Your top 5 shows that you have ever attended!

Here's a good topic: What are your personal top 5 shows that you have ever attened? You don't have to rank them 1-5, just pick the 5 best ones that you have attended, and all shows are fair game, they don't have to be Fru-shows.

They Might Be Giants - Irving Plaza - NYC - Winter of 2001

This was the first Sapphire Bullets show where the played the entire Flood album for the 1st set as their alter-egos, Sapphire Bullets, a TMBG-tribute band. During both sets, the guys showed an uninhibited side I have never seen, in which Flans let my friend Amanda play the bass drum in Whistling In The Dark (And let her keep the mallet) and Linnell did a great schtick with a concert-goer's cell phone.

Dream Theater - Beacon Theater - NYC - Spring 2002

The band played for 3 1/2 hours, including their 42-minute Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence and the entire Master Of Puppets album by Metallica. The Metallica cover pissed off a couple dozen people, but the fact that the played that long amazed me to no end.

They Might Be Giants - Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Baltimore, MD - New Year's Eve 2001.

Just an incredible party. Dressed up, open bar, and two of my favorite bands on the same bill. It couldn't get much better.

Eddie From Ohio - Falcon Ridge 2002

After the very solemn tribute to the Dave Carter, who had just passed on a week before, EFO tore the roof off the sucker with the most amazing set I've ever seen them do, albeit a short one.

Moxy Fruvous - Bottom Line - NYC - Summer 2002

I'll cheat and put both of these shows together. This is because they only repeated a few songs in both shows, and the 1st show also had something special with each Fruvous member doing a solo song, including the premiere of Jian's "Natalia", still the best version of the song I've heard. If you wanted to get a great helping of Fruvous's live music, these were the two shows to go to. Also what made it special were all the friends around me harmonizing before the show, and singing along to the Drinking Song at the end of the 2nd show.

hey john, when did these secret 2002 fruvous shows happen, and how come nobody else knew about them? :)

Whoops!!!! You know I meant to say 2000.

1. Monkees - Philly, PA August 3, 1986
It topped off the 20th anniversary convention held there that weekend

2. Monkees Cincinnati OH July 1987 (Riverbend)
I can't remember the date, but I have my ticket stub in my program. That was the first concert where I saw Weird Al. He opened for them and put on as good as show as the Monkees. The monkees played for two hours as opposed to some of their other shows in smaller venues where they were doing 2 shows in one night

3. Ringo Starr and his All Star Band August 18, 1989
Buffalo, New York
I don't remember much about what everyone sang - but I remember it being good!

4. Moxy Fruvous Ottawa, ON August 1998 Ottawa Folk Festival
The most memorable weekend for fruvous. The jam at the Luxor will never be forgotten as well as Dave-O dancing the night fruvous wasn't performing.

5. Barenaked Ladies Memorial Day 1997 (or was it 1996? I can't remember!) at the Pier - Free Show - Buffalo, NY
Their improv for "Piss the Summer Hello" was pretty funny. Actually both shows were good and they were FREE! Which makes them even better. :)

Hmm, top 5 shows I've attended. That's a hard one but hey, here goes.

Moxy Fr�vous- Trinity St. Paul's Church- Toronto, ON Dec 8th 1999, I think and to tie for first place, Moxy Fr�vous- The Opera House-Toronto,ON-Feb 17th 2000?

I had to tie these two because how could I possibly choose? The Dec 8th show was my first real Fr�vous show after my Fr�vous drought as I call it and it was the show where I really got to rediscover the band and realise just how wonderful they are. Not to mention it was the night when I found out who Dar Williams is. I'd heard of her before but seeing her live blew me away and seeing them both in a church was unforgettable.
The Feb 17th Show was of course the infamous Fr�con show, the last show *sigh*. It was both an extremely joyous and extremely saddening occasion. Surrounded by Fruheads galore and getting to see the guys in full form after so long. Every fave song was sung and sung along to until throats were sore. It was a show that I don't think anyone will ever forget. Especially me because afterwards Mike gave me his harmonica! Not to mention I got gained a new fave band. Go Supers!

