My Top 10 Concert Experiences

This concert was the second one I attended on Roger Waters' "In The Flesh" tour, but it was much more memorable to me than the first. The first time had been at the E-Center in Camden New Jersey, a terrible venue where I'd been all the way at the back surrounded by people who'd never heard any of Roger's solo work - they only wanted to hear Pink Floyd classics like "Money." (Someone also stole the t-shirt I'd bought right off the back of my chair!) When some friends of mine from the Pink Floyd mailing list "Echoes" scored a great block of tickets on the floor for the Baltimore date, I jumped at the opportunity to see the show again with them. I was so glad I did because our seats were 9th row, dead center on the floor, a perfect vantage point to enjoy Roger's performance.

I loved finally getting to hear some of the songs from one of my favorite albums, "Amused to Death," performed live and Roger's band was very good - maybe not Pink Floyd, no, but good enough to recreate the older songs well and give them some fresh life, too. The crowd around us were more dedicated fans who appreciated Roger's solo work as much as the Pink Floyd tracks. Also memorable was the fact that my mother wanted to go to the concert at the last minute, but all I was able to purchase for her was a bad seat in the back of the arena. At the show's intermission, my friends banded together to help me "smuggle" her down onto the floor with us. We had discovered Floyd and Roger's music together, so it was great to be able to enjoy the concert with my mom, and in the company of some of my best "fannish friends" at the time.

I love good drumming - and really good drummers! Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters is one of my favorite drummers, and I especially enjoy his solo work with his band Taylor Hawkins & The Coattail Riders (in fact sometimes I think I like their music even better than the Foos'...!) Getting the chance to see Taylor perform in small, grungy clubs when he tours with the Coattail Riders is just an awesome experience for a drum geek like me, and of the three times to date I've seen him the most memorable was at the Sonar in Baltimore, Maryland. The sound wasn't the best in there - in fact the room was incredibly loud! - but I couldn't beat the vantage point, being dead center and close enough to practically touch Taylor's bass drum as he was playing.

It didn't hurt to be there with a wonderful fellow fan and friend to enjoy the experience - and who made sure I had the chance to finally meet Taylor after the show and get a photograph with him. Sweet!

Want to read my full concert review of Taylor Hawkins, May 4 2010? Click here.

Confession time: although I grew up as a child of the 80s, I never was big on Van Halen when I was younger. The music, the macho bravado - it just wasn't my thing even as hugely popular as they were at the time. Yet VH is one of my fiance David's all-time favorite bands, so when they announced they would be touring again in 2007, we bought a pair of tickets and I figured I'd have fun because David would be having fun. I didn't expect to be so thrilled by the Van Halen concert experience myself!

When I was younger I did not realize what an incredible guitar player Eddie Van Halen was. Hearing him perform live certainly opened my ears to his amazing, unique talent, and the way he can get sounds from his guitar I've never heard anyone else ever make. And David Lee Roth, of course, is perhaps the ultimate showman. Cheesy and over-the-top, he embraces his outrageousness like I've never seen any other performer do. Even when he forgot the words to "Ice Cream Man" after a long and convoluted intro, he turned it into a joke that had the whole arena cheering and applauding. Van Halen's music is just plain, fun music and the kind of hard rock simply meant to be enjoyed at full ear-splitting volume in an arena. Now every time "Panama" or "Atomic Punk" comes on the radio, I have to crank it up!

It's 1991 and I'm a freshman in college with a crush on a boy who was completely wrong for me, save we shared the same taste in music. i> he told me. He made me a copy of "Misplaced Childhood" and I soon after bought a copy of "Clutching at Straws" which would become my supreme "theme album" for all of college - and then some.

Oddly enough, I became more interested in lead singer/songwriter Fish's solo work than that college crush ever was, and followed Fish's career for years but never got to see him perform live until 2008. The concert was at one of my favorite intimate venues, the Theater of the Living Arts in Philadelphia. I was able to briefly meet Fish at a fan meet & greet before the show - awesome! - and at least thank him for the music that meant so much to me all these years. I had no idea that the show to follow would in fact be a special "Clutching at Straws" night featuring nearly the entire album performed live. I'd be lying to say I didn't get extremely emotional at finally hearing him perform these songs which meant so much to me, and looking around at the audience many others were obviously having the same emotional reaction as well. Fish is a great showman and tells great stories to go with the music. I'd not miss him again if he ever comes back to tour in the United States.

Velentine's Day may not seem like the kind of a night to go to a concert solo. Yet in a way, that's what made this Warren Zevon performance so special to me. I had just had a bad split with my long-distance, on-again-off-again boyfriend and was feeling particularly low. When Warren opened his Valentine's Day set with "Splendid Isolation," I knew I was in the right place that night.

Warren's music had long been a favorite of mine, and his voice and witty, cutting lyrics always touched a special place in my musical soul. Warren also was a master at communicating with his audience in a small venue like the TLA. I was near the stage, and it was only the second time I'd seen Warren live but this was a much more intimate venue than the first. He ribbed us, wondering what we all doing there on Valentine's Day listening to his morose music. He cut down hecklers and kept us captivated, playing nothing more than guitar, harmonica and piano. I would see Warren two more times at the TLA before cancer stole him from us; each performance was always one to treasure and proof that a true artist needs nothing more than his voice and his instrument to communicate with his audience. I still miss Warren and his music so badly today.

