Fleetwood Mac at Sprint Center.
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My top 2 are more 1a and 1b. Eagles Farewell I and History of. Rolling Stones Steel Wheels.
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Five really stand out:

Eagles - Hell Freezes Over, 1994 (Alpine Valley) and 1995 (United Center). Lucky enough to see this show twice. Melissa Etheridge opened for them at Alpine. She was awesome.

Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1992 - Monsters of Rock (Alpine Valley). Show also featured Firehouse (good), Damn Yankees (great) and Poison (awful). I'm not a big Skynyrd fan, but fuck they were flawless.

Cinderella, 2005? - (Tweeter Center, Tinley Park, IL). They were amazing; it was like traveling back in time, except all the 80s fangirls' 2000s bodies were exploding out of their 80s concert outfits. IIRC Warrant opened for them. They put on a good show as well.

Cheap Trick - Lap of Luxury, 1989 (Riverside Theater, Milwaukee). That place had amazing acoustics. House of Lords opened for them, and is the best opening act I'd never heard of before.

AC/DC, 1998? (Tweeter Center). Far and away the best and most energetic stage show.
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It was never a concert in a big arena with a well-known band. The most fun, and energetic times were smaller bands in venues that held a few hundred people.

Cowboy Mouth... probably ten times.
Drivin' and Cryin' at the Music Farm in Charleston, SC
High On Fire at the El Corazon in Seattle
Neil Diamond at the Fillmore in SFO
Sleater Kinney at The Swiss in Tacoma, WA

Just kickass fun times. Random hot chicks on my shoulders, slamming shots with other hot chicks, body surfing, drinking with band members.
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Hmm....This is a hard one because I have seen so damned many. However, I am going to go out on the proverbial limb and say.......


Transiberian Orchestra


I know, I know - it is a cross between classical orchestration, Christmas songs and slamming Rock.

The stage show was out of this world. Hell, I put it right up there with Floyd.


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My wife is a Neal Diamond fan. We went to see him in the mid-90's. His light show was the best one I've even seen. Totally not expecting that.
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1994...memorial hall in KC:

Nine inch nails

Openers: Marilyn Manson and Jim rose circus


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Rush - Snakes & Arrows tour
Alice Cooper & Iron Maiden - Maiden England 2010 tour
Qupipo, Shihatsu Machi Underground, Lili Koana, & others - Just some battle of the bands performance in Tokyo but wild as hell thanks to the first two groups.
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KISS Alive II tour. Dynasty, Reunion tour
Rush -Moving Pictures, Snakes & Arrows tour
Van Halen - II
Iron Maiden - Killers, Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind, Powerslave
Accept - Staying a Life
Judas Priest - Point of Entry, Turbo, Screaming for Vengeance, Painkiller, Defenders of the Faith
Krokus - Headhunter
Quiet Riot - Mental Health
Ratt - Invasion of your privacy
Queensryche - Operation Mind Crime
Jackyl - Jackyl
Ozzy - Diary of a Madman, Ultimate Sin, No More Tears
Journey - Infinity, Evolution
Def Leppard - Hysteria, Pyromania
AC/DC -Let There Be Rock, Back in Black, For Those About to Rock

Off of the top of my head.
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After Grand Funk turned pop with Were an American Band in '73 being played all over the radio. They had been my band when I discovered their debut in '69 "On Time" and played the first 5 albums to death. Suddenly I wanted to like something heavier, and I walked into a mall in Miami while on leave from the Army and saw the cover to Uriah Heep Demons & Wizards. I had heard the song Easy Livin' on the radio that week. I bought the album for that song and for the Roger Dean cover.



Suddenly I found myself buying all their albums up to that point, Uriah Heep double album Live '73 I think I wore out the grooves to that album, it was perfect.




When their next studio album came out, Sweet Freedom, I was at the store waiting to buy it.



When Wonderworld came out in '74 and I was somewhat disappointed, but it still had that sound. Years later after seeing the movie Spinal Tap, I realized it had to be based on Uriah Heep and that album.



1975 I'm out of the Army now and living back in my hometown St. Petersburg and even though several big bands had come and played in Tampa such as Yes and Led Zeppelin and others, I didn't go to any shows. I was married and trying to start my career with the FAA as an air traffic controller. However, on August 8, 1975 Uriah Heep came to St. Petersburg, not Tampa across the bay, but to the Bayfront Center in St. Pete, with Manfred Mann's Earth Band opening. I said to my wife we've got to go.

To this day it's one of the best shows I've ever seen. David Byron the lead singer, who put on a great performance, see the video below, was fired from the band in '76 and the bassist Gary Thain was electrocuted on stage about that time and died. The band was never the same without those two, they tried John Wetton, John Lawton, John Sloman, Pete Goalby and the current Bernie Shaw, and none had the magic that David Byron possessed. I got to see them in their prime, and it was GREAT!!! Unfortunately David died in 1985 alone from cirrhosis of the liver. If you happen to catch Uriah Heep nowadays at club or somwhere, only the guitarist Mick Box is the original member from the beginning, he's the guy with white hair.


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Damn!! I love me some Uriah Heep and have since they first came out - those High harmonies were unbelievable... :-)


When I heard that Byron had (basically) drank himself to death.....it was bad.
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I know what you mean about small clubs, and instead of a cover band playing hit songs, a new band playing their original material. I lived in Savannah, Georgia in the 80's and owned a record store. We had a club on River Street called Night Flite and all the new wave bands played there. After REM made it big, we were getting a lot of Georgia bands coming to town from Athens and Atlanta.

My three favorites were, the Swimming Pool Q's, Love Tractor and Guandalcanal Diary. GD had won the MTV Basement tapes in '84 and got a recording contract from Electra Records. The other two bands also had recording contracts. Love Tractor was an REM clone but played many songs as instrumentals with no vocals.

Once about '85 Love Tractor for an encore was playing a jam and then asked if anyone in the audience could play bass. Some girl said she could, so she came up on stage and they showed her the cords and now she was playing bass. Then they asked about keyboards, and then the guitars and then finally the drums. The drums were last to go because they kept the beat. Night Flite was small, maybe 100 people was the most it could hold. Anyway, the song ended with the band sitting in the audience and people from the audience on stage playing the instruments, most unusual performance I've ever seen. Love Tractor is still around, here they are from 2016. I did see REM in 1985 and they were fantastic.



The Swimming Pool Q's put on the best shows. I remember one night, I yelled out Rock N' Roll Hoochie Koo and they broke right into the song, here they are from '85.


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I'm good with these guys for like one or two songs. Gets rather boring to me after that. Not shitting on the talent whatsoever.
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