poured rain down upon everyone there and watched this band kick out the jams. It was amazing. The band may be known in the “jam community” or whatever certain c%$*s that post here think, but what I saw was this perfect amalgam of Neil Young and Prince. They owned the stage that night and played this great r&b;indebted spacey country rock. I stood under the tree with my mouth agape at what I was witnessing. I was supposed to eat a pile of mushrooms that night, but the music seemed way too important for me to miss.
I also saw the Gaslight Anthem in Covington KY (outside of Cincinnati) in November. They were pretty damn amazing. It felt like seeing Springsteen or The Clash in a tiny club. I stood at the corner of the stage and nursed a bourbon drunk alone in a city I’d never been to before and really felt like I was seeing one of those “I saw those guys back when they only played for ____ many people” kind of shows.
That’s just off the top of my head. I have high hopes for this year. Tonight I’m seeing the Drive-By Truckers at the 40 Watt Club tonight, the Truckers again at the Orange Peel at the end of the month and the Killers at the Grand Ol’ Opry the next night.
Reunion Tour’s cover of The Cars’ “Just What I Needed” at Vincent’s Ear for the Valentine’s Day In Ice showcase. It was better than Phish and Widespread Panic rolled into one. (You can pay me later, Bugg.)
Actually, all of those showcases come to mind when I think about great nights of great live music. It was a bunch of local musicians playing for other local musicians and people who were into the scene. Fisher and Gavra Lynn’s cover of “Fairytale of New York” comes to mind, as does The Ether Bunnies dissonant version of DrugMoney’s “Oregon.” You kind of had to be there, though.
Thanks. I remember the crowd was nuts for that, but I felt a disconnect from them because I was on stage that night. I remember people clapping and it wasn’t just our friends and girlfriends.
Well, to go too far into the metaphysical realm of dancing pee would be a mistake, I fear. But I will tell you that, like in my story, after a near-death experience (so I was convinced) caused by refusing to forfeit my ultra-close spot for the greatest Phish show in history just because I needed to pee, then I panicked and drank a strangers’, then with bladder teetering on full-on supernova a ran through a throbbing throng of Phisheads, only to join in the creation of the dancing river of urine.
Which may or may not actually have been dancing. But as my pee mingled with the pees of a thousand other pilgrims, I felt at one with the universe. LOL
I assure you though—my own dancing found a whole new gear after the pee river scene closed and I turned back around to face the stage.
Another image indelibly etched into my psyche from that night/morning was when the sun finally rose, to the strains of ‘2001’ and then ‘Velvet Sea’ and finally a reprise of ‘The Meatstick’.... I slowly walked back to the enormous campground, transfixed by the contrast of a glorious Everglades sunrise above, and a ground scattered with plastic baggies with one corner torn off—there must have been thousands.
Back in those days of the multiple day, Phish-only festival, which really was the precursor to Bonnaroo and all its clones nowadays, it was commonplace for you to line up at the turnstyle until the signal was given for you the masses to be allowed to sprint for the big field in front of the stage.
None of the hardcore kids had folding chairs or any of that nonsense. You would have your backpack, your snacks, your treats, and a gallon jug of water or two. And you would run like the wind into that euphoric dust, seeking a spot as close to the stage as possible.
And so it was for Big Cypress and JRM. Of course I made friends with all kinds of surrounding groups once we made it down by the stage, laid out our blankets, and waited for the music to start. Everyone was very community minded with their goodies, but you just didn’t see those groups of people going too far. No one was belligerently drunk. No one was trying to outcool anyone else.
But, after I guess it was, 15 hours in that field, I simply couldn’t hold it anymore. I was feeling sick. And I swear I thought that jug was the last of my water… rather than someone else’s old water stash that had now been converted into a makeshift I’m-not-giving-up-my-spot-right-in-front-of-the-stage-just-to-go-pee solution.
Needless to say, my bladder problem did not subside with the sudden knowledge that I needed to cleanse myself of said solution from both ends!
Is it ironic that many Phish haters over the years have alluded to Trey and his guitar solos as “Peeing in someone’s ears”? LOL
Going back to the broader angle of ‘The Most Amazing Live Moments’ EVER that I’ve seen in a postable format whether or not I was there (after all, I come from a small rural town in the Appalachian mountains, not even the Southern Paris [Hick-ory]...
Let me remind you all of the glory of pop music: Especially the last one, Pos, I put that in there for you man. Not really—I just think the man has a billion times more cajones than anyone to stand there like that, on Live TV, lip-sync/vocoder autotuning, in front of a screen like the one he was mocked for at ‘Roo… and just geek out like that.
I don’t even care if it fits any definition. Live Performance Art with Music too, then, if you must. Whether it was a Swedish dude with a Macbook, with Britney out front with that snake, or whatever…. that was a definitive live music moment to me. Whether or not she, or Kanye could actually sing, or did—I don’t care really. I love dance music, pop music… it’s an art form of its own that involves theater and acting as well as movement. No, it’s not the same discipline as learning an instrument, it’s even more fickle. It has to do with charisma and beauty and other less serious-art concepts, it’s more the realm of the young and trendy. And it can be irrelevant, silly, self-mocking, and outrageous as a result, I think—but sometimes, also even more penetrating and significant.