There are tribute bands, and then there is "The Musical Box." This band from Montreal takes the art of tribute band musicianship and staging to a level unlike any other group I've ever seen. They recreate specific Genesis tours to the letter, including all of Peter Gabriel's on-stage monologues, elaborate costumes, lighting and slide-show effects. And of course, the music. The Musical Box sound so good, some have even commented that they sound better than Genesis ever did themselves when performing live in the 1970s!

Singer Denis Gagné's ability to nearly "channel" Peter Gabriel is almost eerie, and was never more evident than when the band re-staged the classic Genesis album/tour "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway." The Musical Box received tremendous support from Genesis themselves for this project, including giving them copies of the original 1,200 slides for the back-screen projections. They were also given access to the original album master tapes and did a fabulous job of recreating the music and entire experience of the show.

I've seen The Musical Box perform at least a half-dozen times through the years, recreating every early Genesis tour from "Foxtrot" to "Trick of the Tail," but none was as mind-blowing an experience as their "Lamb" show. I can't wait to see it again when they bright the production back on the road in 2011/2012.

Getting to attend this press conference/"rehearsal" concert was an absolute dream come true, and no small accomplishment. Although I had been a lifelong fan of The Police, I'd never had the chance to see them live in concert during the 1980s which was something I'd always regretted. Rumors were flying like crazy by the end of 2006 that a reunion tour was in the air, and when it was announced that the band would be opening the Grammy Awards on February 11, 2007 with a "press conference" to follow the next day, us fans all knew that could only mean one thing: TOUR TIME!

Always an instigator, I started making a lot of noise on various fan forums when it was announced that members of Sting's official fan club would be eligible for 20 invitations to the press conference, but none were being offered to fans on Stewart and Andy's websites/forums. Well, all of a sudden 4 tickets became available to people on Stewart's site - and I was one of the lucky four to win one! I had only a few days to make travel arrangements from the East Coast, but ended up sharing a hotel room with a friend and fellow fan and met up with numerous others there, some whom I would end up seeing and getting to know much better over the next two years...

The rehearsal/performance the next morning was brief, but magical. We stood in line for hours to get in right at the foot of the stage, and I couldn't believe I was, at long last, hearing my favorite band perform live! Yes, the performance was rough, but the energy was intense, the room full of fellow fans (some great, popular musicians in their own right) celebrating the return of The Police. I'll never forget the magic of that morning performance and the adventures that followed through the length of the entire tour.

The final show of The Police's Reunion Tour was something special, more so for the celebration and the people I was with than the concert itself. After several months of aggravation as the band kept adding more shows to the end of the tour - frustrating people who had bought tickets to earlier dates believing those to be the actual last shows, many fans were fed up. They were also upset because, as the concert was being offered "for charity", ticket prices were double what they had been for all other dates.

But then something special happened - Stewart Copeland offered up 100 free tickets to his fans via his website. 80 of the tickets were in a prime side location to the stage, the other 20 were in the front "pit" at the stage. These pit tickets had been selling for over $1,000 each on ebay, if you could even obtain one as most were going to friends and family of the band and other "VIPs." I was one of the lucky ones to get a free pit ticket from Stewart so I could be there right at the front, with some of my best friends from around the world, to say goodbye to our favorite band. The experience was truly magical, especially with the interaction we had with Stewart and getting the chance to, at long last, pass along the Flag of Copelandia and see it displayed triumphantly behind his kit for the encores. I'd been there for the very beginning of the tour, and was there to say goodbye at the very end.

Read the PoliceWiki entry for more information about this concert performance.

When Roger Waters announced he would be taking "The Wall" back out on the road for the album's 30th anniversary, I was thrilled. I had not been one of the fortunate few to see "The Wall" performed back in the early 1980s but had long heard about this amazing live show. I originally planned to go to two shows on the tour - and ended up going four times because I was so blown away by the production.

"Spectacle" doesn't even begin to describe what this concert was like. I've never seen a concert presentation that so masterfully combined every element of what makes a live music presentation special. The sound quality was pristine, even in a venue, the Wachovia Center, which is notoriously dreadful for rock concerts. Roger and his band were in top musical form, recreating the magic of the original album while driving some songs, such as "Run Like Hell," harder than ever. Roger was incredibly dynamic and wonderful at engaging with the audience, even with the humongous Wall towering over him and dwarfing the performers.

And of course, the visual presentation of "The Wall" was unlike anything I'd ever seen. Large animated puppets, airplanes crashing into the stage, smoke and explosions, 3-dimensional video effects projected onto the Wall being built before the audience's eyes and finally being brought down in a tumbling crash at the end. It was such a phenomenal show I had to go to as many performances as possible just to try to take in all the different aspects of it all. November 11, 2010 was the last performance I saw and in some ways I had the best vantage point: slightly elevated side stage, so I could appreciate the visual effects as well as get a view of the stage mechanics. I was also right next to where Roger appears from behind the Wall during "Nobody Home," which was really special to get to experience so close-up.

Read my review of Roger Waters' "The Wall Live" three nights in Philadelphia: November 8, 9 and 11, 2010.