100%. A mate and I were going off on Skid Row, particularly Slave To The Grind songs (much better album than their first). All these punters around us be like ‘How come these guys know every word?’
Guns were OK but Skids way better.
As for other memorable gigs, I’ve got kinda varied tastes so they’d include:
- Dire Straits @ Entertainment Centre ‘86. Brothers in Arms. I was a kid but still remember it after telling mum and dad there was nothing else in the world I could ever want. The show I was at was one of the record they set for the venue: ~22 shows on one tour.
- Nirvana / Violent Femmes @ Hordern ‘92
- Jeff Buckley @ Enmore ‘96
Seeing Billy Joel sing New York State of Mind at Madison Square Garden (that song has a whole new life of its own in New York).
- Coldplay at the Metro in 2000 when no-one knew who they were. A record company mate at the time said ‘You’ll like this’ and comped me. They played ‘Yellow’, ‘Trouble’ etc to about 100 people. He was right - they were good before trying to be U2.
- U2 at the EntCent ‘89. Rattle and Hum. When everyone brought out their cigarette lighters for ‘All I Want Is You’ that was the reason for the ‘No Naked Flames’ sign that was erected there after those shows.
- The Black Crowes @ Hordern 2008 - as I finally got to see them live and we went backstage to interview Chris Robinson and after that he said ‘hang around for the sound check’ so a mate and I were treated to a private performance for 45min. Still got the photos.
- In the late 90’s I went to several record company showcase nights connected with my work at the time. The most memorable was in North Sydney. It was a ‘new’ artist called ‘Chuck Benjamin’ who when he walked on stage was actually Ben Harper. About 4 songs in he invited ‘some friends’ to join him - Eddie Vedder and Donavon Frankenreiter. They were in Australia on a surfing holiday together and were road testing songs for upcoming tours. Sweet.
Honourable mention to the Goo Goo Dolls mainly for this: at their showcase, a loose unit gal I worked with at the time marched up to John Rzeznik (singer) and said ‘What’s the smelliest thing in the world?’ ‘Go on’ ‘An anchovies Karmichael Hunt’. Rzeznik being a New Yorker deadpanned ‘I’m taking that one home’
.
There’s probably more but they came to mind first.
