RUSH-love me music

[Stingo]

Dire straits were pretty cool on the Making Movies tour (saw them at Glasgow Apollo - the Scottish Police were very friendly and let me and my three buddies sleep in their fron reception area for the night - didn'y get breakfast though )

[TimTucker]

Good gigs? Let me see:

Rush, as mentioned, though their preference for playing the same show, night after night, grates a little. I can understand it, with songs and presentation as complex as they are for that band, but you would like to see them step out into the unknown occasionally.

David Lee Roth on the Skyscraper tour with Vai on guitar. Watching him play his heart-shaped triple-neck guitar -- but, Stevie, you've only got two arms -- fretting chords with both left and right hands was eye-boggling.

ZZ Top on the Eliminator tour at Birmingham Odeon were hugely entertaining.

Some of Robert Plant solo shows I've been to have been excellent, especially a Christmas show at Brixton academy in the mid-90s. He had Franis Dunnery (of It Bites: do you remember "Calling All The Heroes"?) playing with him and the whole band was just having a laugh.

I saw him again just before Christmas, at the Kentish Town Forum. There were some great rearrangements of Zeppelin songs, especially "When The Levee Breaks" done as a spiritual. Lots of interesting North African flavours. There was something of a Stalinist approach to his solo work, mind you: Zep classics and stuff from his last two albums only. What was that all about, Percy?

I've seen Bjork play a couple of times. She did this fantastic version of Violently Happy when touring Post that built from nothing to something that sounded like the end of the world. I also saw her on the Homogenic tour with the Icelandic string quartet. What an other-worldly voice that woman has.

Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man at Clarence House in summer 2004 was great. Only an hour long, but a fantastic live reproduction of the Out Of Season album. Another fantastic voice.

Ben Folds (both with the Five and now solo) was and is a great live experience. Getting the crowd to sing the horn part for Army is great fun.

There has been one band, though, that really stood out as a great live band. A band for whom the setlist was just a rough guide as to what they were going to play that night. A band that really had a special bond with their audience. And that band was Crowded House.

I know that the Crowdies don't quite fit with a lot of the bands mentioned previously in this thread, but they were just brilliant on stage. Four talented musicians who knew each other well, who knew the songs inside out and were quite happy to go off on musical tangents depending on how they were interacting with the audience.

I remember one gig watching Neil having trouble tuning his acoustic, tossing it to a roadie to sort out and going up to the piano to band out Message To My Girl (one of my favourite Split Enz songs) off the top of his head was magic. It was wasted on most of the happy couples surrounding me, mind you. They just seemed to be waiting to hold hands during Weather With You.

Since they broke up, I've kept up with Neil Finn's career, both solo and with his brother, Tim and the quality of his shows hasn't changed much, though they do miss the dynamic of the band, I think.

Hopefully, Tim and Neil will be playing a few Split Enz shows in the UK sometime this year, so I'll be going along to one of them, along with a lot of ex-pat Kiwis and Aussies of a certain age, I would think.

And there might even be another Rush tour later this year, if they do produce an album in May, like they're rumoured to be doing. I'll be going to several shows if that does happen.

tim, robert plant is just one of the greatest vocalist's i have ever heard. he's not everyones thing but what a talent the guy is. i saw him yrs ago at warwick university and the guy just blew me away (visions of waynes world creeping in/no stairway). crowded house, gotta admit, pretty good. you obviously enjoyed the concert.

stingo, you got me there buddy.....dire straights. classic after classic but never got to see them live.

as for queen, dont get me upset.............rock on freddie aye

[TimTucker]

Mal,

You're quite right, Robert Plant is still a superb vocalist. What I also respect him for is that fact that he's not resting on his laurels, going out there and doing some kind of Zeppelin tribute show.

He's writing new stuff, he's still interested in all kinds of different music and when he does play the old songs, he's not content to reproduce them as originally played but to try something different with them.

Were you studying at Warwick Uni when you saw him there or are you from that part of the world? I'm from a village just up the road from Cov. A group of us would sometimes cycle to the Uni to get p*ssed on cheap cider in the Union when we were 17-18.

I went to Warwick uni! '99 to '02. When where you there?

timtucker, pm'd.

warthog, pm'd.

ok, were obviously talking rock, music here be it heavy, progressive, thrash....whatever floats your boat.
come on boys and girls, whats your favourite all time rock album/cd be it from an old group/new group. i'll start us off with pink floyd - dark side of the moon

King's X - Out Of The Silent Planet.......detuned heaven \m/ \m/