Gigs
They were talking about "best gigs ever" on Five Live last night, not that I listened much. My saucy tanner's worth is that the best I ever saw is Ms Maria McKee at the Town and Country Club in Camden Town, 25th March 1991. Her voice was utterly fantastic - about 10 times better (and louder) than you ever hear it on record. Which is what you want from a gig, after all, something you'd never hear on a disk of any description. I suppose these days it's theoretically possible to record such a voice using 24 bits, with the extra dynamic range that allows, but that wasn't the case in 1991, which might as well be 1901.
I wouldn't even buy a bootleg of this gig, because it just wasn't technically possible to capture her voice in all its glory. I think this is almost certainly the case with most legendary singers, and those of us who can't see what the fuss is about, judging from old and scratchy recordings, just need to remember the sublime Maria.
First gig? For me, it was either the ELO at Wembley (my older sister bought tickets and took me - it was about the time of Mr Blue Sky) or Toad the Wet Sprocket, doyens of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, at some pub in Dumpstable (my other older sister fancied the bassist, now my brother in law and former member of my old band Go Dog Go).
Worst gig? That would probably be one of the 6 Bob Dylan gigs I attended, though they all blend together in my mind. Springsteen at Milton Keynes bowl was awful, just because it's a horrible venue, something like a school fete with biker gangs. But for sheer unalloyed anti-climactic disappointment, almost certainly the worst gig of my life was the Stones at Wembley stadium, an occasion burned into my memory for quite another (and also negative) reason as the last time I saw someone who meant the world to me. What a shitty day that turned out to be: also the last weekend of freedom before I started my first full-time job.
Some of you have written to ask, re the Phases entry of yester, why I completely forgot about Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. So for the sake of completeness:
1977 - 1995: Lou Reed/Velvets (the 1995 is stretching it a bit, and I should point out the the phase dips in places - as many of them do).
I wouldn't even buy a bootleg of this gig, because it just wasn't technically possible to capture her voice in all its glory. I think this is almost certainly the case with most legendary singers, and those of us who can't see what the fuss is about, judging from old and scratchy recordings, just need to remember the sublime Maria.
First gig? For me, it was either the ELO at Wembley (my older sister bought tickets and took me - it was about the time of Mr Blue Sky) or Toad the Wet Sprocket, doyens of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, at some pub in Dumpstable (my other older sister fancied the bassist, now my brother in law and former member of my old band Go Dog Go).
Worst gig? That would probably be one of the 6 Bob Dylan gigs I attended, though they all blend together in my mind. Springsteen at Milton Keynes bowl was awful, just because it's a horrible venue, something like a school fete with biker gangs. But for sheer unalloyed anti-climactic disappointment, almost certainly the worst gig of my life was the Stones at Wembley stadium, an occasion burned into my memory for quite another (and also negative) reason as the last time I saw someone who meant the world to me. What a shitty day that turned out to be: also the last weekend of freedom before I started my first full-time job.
Some of you have written to ask, re the Phases entry of yester, why I completely forgot about Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. So for the sake of completeness:
1977 - 1995: Lou Reed/Velvets (the 1995 is stretching it a bit, and I should point out the the phase dips in places - as many of them do).
posted by Anonymous at
Thursday, April 29, 2004
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