Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Best and Worst Shows

Last night, I was at 219 discussing the future of music and how much SX sucks for Austin bands with my favorite music guys.

Toward the end of the night, we started talking about the best and worst shows we'd seen. It's safe to say we had all been to more than our fair share of truly awful shows and a few transcendent ones.

The difference between a good show and a bad show is that, at a good show, I forget the two girls yelling into their cell phones next to me about where they're going after. At a great show, I am just buzzing for days afterwards.

A's best show is something I am still jealous about:

Miles Davis, Branford Marsalis, and the Yellowjackets at the Hollywood Bowl.

His worst: Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock at One World Theater.

My best is probably U2 on their Joshua Tree tour 20 years ago at Tampa Stadium. It was the first concert I attended without my parents and, though I had the worst seats I've ever had, it was overwhelming. The coolest show I've ever attended was Black Sheep/Tom Tom Club/Public Enemy and I think Toad the Wet Sprocket in the O Dome in Gainesville.

Worst show: Dave Matthews Band at the Erwin Center in Austin. Now, before you start blowing up my email, I went to see Me'shell Ndegéocello, who was opening and left after two songs of DMB's set. A distant second is Brad Mehldau at One World because I couldn't get a handle on what he was doing for about 90 minutes.

2 comments:

suomynona said...

But how bad was Meshell?

J said...

Excellent question. She was absolutely unmemorable. This was perhaps 10 years ago, but she was neither awesome nor awful.

The DMB just annoyed me, but not as much as Polyphonic Spree, who tortured me from afar at ACL a few years ago.