1 Elton John - NEC 2003, 2004 & 2005 (or 6)
2 Eagles - NIA about 2005 & O2 2008
3 Eric Clapton - NEC 1998, & about 2002 & 2004.
Elton John was a complete surprise. I liked him but not enough to want to see him. My wife suffered Eric Clapton so I thought it was only fair to take her to see Elton as she was a bigger fan than me. Sound was sublime. Crystal clear & loud but not ear splitting loud. Near 3 hour concert did not leave you with a headache. Also liked the way Elton subtly altered some songs he clearly felt could be improved with the benefit of 30 years experience & left those he felt couldn’t be improved unaltered. His voice had noticeably deepened over the years & we both felt this improved all the songs, adding weight, confidence & authority to the performance.
Eagles were as slick & professional as expected & the sound was 99% of Elton’s at both venues. Why they were dressed as accountants/funeral directors at the O2, Out of Eden gig was beyond me. Still wonder what the band &/or management were thinking!
Eric, pretty good sound but a bit too much bass at times. No surprise that the guitar sound was sublime. Being my all time music hero for just over 50 years (god, I feel old having just type that) I forgave him the odd bass hiccup. I think Steve Gadd was the drummer on all three occasions & at the second time I saw EC, Steve obviously felt he was the star & EC was just providing fill for him as three times Eric signalled to the sound panel to turn the drums down & on the first two Gadd clearly told them to turn him up! A glare from Clapton after the second occasion obviously made clear who really was in charge…
If no one beats me to it, I intend to start a thread for the worst concert sound as I have several tales almost as memorable as the best sound. Yes Wolfsbane (self described as Tamworth’s finest), I’m talking about you…
Same here. I posted something on another thread recently about the Marquee club in London (the original site in Wardour Street), which IIRC had a capacity of about 400. Sound quality was never bad.
Wemley Empire Pool (later the Arena), rather large for my preference, was a tricky one for sound quality, depending where you were lucky enough to get seats.
One thing I never understood was tickets for larger venues costing more!
Eric Clapton at Coventry theatre 1980. I was sat near the sound desk.
The worst was also Eric, at West Bromwich in 1978. Couldn’t hear Eric’s guitar till well into his set.
Muddy Waters was on first and Eric did at least one number with him.
In 2006 we went to see Mylène Farmer at Bercy, Paris. Given that Bercy is an enormodome our expectations for the sound quality were limited, but the sound (as well as the performance) was extraordinary, particularly the bass which was hugely deep yet tight and controlled.
P.S. We were probably the oldest people there by a large margin.
P.P.S. Mylène Farmer is a goddess. Or at least she was until she parted company with Laurent Boutonnat.
Almost any of the concerts I have attended at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall.
Three concerts with superb sound quality and musicianship that immediately spring to mind are Bonnie Raitt & her band, Jackson Browne with his band and Imelda May & her band.
In the interests of balance, having just had a moan over on the “Worst Sounding Gigs” thread, I’ll go on record to state that the sound at Scarborough Open Air Theatre is consistently top notch, in fact, on a sunny Yorkshire evening it’s one of the nicest venues around.
I agree with TheKevster about Pink Floyd. When you consider it was 40 years ago and was at the cavernous Earls Court, their performance of The Wall in 1980 had very high sound quality.
Others:
Prefab Sprout - Jordan The Comeback tour at Manchester Apollo.
Lambchop - Is A Woman tour at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (early 2000s again at Manchester Apollo.
If I can count classical gigs, many at the Wigmore Hall. Several Angela Hewitt recitals, an Anne Sofie von Otter Goethe/Schiller recital, the Lindsays playing Beethoven String Quartet No. 16 stand out.
Rock gigs wise, as IB said the Wardour Street Marquee had fantastic acoustics in the 1980s, I remember a couple of Magnum gigs especially.
More recently Jen and I saw Rod Stewart at the Leeds Arena 5 or 6 years ago, I was very impressed by the sound quality of what is a soulless building.
A very good friend of mine was the front of house sound engineer for the Wall Tour - he’d be delighted to hear that people remember the sound quality of the gig for being so good! I’ll tell him tomorrow.
On a separate note, he loaned me the actual “script” he used for each night of the show with his instructions of what to do and a hand written note from Roger on what he wanted to hear. Was great to read along to whilst listening to the live album…
I was there on the first night and could not believe how good it sounded. Maybe it had to with 5 banks of speakers providing the sounds …
maybe it had to do with the massive mixing desk they had, and IIRC it was the best in the world…
Marillion at the Royal Albert Hall last November sounded excellent.
Any gigs I’ve been to at the Symphony Hall in Birmingham and The Met in Bury have also had excellent sound.
Good call, I’ve always had good sound there, the most recent being Paul Jones and Dave Kelly in January, and before that a storming performance from Graham Parker last November.
John Grant at St George’s Church in Brighton a few years ago. And similarly Josh Ritter last year at Union Chapel. I guess churches have good acoustics
Symphony hall Birmingham, fabulous sound, I believe that when they have groups of school children there is a demonstration of hearing a pin drop. We have been to many concerts there, mostly classical where you really appreciate the amazing sound. …here’s hoping we can all go to concerts again soon.
