So I guess that's a believe it instead of a not. I had no idea. We were down in the French Quarter and saw the sign. I was like "Hey this will be a good time"...and it was.
Favorite Live Concerts?
- Thread starter Mark Milton
- Start date
James Taylor in the 80s
Tom Petty
Little Feat
Billy Joel, late 80s
Buckwheat Zydeco
Johnny Clegg and Savuka
Jimmy Buffett
The Pretenders
BB King
Yo Yo Ma
Tom Petty
Little Feat
Billy Joel, late 80s
Buckwheat Zydeco
Johnny Clegg and Savuka
Jimmy Buffett
The Pretenders
BB King
Yo Yo Ma
Saw Jimmy Buffet in San Diego in 1986. Good time kind of concert.
I've told of this here before, so..
January. 1990
Guy from Food giant Tyson in my office, asking for our support locally while Tyson sponsored FarmAid IV Concert occupied the Hoosier Dome April 7th.
For my consulting work, Tyson gave me two All Event All Acces passes.
Total Access.
Backstage for two days., rehearsals, etc.
Some of the artists were Bonnie Raitt. Mellencamp, Willie, Garth Brooks , Neil Young, Crosby, Stills, Guns and Roses..
There was a Harley backstage. All of the artists were signing the tank and buying raffle tix....Stills bought a LOT of the tickets
The Show ran 13 hours on Saturday...
Was probably backstage for ten hours
Elton John was a very late add to the performance and got the royal, rock legend treatment. To his credit, he was coming to Indy to visit Ryan White, who died that weekend.
Many interesting anecdotes.
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I saw Nirvana at Hara Arena, In Utero tour, October 30, 1993. Drove there & back from Hoosier Courts for that show…
I lost 100+ ticket stubs with set lists written on the back in a move many years ago, but somehow I still have that one. Ink is pretty faded though…
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I’ve seen my share of shows. A majority from my time booking at the Vogue and Patio. It’s always a different experience working vs being in the audience. With that said there’s some artists that just “WOW” you regardless.
Greatest show I’ve ever worked or attended was Johnny & June Cash and almost the entire family. Believe it was either 1994 or 95 at the Vogue for a $40 ticket.
Al Green - Vogue
Keb Mo’ - Acoustic at Vogue
Cheap Trick - multiple times at Vogue
David Byrne - Vogue
Guided By Voices - Patio
CiBo Mato with Babe the Blue Ox - Patio
Todd Rundgren - Vogue
Son Volt - Patio
Alannis Morissette (We booked this show before her first single came out. We literally paid her $500 plus bonus’s on a $4 ticket. By the time of her show she was blowing up. We almost lost the show to a bigger venue but somehow were able to hold on. This was like 1995.)
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Vogue
Eric Clapton - Market Square Arena
U2 - Joshua Tree anniversary tour Lucas Oil
Tina Turner - don’t recall the venue or year but she was incredible
Alman Brothers - Deer Creek multiple times
Prince - 1997ish Deer Creek (the show I shot hoops with Prince backstage.
Sade - one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, I had no idea how good she’d be.
Built to Spill - Sudsy Malones in Cincy
Pixies - Murat Theatre
Sonic Youth - underground show at a club in Memphis under a fake name
Sturgil Simpson
Charley Crocket - Vogue
I know I’m missing many many more.
Greatest show I’ve ever worked or attended was Johnny & June Cash and almost the entire family. Believe it was either 1994 or 95 at the Vogue for a $40 ticket.
Al Green - Vogue
Keb Mo’ - Acoustic at Vogue
Cheap Trick - multiple times at Vogue
David Byrne - Vogue
Guided By Voices - Patio
CiBo Mato with Babe the Blue Ox - Patio
Todd Rundgren - Vogue
Son Volt - Patio
Alannis Morissette (We booked this show before her first single came out. We literally paid her $500 plus bonus’s on a $4 ticket. By the time of her show she was blowing up. We almost lost the show to a bigger venue but somehow were able to hold on. This was like 1995.)
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Vogue
Eric Clapton - Market Square Arena
U2 - Joshua Tree anniversary tour Lucas Oil
Tina Turner - don’t recall the venue or year but she was incredible
Alman Brothers - Deer Creek multiple times
Prince - 1997ish Deer Creek (the show I shot hoops with Prince backstage.
Sade - one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, I had no idea how good she’d be.
Built to Spill - Sudsy Malones in Cincy
Pixies - Murat Theatre
Sonic Youth - underground show at a club in Memphis under a fake name
Sturgil Simpson
Charley Crocket - Vogue
I know I’m missing many many more.
Shot hoops with prince wins the thread
First - Van Halen 1990 ish Hagar. Openers? Alice in Chains
Best - Phish 1995 Deer Creek - debauchery and one of teh greatest stories of my life.
Saw Pink Floyd at the Hoosier Dome in the mid 90's. Metallica as well. Both solid.
Blues Travelers and Rusted Root at the IU Auditorium (different years). Getting wasted by the president's house.
Junior Brown at the Bluebird.