The Carnations- The Barfly- Montreal QC-September 2002

After disovering this awesome T.O indie bands through a friend of mine this summer it was awesome to finally see them live. The extreme scuzziness of the venue gave the show much character and the fact that the PA had broken and been patched just before we arrived gave the show horrible sound but so much charm. We sat right up front and sang along to every word. Afterwards the band gave us setlists, stickers and buttons and hey asked me if they could ride my scooter. I let them and it was hilarious!

Tegan and Sara - Lee's Palace- Toronto ON - Nov, 2002

Waiting for 2 years for these awesome twins to come back to T.O made the show that much sweeter. I was able to perfecrt my new talent of lying to bouncers go me! Down with underage laws *grin* and after scoring a perfect spot right in front we were treated to a wicked show! The fact that they had so many more songs to sing this time around gave the show that much more depth and the mix of new, old and, old old made everything so much more interesting. They did some electric kind of remix versons of some of the older songs off of "this Business Of Art". I'm not sure how much I liked it but I got used to their band and now I love them so maybe I'll get used to that=).
After the show Robyn Black and Bradford Howe from MuchMusic came up to us to aplogize for some drunk freak who is apparantly named "Flyerman" who fell on us during the show. Robyn Black, who I thought would be scary was really cool but Bradford was scary. TV personalities are scary, except Jian, he's not scary....yet=P.

Rock For Layton with Barenaked Ladies and friends (Jian and Mike)- The Phoenix-Toronto ON-Sept 2002

BNL from the front row of a small T.O club, *SO* cool!!! I've paid hundreds of dollers over the year to see BNL in huge stadium sized venues and for this I got the best deal for only $5. They played for at least an hour and a half after a bunch of really cool openers including Jian, who I'd known about before we go there but then when we arrived we ran into Mike who told us that he was playing with Jian yay! They did a few of Jian's new solo songs and Todays The Day That We Fight Back" awesome!

Great Big Sea-Nathan Phillips Square-Toronto,ON-Feb 2002

I've seen GBS a bunch of times and it's really hard to pick just one but I think this time was drefinitely memorable because it was free and thousands of fans gathered to see the band who was on fire. It was just before Sea of No Cares came oit so they were really excited and in full form. It was an extemely cold night and I've never been so cold in my life but that made the dancing so much more fun, and necessary=).

Moxy Fr�vous- Trinity St. Paul's Church- Toronto, ON Dec 8th 1999

I heard the version of "the drinking song" from that show. The audience singing was AMAZING!

this is WAY too difficult considering in the past few weeks alone I've seen Rush, Andy Stochansky, Martin Sexton, Ron Sexsmith, Jackopierce, The Bad Examples, Vance Gilbert, The Jayhawks, TMBG, Down the Line (check these guys out in my links! SO good)... Chicago is so wonderful when it comes to everyone touring here... anyway, I'll have to rank toward the top such events where people I dig play shows together... saw Matthew Sweet, Jackopierce, and Dog's Eye View (pre-popularity) together once in TX... Jackopierce and Lowen & Navarro in OH... Fruvous and the Nields... Vertical Horizon and Gus (pre-Guster!) in a tiny club before anyone had heard of either of them... This year's best was a little show with Chicago guy Ralph Covert of the Bad Examples and Ralph's World kiddie music notoriety and his friend from Minneapolis, Adam Levy of the Honeydogs... I have dug them both for years so them playing together, backing each other on their songs, doing covers... it was sooo tasty! The kicker was that Adam let me sing with him... I almost put that in the "what moment would you stop time" thread because wow... standing at a mic looking across at one of your favorite songwriters at the other mic, with another wonderful talent behind you on electric guitar... friggin amazing... *end of ramble*

Wow, just 5? This is tough..

