The Steel Guitar Forum

In my salad days in the Twin Cities, I attended several memorable concerts that stand out in my mind. In the sixties, both the Yardbirds (with both Beck & Page) and the Butterfield Blues Band (Pigboy Crabshaw edition) played the eighth floor auditorium of the long-gone Dayton's department store. In the seventies, the Allman Bros at the Mpls Labor Temple, and THE Band at the Guthrie Theater were both terrific. Oh my! As were the Amazing Rhythm Aces in the MSU football stadium in Bozeman. In the eighties, Merle & The Strangers at the old Carleton Celebrity Room, and the Ricky Skaggs Band with Bruce & Flacke at a church in Richfield, MN were quite memorable. But in truth, the best band I've ever seen may have been the Dirty Dozen Brass Band at the outdoor Rhythms on the Rio festival in South Fork, Colo in August, 2019. Wow!

Western Swing? Hank Thompson, and the Brazos Valley Boys.

Bill

I believe it was Country Hoedown with host Gordie Tapp and I think Tommy Hunter was a young performer in the show. It came to a neighboring town.

I'm with Bill Fisher.
He played once in Riverside County, CA back in the 70's.

The year was 60's not 70's and the "dance hall" was the Rollings Hills in West Riverside.

Second one would be Ernest Tubbs with Buddy Emmons.
Buddy had his proto steel with him, but he didn't play it that night. He took two of us out to see the new pedal steel guitar. WOW

The Time Jumpers. I've seen them with either Johnny Cox, John Hughey, or Paul Franklin on steel. They were always fantastic!

Non country band, Chicago. Country, a combination show with Leeann Womack (Randy Beavers on steel), Reba (Bruce Bouton on steel), and George Straight (Mike Dailey on steel).

A tie for First Place. Both rock shows:

* Beatles, Houston 1965. At the height of Beatlemania, so full-blown pandemonium. And I hadn't even made it to 1st grade yet.

* Bruce Springsteen, Austin 1979 (or so). I wasn't a fan when I walked in but my buddy said I had to go and bought me a ticket. Never seen anything like it before or since. Suddenly, all that bellowing on the little car radio made perfect sense hearing it in an electrified arena. Can anybody really outperform and out-sweat a young Bruce? Maybe James Brown. Maybe...
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A second for Bruce and the E Streeters. Unlike Tucker, I was a fan. Saw them 4 times between 1975 and 1982, and each time I wondered if concert entertainment could possibly get any more spectacular than this. For me, nope. One show came close, though. I was not a deadhead, but I went to a Grateful Dead concert on New Years Eve in 1980 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena that was quite something. I almost suffocated in the full court press to the stage too...

The most exhilarating purely guitar-geek musical event I ever witnessed was John Jorgensen’s Gypsy Jazz quintet. I sat in the 3rd row right in front of him, one of about 50 people in attendance at a very tiny theater. Just a jaw-dropping experience.

Honorable mention to a great Bob Dylan show at the Warfield in San Francisco, 1980.

Cheap Trick in a bar (many times). Time jumpers were great too, but I wasn’t 21.

As a band I'm thinking NRBQ could play together on an astonishing level. The most amazing bands I've seen lately would be Henry Threadgil's Zooid and Jeff Parker's The New Breed.

Bob Hoffnar wrote:

As a band I'm thinking NRBQ could play together on an astonishing level.

I have to agree. They were at the Berliner Philharmoie, which is a very posh location.
The evening started with the notorious "Country lover" Buddy Rich's Big Band. Then came Jimmy Giaffre whom I liked, during the Fabulous Thunderbirds appearance the folks were already leaving but still not as much as during John B.Sebastian's short solo spot. They also started booing.
On top of all this the Q appeared with a horn section... they almost emptied the place.
Terry Adams asked the remaining people to come near the stage and we all went there. Maybe 200 fans left from the two thousand, that were there at the beginning. Then they were joined by John and played the Lovin Spoonful hits exactly note for note!