Dead but towards the end at Deer Creek.
Underrated - John Mayer in like 2008. Did like two pop songs. The rest was bluesy as hell and great. Only downside was it was in the "reconciliation" phase with the first wife. Yeah, that didn't work.
Best - Phish 1995 Deer Creek - debauchery and one of teh greatest stories of my life.
Saw Pink Floyd at the Hoosier Dome in the mid 90's. Metallica as well. Both solid.
Blues Travelers and Rusted Root at the IU Auditorium (different years). Getting wasted by the president's house.
Junior Brown at the Bluebird.
Dead but towards the end at Deer Creek.
Underrated - John Mayer in like 2008. Did like two pop songs. The rest was bluesy as hell and great. Only downside was it was in the "reconciliation" phase with the first wife. Yeah, that didn't work.
I saw Prine at the Murat. Nothing else matters.
As an FYI, in the original Jesus Christ Superstar, the male singer was none other than Ian Gillan --lead singer for Deep Purple. His voice is incredible.
Here's Gillian (playing with Deep Purple) and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra:
I sent this to my mom like 8 years ago and she said "well I don't like his hair, but his voice is incredible--do you have any more of him singing"?
Hell yah I do Mom, take a listen to Highway Star!
Hopefully Billy Joel only did "strictly 80s Billy Joel".
I bet the Pretenders was great.
I forgot about Junior Brown. We had him at the Vogue. The first time I saw him play that guitar was a religious moment.
Here’s another show I forgot to mention, Morphine at the Vogue. They’re one of the coolest bands I’ve ever seen live. They’re truly an original act. That two string bass and baritone sax was unlike anything I’ve ever heard live.
A couple things stand out about that show. It was the first time a band ever asked for drugs in their hospitality rider. Technically they referred to them as “modified mood relaxers”. That was def something I had never encountered. The other cool thing about the show is the drummer had a broken leg. After the last song was played and it was encore time, the band never left the stage, but it was only because they didn’t want to make him get up again. The crowd just thought they were doing something original. What a great act. If you’ve never heard Morphine I highly recommend it.
Crap, another show I recently saw with my teenage daughter a couple years ago was the War on Drugs. Great great band.
A couple things stand out about that show. It was the first time a band ever asked for drugs in their hospitality rider. Technically they referred to them as “modified mood relaxers”. That was def something I had never encountered. The other cool thing about the show is the drummer had a broken leg. After the last song was played and it was encore time, the band never left the stage, but it was only because they didn’t want to make him get up again. The crowd just thought they were doing something original. What a great act. If you’ve never heard Morphine I highly recommend it.
Crap, another show I recently saw with my teenage daughter a couple years ago was the War on Drugs. Great great band.
11. On edit...I don't know how I forgot this one. Saw Tyler Childers a couple of years ago at the Grammy museum for a fundraiser for a documentary about outlaw country music. Place holds 100 people or so and it was just him and his acoustic and we were maybe 15 feet away. I don't believe I've ever seen anyone feel the music they play as much as he does. It was reminiscent of that Bob Mould (who has the same intensity) show I mentioned. Just raw emotion.
My dad was a big time REO Speedwagon fan. So I've seen them at the old Metsker theatre in Evansville with 38. Special, Journey, ZZ Top and STYX.
I also saw Kenny Chesney when Montgomery Gentry opened at Robert's Stadium.
Gary Allan and Dierks Bently double headliner
I also saw Kenny Chesney when Montgomery Gentry opened at Robert's Stadium.
Gary Allan and Dierks Bently double headliner
I forgot...
Foreigner at Belterra
Jerry Lee Lewis at French Lick
Jackie Wilson at Blue Lagoon, Indy
That was at the "Monsters of Rock" concert. According to the Wikipedia article, the attendance was a paltry 1.6 million. Rod Stewart kicked the Monsters' asses! So did Jean-Michel Jarre.
Free or not, who the hell goes to see Jean-Michel Jarre? Have you heard his music? Imagine the worst Euro-synth trash you've ever heard....and then imagine it droning on for hours. And he's on this list of most attended concerts 4 friggin' times.
I know that his father is rightly considered a great composer of film scores. Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, Dead Poets Society. He's probably on the Mount Rushmore of film scores. But the son is just incredibly tedious.
(I'm only kidding about the 1.6 million people...that's a shit-ton of humanity in one place).
I saw Junior Brown a time or two at the Bird. Always amazing, and one time, he had Buddy Miles on the snare drum. Superb.
I miss both of those venues -- especially Mesker Amphitheatre. That was a great place to see a concert. The new mayor has floated the idea of reviving it. But I seriously doubt it will happen. For one thing, it's right adjacent to the zoo -- and the zoo director says that the loud music wreaks havoc on the animals. He's probably right about that.
Also, re: Roberts Stadium. A few months ago, I was in a group discussion about concerts with some friends. One of the guys is in his 70s and he's been to a ton of them. He said that he saw Led Zeppelin at Roberts Stadium -- and I just looked at him dumbfounded. No way in hell Led Zeppelin ever played there.