1. Peter Mulvey - 5/12/99, Johnny D's, Boston MA

I drove 10 hours after a half a day of work to be here, and I felt dead. Luckily, Peter was more on than I've ever heard them. He seemed to levitate the entire show, and Goody was incredible. The song choices was what made this special, the setlist was perfect. The fact that I got an incredible tape out of it was icing on the cake. *grins*

2. Fruvous, 3/18/98 (?) Iron Horse, Northampton MA

This was a great show, especially for the time. They pulled out so many rarities, and they did them flawlessly. There was a deep connection in the air like I've never felt at a FruShow before. Amazing.

3. Guster, 10/98, The Odeon, Cleveland OH

It was my first Guster show, but the thing that made this special was the extent to which they were totally drunk. It was the last show on the tour, and they went nuts before the show. Normally, this would be a big problem for a live show, but of course with Guster it was different. Two words: "pepperoni nipples".

4. Phish, 12/5/97, Cleveland OH

I've only been to two Phish shows, and this was my first. I had a lousy seat up in the nosebleed section. Regardless, from the first note of the groove to "Ghost" to the sweet ending of "Bold as Love", it was mesmerizing.

5. Peter Mulvey, 10/29/98, Turning Point in Piermont, NY

The Turning Point is a beautiful little restaurant with an unreal atmosphere. I enjoyed a nice dinner while watching Peter & Goody play an incredible set. It was a very low-key setlist, the most intimate I've seen them do. That, combined with the liveness and silence of the room made it feel amazing.

Since other people are doing so, here are some honorable mentions:

TMBG - October 21st, 1999. - Bowery Ballroom, NYC - The "THEN" show. the only time I got to see TMBG Old-school duo duo-stylee

TMBG - November 16th, 2000 - Bowery Ballroom, NYC - This was most kick-ass of the Big Band shows, it also featured Mark Penders on screaming trumpet, who blew away the whole crowd. Man whatever happened to those great TMBG Bowery shows?

EFO/Nields - Bowery Ballroom - April? 2001 - First time I had seen either band. I fell in love with EFO immediately, and the Nields entertained very well, especially with Mike Clem subbing in on bass while David Nields stole Gella's hat on Love Shack. I love great double-bills.

DVN - Trenton, NJ - Summer of 2001 - Otherwise known as the "butt" show. DVN made great use of a large glass window that looked out onto the street. They performed Secret Asian Man from outside on the sidewalk, Bernie walked away with a beautiful woman on each arm, we got mooned by a passer-by, and we had the conga line go all the way out to the street.

Well, it's too hard to decide when so many shows were awesome...like theoretically I could have my top 5 be all Fruvous...but I'm going to limit myself to one per artist:

Peter Mulvey Campfire show 10/2/99 in Patty (Nieldsy Patty) Romanoff's yard - This was probably not the best Peter Mulvey show I've seen in terms of music/sound/etc. But it was the most unique and exciting as atmosphere and attitude go. A planned concert got cancelled so Patty instead had him play around a campfire at her place. There were about 30 people (and a dog) there in the dark, on the ground under a starry sky by a fire roasting marshmallows and listening to Peter sing and play guitar unplugged right next to us. Took requests, had a great rapport with the group. It was the most unique experience of my concert life.

Moxy Fr�vous Our Vanishing Fur show 12/30/99 - This show just stands out in my mind as one I loved. Iron Horse, so that just starts the awesomeness. Prep for NYE 1999/2000 so it was the first time we heard Believe. Audience was full of many old friends because of the NYE proximity. Audience was highly responsive. Hilarious show. I just loved it. Off-mic Drinking Song with the audience sounding so angelic. I just love listening to it.

