Best and Worst Rock Concert Moments

Most recent.
Last week Friday, a buddy insisted I go with him to the Hendrix tribute concert in Portland. Knowing it was a bad idea (there is only one Hendrix) I went anyway.
It was the last concert of the tour and the guys running the sound system really turned it up. Within the first 2 minutes I went begging the ushers for earplugs.
I thought I'd need a blood transfusion from blood loss through the ears.
Then to make things even worse- Mitch Mitchel passed away on Wed all alone in a Portland hotel. He deserves a ton of credit for keeping up with Jimi on some remarkable, all time great tunes.

Hey Mapman,
I was at the Moody Blues a few mos ago. Thought that was the best sound I've heard so far at The Tower. Everything else I saw there was hard rock and sounded awful...think I was at the Troc once and didn't sound that great. The Mann was always a great place to see a show, but haven't been there in yrs.

Hadn't hear about Mitchell... notable passing. Listen to his work on the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival recording backing Hendrix and Billy Cox. Wow!

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/11/jimi_hendrixs_drummer_mitch_mi.html

Procol Harum headlined a concert in the early 70's. Word was they had some bad disagreement with the promoter. The result was they played about a 30 minute set then walked off saying "we don't know any other songs"..(they hadn't played "Whiter Shade of Pale").

I saw just a phenominal Pink Floyd concert @ 1970. It was held in an upscale classical concert hall. The band was on and the acoustics were just perfect. The downside was seeing many fans helped out by EMT's and a guy carried out on a stretcher from what appeared to be a fatal drug overdose.

A bad moment was at Mile High stadium 1969 when the police fired tear gas into a group of gate crashers wanting to see Hendrix. The wind then shifted and blew it all into the crowd. Good concert though - I think the last time he played with Noel Redding.

Worst Moments
1) When I was the lighting director for the Aerosmith reunion tour in 1984, Steve Tylor was still getting loaded. During his first song at our gig in Rockford Il he put his harmonica in his pants pocket. The pocket had a hole in it and the harmonica slid down his leg and lodged in the top of his sock. He was too loaded to figure out what was going on, missed his vocal cues and then, while still searching for the harmonica in his sock, tumbled over the front of the stage knocking himself out and ending the show.

2) When I was the lighting designer for Alice Cooper we played a year of gigs. Alice was back to his old habits during the entire tour. I won't get more specific than that. Anyway, our last gig of the tour was at the huge outdoor stadium at CNE in Toronto Canada. The opening act went on. Then we waited. Apparently Alice was too ill to go on so his show canceled. 20,000 fans then rioted. A drunk fan decided that he could jump off the top deck onto an awning and slide down to the bottom deck, like in the movies, and then run out to the field and trash the stage with the others crazies. Unfortunately he plunged through the awning and died.

BEST MOMENT:
When I was the production manager for INXS we played Shea's Theater in Buffalo New York. The band was really rocking that night and the crowd was totally into it too. By the end of the show, the fans in the balcony were dancing so hard that the balcony was bouncing up and down at least 6 inches either way from center and plaster was falling down on the orchestra seats. The crowd thought it was cool too and started dancing so that the balcony not only bounced up and down but side to side too in a wave.

Thankfully no premanent structural damage that I know of but one of the most wonderful shows where the crowd was feeding off of the band and the band fed off the crowd. A magical night