Lets see.

Best song performed live: Santana, soul sacrifice, 1969, two weeks after woodstock.

Best entertainer: Buddy Guy. During his solo he ran all,over the auditorium including the balcony and he was in his 70’s.

Best overall musicianship : Richard Thompson’s touring band.

Best Time: The Grateful Dead, 1972.

Best acoustic band: David Grisman

Doc Watson would probably top my list - such an incredible showman. I saw him a number of times (went to college near where he lived).

Manassas - that was a good show, and they were not around long.

OK, don't laugh - twice the hotel I worked at in St John in the Virgin Islands hosted a group that hired Jimmy Buffett to put on a private concert for their 300 guests (so no big arena). I was not a huge fan until those two concerts - he puts on a great show! Oh - special guest speaker one years was Colin Powell, who had just resigned as Sec. of State. Seeing him in the concert, wearing a goofy shark hat, with his hands above his head doing "Fins on the left of me, Fins on the right": priceless! Also, Alan Jackson and Kenny Chesney both showed up that year to do some songs with Jimmy.

NRBQ

Best band...probably (2000s era) Steely Dan, multiple times. Not necessarily my favorite band (though up there) or the best concert experience, but just flabbergastingly good musicianship. Jon Herington is a fantastic guitarist!

Other favorite concert experiences (in my limited exp, was born in '81) include YES, Bootsy Collins, Ustad Imrat Khan and his sons (Hindustani classical), and hearing a local symphony orchestra put on Mahler's Second (just transcendent!).

Best live band?

Probably Little Feat in DC 1973. Mind-blowing performance. They opened for Bonnie Raitt and Paul Butterfield.

Surprised the Grateful Dead hasn't been mentioned more.

Grateful Dead had the best vibe

B.B. King was great, he really knew how to pace a show and just keep building it up and up

I've seen quite a few over the years, but the standout for me was The Band.
In the summer of '76 I was touring with Chris Hillman, and we opened for them for a couple months on their Northern Lights, Southern Cross tour. Absolutely awesome beyond anything I could describe. I watched them every night. We got off the tour about a month or so before The Last Waltz...and went on to open for Lynyrd Skynyrd. But that's another story.

Skip Edwards wrote: We got off the tour about a month or so before The Last Waltz...and went on to open for Lynyrd Skynyrd. But that's another story.

We're here for some Lynyrd Skynyrd stories, Skip!

Every band that I've had the pleasure of seeing perform at The Red Rocks Ampitheatre. Just the magic of the place brings out great performance by everyone.

The best concert I ever saw was the 1969 Quaker City Rock Festival: Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, B. B. King, and Santana.

Tickets were $7 for 8th row center.

I always felt I got my $7.00 worth outa this one (and a world class sunburn to boot):



Great stories, folks. Keep 'em coming!

Great ones mentioned no doubt. I would say the "Buckaroos" were among the best.

Bill McCloskey wrote:The best concert I ever saw was the 1969 Quaker City Rock Festival: Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, B. B. King, and Santana.

Tickets were $7 for 8th row center.

A buddy of mine went to see that concert. He came back raving about BB King.

I don't think I can make a distinction. One of the best was 4 or 5 years ago when friends birthday treated me to a Boston concert. Telling my age, I guess.

From another avenue, one year at the ISGC Tom Morrell and the TWTH with the Leons, Rausch and Chambers, Bobby Boatwright and the rest in one of the meeting rooms up close and personal was pretty special.

Really telling my age, Iron Butterfly way back when.

I guess most memorable was the 70s concert with The Flying Burrito Brothers, Pure Prairie League and The Amazing Rhythm Aces all on the same bill. Such exictement for a newly aspiring steel guitar player. I was up for days.

Some others pretty nice as well, but the trilogy above I have to say is probably still my favorite.

I got to see Asleep at the Wheel a couple years back with Mr. Rivers on steel and sax. I would love to have seen the origanal band with Lucky, Chris and the rest or that red hot band.