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Here's your question and answer of the week from the Punknews Formspring:
Q: What was the best concert you went to? A: Whew! That is a very, very, very tough question. First of all, how do you qualify "best"? Is best where the band was really, really good, or is best where you personally had the best time?
I'll give you three of my top favs.
One of my top favs was in high school. David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar were doing a joint tour where they both would play Van Halen songs. DLR was doing all VH and Sammy Hagar was doing VH and solo tunes. My pals and I went to see the show. Of course, we were (and still are) extremly pro-DLR and extremely anti-Van Hagar.
DLR came out first. This was the last tour where he had long hair and wore spandex and did a lot of karate moves on stage. DLR absolutely desroyed the stage. He did about 14 songs, all VH, and just kept doing hit after hit after hot, without any breaks in between. He did them all. he did "Hot for teacher." He did "Beautiful Girls." Of course he did "Jump" and did the jump(TM) off the drum riser at the end. Is was just a phenomenal rock show.
Then Sammy comes out, and let me tell you, he was looking a little… rough. He had a beach towel wrapped around himself. I think he wanted to look like a "beach party animal" (TM) but really just looked like a drunk slob. he took no less than three pauses doing the show to plug his tequila brand "Cabo Wabo"(TM) and even took two shots of it on stage. He then laid down for literally three songs and sang on his back. I don't know if he was drunk or just lazy, but the set was terrible. Anf by terrible, I mean awesome, because it was so hilarious. DLR destroyed it and Sammy was just sloppy. It was so great.
The second best show I've probably been to was probably Amebix in San Francisco. They suddenly reunited after being broken up for like 20 years and out of nowhere, basically said "Oh, yeah, we're playing San Francisco." My mind was blown because I figured that there would be no way that I could ever get to see Amebix. It so not a possibility that I never even considered it. Then, all of a sudden, there they were.
I went with a girl I was seeing at the time who was very much into the arts. The show was awesome because though she was very much not a crust punk girl, she was able to appreciate and enjoy Amebix for what they were. Second, Amebix fricking killed. I've got the only official Amebix live album fro their original run, "Make some fucking noise" and while that's a greta album, Amebix 2008 destroyed it. They were louder, faster, heavier, and just better in every way. It was an awesome show and Jello Biafra even showed up to sing Lardactyl. The Amebix reunion is proof alone that sometimes reunions are awesome and also that sometimes they blow the original run out of the water.
Probably the best show I've ever seen so far was the Rolling Stones in Hershey in 2005. I had just taken the LSAT's earlier that day and was feeling good. I went to panda express (which was a rare indulgence in my college days) and then went to my place and watched three whole episodes of Star Trek TNG. THEN, I drove to hershey and got a ticket off a scalper for like 1/3 the price. (At that tour, the scalpers had purchased like over 50% of the tickets, and finding that there isn't much of a markup on a $350 ticket, took a real bath on reselling tickets and lost a lot of money- it was awesome). The Rolling Stones came out and were absolutely phenomenal. Mick Jagger is without a doubt the greatest front man of all time. The Rolling stones are not THE ROLLING STONES because they are the rolling stones, but rather, the rolling stones are THE ROLLING STONES because they are the greatest rock band to ever play live and wrok like maniacs up on that stage. (I hope they are good this summer and don;t harm the legacy) The show was really awesome because they did a lot of semi-rare songs that are actually really, really good like "She's so cold" and an amazing cover of "Night time is the right time." Also, "Midnight rambler" was stretched out to like 15 minutes and blew my mind.
Then, after getting back to PSU, I stopped in at a friend's party and had a great time. (I did not drunk). THEN, on my way home at like 3am, I was pulled over just as I was parking my car out in one of PSU's vacant parking lots int he middle of a cow pasture. the police said that another police officer had seen me blow a stop sign. For some reason, maybe because I was tired, I gave the cop a lot of lip and demanded to speak to the cop that saw me run a stop sign. Really, they could have locked me up. BUT, just as things were getting tense, both police received a call on their walkie talkies saying they had to respond to a disturbance downtown. Having to leave immediately, the told me to "watch [myself]"and sped away, letting me off the hook. It was awesome.
-John G
PPS, I would have also added the Keith Morris/ Henry Rollins WM3 tour shows, but I think there might be a tour this summer that will be even better…
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