Paul McCartney July something 1990. I could track down the date if I tried, but I'm lazy. It was my first concert ever. I was 13 years old and begged my dad to take me. I had been a Beatles freak since I was 9 so getting to see one of them (my favorite in fact) live was pretty much the most amazing thing I could imagine. I had the best time ever. It was everything I wanted it to be.

Falconridge Folk Festival 1999 - May not count because it's not just one concert, but it was somethign amazing to me. My first Falconridge. That's something always to be treasured. The music, the friends, the atmosphere...the beginning of a long tradition for me. And the music I discovered just that year from the fest...wow.

The entire BBshop show in Seattle 9/9/2000 - This just holds a special place in my heart. Fun, friends, George on stage--seeing him happy and hamming it up...in makeup no less. :) And Metropolis! Yay! And the afterglow was just a blast. Just a very special night for me.

And honorable mention: The Peter Mulvey show at the Acoustic Cafe in Bridgeport (Paul and Kat were there too) where he and Goody ate with us, CDs were exchanged, and he dedicated You Meet the Nicest People in Your Dreams to me from the stage. *sighswoon*

Hmmmm....

5. Rusted Root- New Years Eve- Pittsburgh-1998

Drum trip lasted over 35 mins... and the kept flipping back and forth between that and Ecstasy, the show was over 3 1/2 hours long.... WOW

4. John Butler Trio - The Joint -Las Vegas- aug.20.02

They opened for Guster and they were amazing. I was so excited to see guster and...well...once they warmed up it was ummm fun they just seemed tired. My real question was...why did Ryan take that nice man's Ahi Tuna and eat it? Oh well...But JBT was F***** awesome from the get go.

3. Garbage. Newport Music hall- Columbus, OH 1998

This show blew me away, the lighting left me in shock and WHAT a show.. wow, makes me wish I still liked the band enough to see them again.

2. Eddie From ohio- ummm no clue where or when but it was
with Josh....in ohio I think....

What a fun show, what wonderful sleep deprivation, go Starwars.... Go julie... you rock.

1. Fruvous- sanctuary- Las Vegas- 10.27.99

I've always wanted my own show. *grin* Tiny place only 5 other concert attendees 3 of whom I brought. It was one of the most laid back concerts I've ever attended. "What do you want to hear?" " Nah don't want to play that... what about....this......."

heh

props

I'm only going to include normal concerts here - the Fruvous house party and the TMBG Docushow were definitely the top two shows I've ever seen, but they were "special" shows. these shows appear in no particular order.

The Nields - October 14, 2000, Iron Horse, Northampton, MA (late show). Actually, both shows were quite good, but for the late show they had removed the tables, and there was a ton of energy on the part of the audience and all the band members. and during Jack, the Giant Killer, the audience sang Fruvous' vocals very well.

Moxy Fruvous - April 20, 2000, Atlantic Community College, Mays Landing, NJ. Definitely one of the most "on" shows I've seen them do. they ended with Gulf War Song and absolutely nailed the harmonies. Parts of this show were also featured in the CBS Sunday Morning segment about them.

Ben Folds - June 12, 2002, 9:30 Club, Washington, DC. Besides the fact that he just seemed to keep playing, he told a lot of funny stories and played a great set. The audience also sounded very good during Army and Not the Same.

Guster - November 30, 2002, The Electric Factory, Philadelphia, PA. not just because it was my first full length Guster show, but because they were really into it, played a great set, and even had a giant menorah come down from the ceiling so they could "light" it with a toilet plunger while Brian recited the beginning of the Four Questions from the Passover Seder.

They Might Be Giants - October 23, 1997, The Agora Theater, Cleveland, OH. They played in a very small room, sounded great, had the audience sing Shoehorn with Teeth, and played a great set, including most of the new songs they were working on at the time. And of course, there were many amusing bits between songs.

Honourable mentions go to Kris Delmhorst - September 20, 2002, Mark Erelli and Beth Amsel - October 22, 2002, and TMBG - October 27, 2001. because picking just five is so hard.