I still think Rock City is one of the best intimate live venues in the country and looking back it’s had some of the best bands play there too,if you think Motörhead were loud you ought to have seen them at Rock City absolutely awesome
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New to the forum, have loved reading this thread and took huge pleasure in mulling my list over.
Michael Jackson - Black and White Tour, Wembley 1992 (my first big concert)
Carter USM - Brixton 1993 (my first concert as a teenager. Brixton, mosh pits, crowd surfing - wow)
Blur - Shepherd’s Bush 1994 (Parklife just released, Albarn magnificent, felt like something huge)
Beastie Boys, Brixton 1995 (Ill Communication, what an album and what a live act)
Fatboy Slim - Brighton Beach 2002 (30k people expected, 250k turned up, stunning day, probably the top for it all)
Antony & The Johnsons, Barbican, 2006 & 2008 (wildly amazing)
The Rolling Stones, Olympic Stadium London 2018 (took my five year old just to say he saw them live. He did, albeit we left after four songs. Needed ear defenders)
This was the gig where Me and Mrs Si first met 
What a cracking story - it must’ve been destiny in that mass of people!
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Destiny. And beer 
This was a good one, 1977, with little known opening act 'Blondie", two of my favourite bands at the time, still love TV, but strangely I don’t play Blondie at all. When TV toured the following year the opening act were “The Only Ones”, couldn’t believe my luck!
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The Fat Boy Slim gig was very, very big and can only remember one or two tracks before it got shut down but the previous one was excellent less people.
20 years on and only now do I realise he had to finish his set early 
I went to either this gig or the 78, can’t remember…nor do I remember the support at all (stayed in the bar IIRC). But I will always remember Television’s set at the Hammersmith. Wonderful.
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PJ Harvey at the Riviera in Chicago shortly after 9/11
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Well, does my Carlos Kleiber trump your Herbert von Karajan?
I saw Kleiber conduct the LSO at the Festival Hall, the only orchestral concert he ever conducted in London.
He had stood in as a replacement for two concerts to be conducted in Milan and London by the LSO’s elderly ‘President’, the old Nazi Karl Boehm.
The London concert was magnificent, but the following day’s press reviews were unaccountably negative. Carlos Kleiber was apparently furious, instructed the BBC to destroy the tapes made of the concert, and vowed never to conduct in London again. And he never came back.
Very sad.
I still have, and look at, the programme for the concert (Weber, Schubert and Beethoven) from time to time, but it won’t bring him back!
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I would have given almost anything to have been to that Carlos Kleiber concert. He was one of the most inspired and inspiring conductors. Sadly he was his own worst enemy. We can only imagine what would have been possible had he conducted and recorded more. I remember his reactions to the negative press he received. There seemed to be a media conspiracy against him.
Wow, where to start from all the amazing live gigs, concerts and festivals.
Just to mention a few while I’m thinking about this…
Rock on the Tyne, back in August 1981…
(Then again, in the summer of 1982, with The Police headlining).
Yes @TheKevster Pauline Murray was fab’ too. But I went to see U2 and Rory Gallagher.
My “claim to fame” is probably Knebworth 1979 - Led Zeppelin’s last UK performance - I was there. A glorious August weekend in a Hertfordshire field, with around 200,000 like minded people. Denim was popular.
On another occasion, I remember being really excited to see Phil Collins playing on drums, with Brand X, at Trent Polytechnic Student Union.
Echo and the Bunnymen live, back in the early 1980’s - at any one of half a dozen venues I saw them - are all particularly memorable.
Miles Davis, George Benson and Chaka Khan, plus many other “greats”, at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Den Haag / The Hague, Netherlands.
However, the ones that stick in mind as “best” are more recent…
For intimate - Maribou State at The Rescue Rooms, a small venue of some 600 capacity. Coming from the club scene, they know how to work a crowd. By the time their 90min set was nearing its end, the whole place was electric. One of the best atmospheres I’ve ever experienced. Ever.
At the other extreme - Adele in 2016, (25 world tour). We travelled to Amsterdam to see her at the Ziggo Dome, (c.17,000). She’s an amazing live performer. What more can I say? Little things to remember too, like during “Hometown Glory”, I’ll never forget the reaction from the Dutch audience when the big screen showed images of Amsterdam roof tops (instead of usual London skyline).
More recently, London Grammar at Birmingham 02 Academy, 2021. There is something about these mid size and older venues… Anyway, it was a Friday night gig and both the band and the audience were in the right frame of mind for a good night out. Hannah Reid led from the front. Everyone had a great time singing along…
On reflection, the way the artist performs and the venue atmosphere has as much to do with “best” as the music.
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I was there at the Rock On The Tyne on the Sunday. From what I remember it was a weird set up with the stage facing the main stand so if you were too far from the stage you got some odd bounce back of the sound. I remember Dr Feelgood were particularly entertaining and Rory as always was superb.
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Yes, but (sadly) Carlos Kleiber made some life-changing decisions that, to an outsider, look mad.
I mean, has anyone else ever turned down an offer to be Chief Conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker (as Kleiber did after Karajan died)?
It is dreadful to contemplate the recordings that Kleiber and the Berliners might have gone on to make.
C’est la vie, sadly.
Vienna Philharmonic playing Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Nights Dream at the Mannheim Rosengarten……utterly sublime
Jan Garbarek with Marlyn Mazur….saxophonist and percussionist extraordinaire.
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Kate Bush in 2014 was just peerless. We all walked out of that concert at the end pretty speechless. Such a once in lifetime event.
Roger Waters doing the wall in 2011 at the O2 in Greenwich. I was also there the night Gilmour turned up to do Comfortably Numb. The audience reaction was predictably roof raising. Spine tingling stuff.
Gary Numan is usually pretty reliable for a great evening but his evening at the Royal Albert Hall was bizarrely amazing. That’s his daughter on the front mic in the picture.
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Yes Kate Bush in concert is beautiful. I was lucky (didn’t realise at the time how lucky!) enough to see her in ‘79 on her one and only tour (until the comeback 2014 gigs). She was young, energetic, and quite mesmerising! The theatrical show she put on was something else, I’ll never forget it.
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I saw him live a few times . One of the best conductors i have ever seen. The sound coming
From the orchestra was amazing. This was in 1963.
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