Bands you have seen live

[Wataru]

I saw Weird Al live a few years ago when I worked with the newspaper. Free tix and an interview!
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[Shad]

Well, I've updated the list to reflect my most recent gigs. Since posting this I've seen Mastodon, Priestess, Ted Leo, The Shins, and a number of terrible opening acts. The next gig in line is Coachella 2007! Rage Against the Machine reunion what.

[Eden]

I saw Gentleman, Seeed and Culcha Candela. All of them are German bands... Does anybody know them? I heard them all together (each after another, of course) at a music festival on the area where the Expo 2000 took place ;)
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The Fool

[Shad]

On April 29th I had the pleasure of joining 50,000 or so other folk in seeing the final day of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2007 in Indio, California. In exchange for about 42 hours and 2,800 miles in transit I was able to see, in order, Lupe Fiasco, Tapes 'n Tapes, Grizzly Bear, Explosions in the Sky, Against Me!, The Roots, Konono N°1, Willie Nelson, Placebo, Air, Manu Chao Radio Bemba Sound System, and Rage Against the Machine.

Out of the lot of them it's hard for me to say which was best. Rage Against the Machine and Explosions in the Sky were both absolutely amazing. Assessing the bands alone, Explosions in the Sky sounded better, had more energy, were better mixed, and were far more intense than Rage could ever dream of being, but Rage Against the Machine fall in to that rare group of musicians that are simultaneously incredibly famous and really good. They didn't sound as good as Explosions, but the crowd made up for it. How often do you find yourself in an audience of as many as 50,000 people all shouting along to songs that are actually decent?

After Rage and Explosions I have to give the runner up awards to Lupe Fiasco and Konono N°1. Lupe is an up and coming hiphop artist of the delightfully intelligent sort. I've always liked hiphop but hated the fact that most artists have nothing better to rap about than sex and money. Lupe Fiasco's rhymes are actually deep and meaningful without being pretentious, and he sounds really great doing it. Konono N°1 is a sort of jungle trance group hailing from the Congo. There music had the whole tent dancing throughout the set. When it boiled down to fun factor they definitely were a step above everyone else, save maybe Rage.

[Exile]

So I got down to a gig the other day in London, it was at the Carling Academy at Brixton to be a bit more specific. Nice venue the sound was good, the lighting was good, did have to stand at a funny angle as the entire auditorium was sloped down toward the stage but I guess at least that means you can see over people!

The headliners were Funeral For a Friend a welsh band going onto about their third or fourth album now I think but I don't have a clue if they have any international success behind them, they're pretty well known here I would think. Well recently before heading down to the gig I listened to their new album and I can safely say it sucks. Good thing they played only about 2 or 3 new songs and stuck to older favourites. They opened with Into Oblivion (one of the aforementioned new ones) which was nice, it sounds a lot better live than it did on the album I have to say and they did some other ones I knew like Roses for the dead, Juneau and Escape Artists Never Die. Overall I enjoyed it they weren't amazing but I think the live sound worked better for them than listening to them recorded did, at least for me anyway. There's a bit more rawness to the sound and it worked.

The support that we actually caught, because we missed the first since we were later than intended because the FA Cup final went to extra time (bloody boring game it was), was The Receiving End of Sirens, they're a Boston band apparently and this time I mean Boston, MA and not Boston, England. They seemed pretty decent but nothing to get overly excited about, pretty generic sounding for their kind of music I thought but others may disagree with me.

It were fun anyway.
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Cry woe, destruction, ruin, and decay -
The worst is death, and death will have his day.

[Shad]

Well, if I did my math right I just saw my 100th live act in Texas last night, and what a show it is. I don't think I've ever seen that much life in an audience. Irish folk punk is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful thing. Granted The Tossers were technically my 99th band, Clutch was pretty good too. :)

[Ezekiel]

I haven't been to many concerts, but I've managed to see a couple of good bands:

Killswitch Engage
Rob Zombie
Black label Society (Sucked horribly)
Mudvayne
In Flames
Slipknot
Slayer
Iron Maiden (Best live show EVER)
Black Sabbath
Coheed and Cambria
The Honorary Title (Opened for Co&Ca)
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[Overdose]

Here my list including sets I saw at festivals

Iron Maiden (x2)
Lacuna Coil (x3)
Dragonforce (x4)
Motley Crue
Trivium (they sucked, me no like. They were supporting maiden)
Korn (x2 though once without Jonathan)
Guns 'n' Roses ( :evil: )
Shadows Fall
Panic Cell
Bowling For Soup
The Zico Chain
Nevermore
Still That Remains (Boo! supported DF)
After Forever
Within Temptation (x2)
Napalm Death
Lauren Harris
Firewind
Slayer
Machine Head
Turisas
Arch Enemy
Lordi
Velvet Revolver
Megadeth
Metallica
Alice In Chains
Evanescence (x2)
Disturbed

I think that about it, other i did not actually watch just heard from a distance

[Shad]

You got to see Turisas and Lordi live? *humbles himself before you*

What did you think of Nevermore? I saw them with Children of Bodom and Dimmu Borgir about four years ago. Talk about intense. Granted I like all three bands, I figured they'd be the lowest note of the set, and man was I wrong. At least in a small venue they had about the most overwhelmingly heavy sound I've ever encountered. While Boris has since topped them and Mastodon came close, I rather expected that. Nevermore was a complete and wonderful surprise.

[Overdose]

Turisas are awesome live, never seen a metal band who have a guy playing the accordian before. Definately awesome to see live and I liked Nevermore. I saw them when I saw Lacuna Coil if I remember correctly...or was it disturbed hmm.