So I popped on Setlist.fm -- and, blow me down, on April 16, 1970, Zeppelin played at Roberts Stadium.
The Black album tour was awesome. Saw them & Guns & Roses at the Hoosier Dome. Metallica played first, then it took almost an hour for them to get set up for GnR, but the time was partially filled with girls in the audience flashing, so not all bad. Axl came out in a Mike Tyson T-shirt, (this was shortly after his conviction), went on a rant about this “backwards fvckin’ state” or something along those lines & stormed off stage after a few songs. Slash apologized, they came back out a few minutes later & killed it. What a show, both bands were great…
Saw them in LA 2019, Staple Center, Fear Inoculum Tour, mind-blowing
I loved seeing shows at Sudsy Malones. A laundry mat/concert venue was such a weird concept, but it somehow worked. My favorite show there was Luna. A fight broke out and the band just stopped mid-song and looked at the guys as if to say 'are you really doing this?' The guys stopped fighting and the show went on.
I did see Sonic Youth at the CD101 studios in Columbus with about 20-30 people. I won a radio contest for that one where you had to turn your radio up and get the most interesting feedback. It was between me and this girl and she was at work and said she couldn't turn her radio up any louder. I was sitting in my car outside of work before going in. It paid to be a slacker that day. We got to meet the band afterward. Thurston Moore was holding a Paris Hilton record and after getting a picture with him he looked at me and said, 'we'll always have Paris."
I have a friend who saw John Prine something like 35 times. He was just obsessed with him.
Two of my favorite concerts ever were in Columbus. The Elton John/Billy Joel one at The Horseshoe...and The Eagles at the (sadly gone) Polaris Amphitheatre.
These concerts were roughly a week or two apart -- in August 1994.
Buffet concerts were great at Deer Creek, and I'm sure everywhere else.
It was a chance for women to show off their boobs - and they did.
When I was a kid, 90s, Evansville was the big city.
Robert's Stadium had everything, concerts, monster truck shows, rodeos, the circus, ect.
We lived in Cicero when Ryan White lived there and I remember seeing the limos for Michael Jackson, Elton John, and Donald Trump at his house.
My dad, who I tried to get to like Elton John in the early 70s (but he never did), watched Ryan's televised funeral and was really moved by Elton. Elton wore some kind of blue-studded beret and I thought my dad would laugh at it, but he said it was a 'prayer covering'. lol
I loved Polaris. Maybe not the traffic to get out there, it was a cool venue to be sure. I saw some good shows there. Tom Petty, REM, Dave Matthews, Counting Crows. Good times.
I've never actually seen a show inside the Horseshoe, but I did sit outside on a blanked for the PopMart tour and a Rolling Stones show. That was kind of a thing for shows there. Not sure if they allow people to sit outside and listen in now though.
For what it's worth, Fontaines DC last night in Columbus was great. They're in Indy tomorrow night at The Vogue. They're likely not everyone's cup of tea - their crowd definitely trends younger - but I think they're one of the better 'new' acts out there right now.
You mentioned seeing Kenny Chesney at Roberts. He held the last concert there before it was closed down in 2011.
The list of acts that performed there was pretty cool: Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Rush, KISS, Aerosmith, The Eagles, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Jethro Tull, Franz Zappa.
It was the Bridge tour, so many songs from that album, but also lots from An Innocent Man, Glass Houses, The Stranger, and as expected the Piano Man encore. A great night
It was! Chrissie Hynde is a fantastic live singer
I was at that Phish concert in '95. Not a fan, but my company had box seats and no one else wanted to go. So, of course, I jumped on it.
I really liked the first part. But man, at intermission, all the EMTs started showing up and taking the ODers out on stretchers. Wildest scene ever. After the intermission was kind of a blur, but not as good.
Kudos on the Junior Brown callout. Saw him about 5 years ago here in Charlotte at an old theater that was more like a dive bar. Loved that show. Texas swing and Zydeco are my favorite non-rock genres.
@hookyIU1990, @kkott and I went to the Dwight Yokum concert at a smaller outdoor venue in Charlotte last year. The Mavericks opened for them. What a show! I think we might have called you that night. lol
I saw Dave matthews open for big head Todd in Columbus in probably 94. Dave became massive and big head Todd the Jenny Martin house band and a staple at rib competitions
Polaris was outstanding. Better than Deer Creek IMO. Sad that it didn't make it.
That concert inside Ohio Stadium was awesome.
The intro mini-set started as daylight was waning. It was just Elton and Billy and two pianos. The final song of the set was the two of them trading verses on "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me"....and, I don't know if it was planned or not, but the sun set right during the song.
I had general admission tickets for Gary Allan and Dierks Bentley. Standing only, right next to the stage. Got a guitar pick from Gary.
Seen a few shows at Tin Roof in Nashville Tn too. Wife and I like small venues.
We have the Turkey trot in Montgomery. Usually a good show
Wow, Jerry Lee and Jackie. 2 50s icons. Would have loved to have seen them.
