Your Best Concert Ever?

J T said:

July 1999, Bruce Springsteen.

Here's why.

I bought the tickets on-line, which at that time was still kind of something new. It was time to get tickets, signed on, Section 8, Row C, seats, 10, 11. $65.

Humm. OK I'll take them. I figure, alright these are the section at the back of the floor behind the sounds guys. ahh No problem.

So weeks go by, Where's my freekin tickets? I call up, the woman takes a few minutes gets back on the line and says, Those tickets must be picked up at the "will Call " window two hours before the performance. Huh? Um. OK. thanks. Why would they do that for those seats? Oh well, whatever.

Day of the show, "Will Call" window. I must show ID, and get a wristband. Huh? I asked her why. She said those seats are front row center.

WHAT? NO WAY! woah.

Turns out that the seat sections are set with the higher numbers next to the stage. so 7, 8, 9 are at the stage. Row C is the first row sold. Rows A and B are kept empty, by Bruce You'll find out why in a minute. So the whole time I was thinking I was in the back, I was actually in the FRONT! Holy Smokes!

So I put on the wristband, go to the gate, I get an usher who looks at the seat, snaps the tickets over his hand, says Front row center. He then escorts me all the way to the seats.

The first two rows are empty for about fifteen minutes but people start coming in two at a time to those seats. The people who got in front in the A and B rows were completely pumped and like Wooo Woo. They turned around and said that their ORIGINAL seats were in the uppers in the back row. Somebody came up to them and said here are two tickets from Bruce.

So it turns out that Bruce sends people out to the worst seats in the house and gives them FRONT ROW seats at his concerts. I never knew that until that night. I was in the first paid row.

I was right in front of the center mike, Bruce. Clarence was to our left a little bit, and the first two rows in front of him were ALL women. Ha ha. figure out that one.

In one of the songs, while Bruce was fist pumping his fist, a pick flew out from his hand and end over end seemingly in slow motion came down right at me. The guy in front of me caught it. Darn. While Bruce was taking the applause, he looked down and said off mike while nodding his head, I could read his lips, "Did you get it? Did you get it?" The guy in front of me held it up like a trophy.

The rest of the concert was one of his classic three hour long marathons. That area was just alive with electricity. Stood up the whole time.

Wow

I know I will probably never get seats like that again.

For me, best concert ever.

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bern1 said:

So many! There's a top ten but this is best ever....so I will have to go with Bob Dylan at the Ventura Fairgrounds in the fog around the mid 2000's I think.

Bob and the band were truly inspiringly on. They were opening for Phil Lesh's band with Robben Ford. Even though I am a Ford fan, we had to leave a few minutes into their set to keep the magic in our heads from the Dylan set. We were not the only ones.

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dwagar said:

The most memorable concert for me would be Cream in '68 in Edmonton. We were in awe.

A close second would be Deep Purple, can't remember the year. They were new, Kentucky Woman just hit the charts, they played their asses off. Opened for Vanilla Fudge. It must've been hard for Fudge to try to follow that monster of a band.

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