My favourite of those bands live are Iron Maiden, standing right at the front of a festival of thousands of people. Everyone singing Fear of the Dark, i'll never forget that and Bruce slipped over during Wrathchild but still carried on singing on the way down, why he is one of the best and most professional frontmen alive.
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"In the rain, I'm calling you dear, find my way, can't you see me standing right here" ~ I.V - X Japan

FOREVER X!!!

[Shad]

hmm... Yeah, the way I worded that makes it sound like Nevermore are my favorite live act. They most certainly aren't, what I meant was they were the heaviest act I've seen.

It would be very difficult to pick a favorite live act since I've seen so many, but there were a few that stood out miles above the rest. Hmm... Actually, I think I'll go through and rate all of the best bands I've seen. This score is based on their live show, not my opinion, for better or worse, of their music alone:

*/10 - Off the charts
Blind Guardian - I saw them two days in a row last December. The first one I got dead center stage front row. I would have reached up and touched Hansi if I'd wanted to, but I would have probably swooned and missed a damn good show. I got a Blind Guardian pick out of it, which is easily my coolest concert-going acquisition, and I spent the whole set trying not to explode with joy and singing along really really loud. The second day I watched them from a slightly elevated platform by the sound board and had a pristene view to take it all in from a distance. I picked up a set list from that one. Since it was their last stop in the US they closed with an extra song.... Barbara Ann. :D
Boris - SXSW this past... April was it? March maybe? Boris live isn't really a concert so much as an experience. I couldn't hear for the next week or better, but it was worth it. They were so loud and overwhelming I couldn't even tell what they were playing after a while, but it all danced around in my head in to some sensible awesomeness. Their whole set was one 45 minute song.
Explosions in the Sky - Coachella 2007, Explosions landed a spot on the main stage on the last day of the festival. Playing to tens of thousands of people on the biggest speakers they'd probably ever dreamed of playing under, these guys went absolutely nuts playing the best post-rock I've ever experienced. They were my reason for going to Coachella in the first place, not Rage Against the Machine, and it was well worth it.
Iron Maiden - Summer 2003, and I think no further explanation is needed of this one.
Isis - I saw Isis some time in March I think. The whole band was just perfectly in sync with one another and their music flowed like a dream, from bubbly interludes to world-crashing crescendos. There've been many bands I've gone to see that bored me before the end of their 45-90 minute set. Isis could have played for six hours and I would have stood there entranced.

10/10 - See these guys before you die or pass on as miserable lost soul.
The Clarks (Free at the Mount Pleasant, PA town fair)
The Decemberists (Twice in San Francisco in 2004, again last October)
GWAR (Twice last year. The second time I was in the thick of it!)
In Flames (Believe it or not, they were just as amazing in 2006 as in 02 and 03, despite a drastic change in style.)
Radiohead (Saw these guys in Ohio in 2003. Amazing stuff.)
The Shins (Last uhh.. May I think, maybe late April, in Austin. It rained the whole time but they stuck it out. Too bad the opening acts were horrendous.)
The Tossers (Last month I saw these guys in San Antonio. Everyone was there (except me) for Clutch and was expected to mosh and such. The Tossers had them all dancing instead. It was a blast. Certainly up there with Maiden for the most fun I've ever had at a show.)

9/10
Cracker (The surprise show of the century, I saw these guy in Austin, my first gig in over a year, and they blew me away. Not having been to a show in a while had nothing to do with it. Cracker are just awesome.)
HORSE the band (Talk about comedy value, these guys were a riot on Sounds of the Underground. Since the audience for the most part wasn't there to see them in particular, they really hammed it up.)
Iced Earth (with Barlow. :) This was my first concert ever, early 2002)
Mastodon (Saw these guys twice, once in 2006 and once in 2007. I'm still ticked off I missed them in 03...)
The Mountain Goats (I was never a Mountain Goats fan until I saw him live late last October. Now I love the guy.)
Of Montreal (This was the only show I got to in January. A Hack and a Hacksaw opened to boot.)
Opeth (I saw Opeth in late 2002 or early 2003. It was right after Deliverance came out, anyway. The set list wasn't what I'd hoped for, but Mikael is a god.)
Rage Against the Machine (It's Rage Against the Machine. What more need be said? That, and the audience was insane since it was their very first gig in seven years.)

8/10
Buck 65
Built to Spill
Converge
Genghis Tron
Grails
Kylesa
Nevermore
The Peculiar Pretzelmen
Six Parts Seven
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
This Will Destroy You

[Shad]

Looks like I can now tack on the following:

[Overdose]

Over the weekend I saw DIO [Distraught Overlord] not to be mistaken with Dio (Ronny James...). The are a visual kei band from Japan and I thought they were rather good. They were very good live when you compare them to their studio recordings.

I also have just got my tickets to see Dir En Grey in London on the 1st of August woot.
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"In the rain, I'm calling you dear, find my way, can't you see me standing right here" ~ I.V - X Japan

FOREVER X!!!

[Admiral Ackbar]

Dir en Grey? Not fair. They're touring in America with the Deftones, but they aren't coming anywhere near Florida (I think Missouri is their closest show). And they're the one band I really want to see right now. This sucks.

They've toured Florida once before, but I didn't know they were touring America then. *sigh*

I believe the show you're going to is their first UK show, right?
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[Shad]

I went to the Vital Remains show yesterday. Good stuff. Only six out of the eight bands scheduled to play did, but it was still well worth while.