QotD: Thanks for the Memories

What are the 10 most memorable music performances you've seen? (Remember, "memorable" may not be good.) 
Submitted by Bill. 

Oh man... this is gonna be a crazy post. Hang on, Vox!

These are in no particular order, and there might end up having to be more than ten... we'll see how it goes.

• Lollapalooza 1991 - Jane's Addiction, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Nine Inch Nails, Rollins, Fishbone, Violent Femmes, a few others. This was the first year for Lollapalooza and the first date was in Phoenix. One of my only friends from my time in Florida flew out to attend. My best homies from school were all going. I met, in person for the first time, a friend from Prodigy (remember Prodigy?) who would become my best friend for the next six or seven years and with whom I would attend literally hundreds of concerts with. Ice-T debuted his new metal band. Rollins got people super amped up. Trent Reznor played half of one song (Head Like a Hole) before throwing a tantrum and walking off stage. He came back out and played half of another (Sin) before doing the same. It was later stated that the hundred and fifteen degree heat was causing some of his equipment to malfunction and that's what made him rage. Siouxsie was incredible. Jane's Addiction rushed through their set. They were already fighting pretty heavily and were on the verge of splitting up. Toward the end of the set, Dave Navarro pulled off his guitar and swung it at Perry Farrell's head before throwing it in to the crowd and storming off. He and the rest of the band were coaxed back out for one last song before the night was over.
  
• Q-Fest 1990 - My family moved to Phoenix in July of 1990. Upon arrival, I discovered the existence of an "alternative" radio station, KUKQ, that would become a staple of my existence until it went off the air in the late 90s. Twice a year, KQ threw a big two day festival-style concert (before festival concerts even really existed). Their Program Director, Jonathan L., was very well connected in the music industry, so he was always able to book great bands for these things. The shows would start at like four in the afternoon and the bands (usually seven or so per day) would play full sets, so it would go until midnight or so. Tickets were something like $7 per day.
  My first Q-Fest (I think the second one ever) was in September of 1990. I was 16 years old. Somehow, I had a car, a girlfriend, and a handful of good friends who were all in to the same music. We ditched school on Friday so we wouldn't miss anything. We took drugs and spent the hours sprawled on the huge lawn at the stadium, watching band after band. The bands for that Q-Fest were the Gin Blossoms, Something Happens, Soul Asylum, Mojo Nixon, Jesus Jones, Social Distortion, the Aquanettas, The Rave-Ups, Scatterbrain, and the Dead Milkmen.
  
• Madness 2005 @ Bimbo's 365 - Shortly after I moved here, this show was announced. As soon as I heard about it, I called my good friend and scooter club mate in Seattle, Marc. All I had to say was "Madness is playing here next month" before he replied, "Get me two tickets. I'll be there."
  Marc and his wife came a few days early and we hung out in what was still a relatively new home for me. On the day of the show, I got out of work early and rushed home. We hopped on scooters and met up with a gigantic scooter ride that'd been organized for the event. It was a nice long, but not too long, ride over to Bimbo's where we had a couple of beers at the pub across the street before heading in to the venue.
  The opening band was The Aggrolites, who I was hearing for the very first time. I'd heard OF them, but hadn't gotten hold of any of their records or seen them live yet. They blew us all away and got us all up and dancing pretty much immediately.
  After the Aggros' set, Marc and I made our way up to the front of the crowd and found ourselves against the stage in the center. After a while, the lights went down and one of the most legendary bands in the whole entire universe took one of the most legendary stages in one of the most legendary clubs. Suggs bend over and shouted something at us and they launched in to One Step Beyond. By the end of the song, my face hurt from grinning and my legs hurt from dancing. The next hour and a half was more of the same.
  
• Gwar 1998 Club Rio, Phoenix - I may be wrong on the year, but it's close enough. I worked with this guy Jim who was pretty narrow minded, musically. He loved metal, but was mostly only exposed to the pretty mainstream stuff. One day, he came in to work with a bunch of tapes of sort of underground death metal bands that a friend of a friend gave him, and he liked them. I told him about this band called Gwar that I'd heard of a few years earlier. They played the same kind of music, but dressed up in crazy elaborate costumes and sprayed blood all over the crowd during their stage show. It just so happened that they were coming in concert soon. Jim was on board.
  We arrived at the show and I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't go to metal shows, so I didn't really know what the crowd would be like. The Gwar crowd ended up being sort of like aggressive punk rock kids, so it was fun. Gwar were fucking incredible. I barely understood a word that they said, but they rocked the piss out of me. They, of course, had great costumes, with all kinds of crazy characters battling them during and between songs, most of whom would have limbs or heads forcibly removed while blood spewed thirty or forty feet in to the crowd. Jim and I went in the pit for a while, which was enormous, and somehow survived being battered while slipping around on the floor. This is probably one of the most dangerous things I've ever done.
  At the end, I vowed to never miss an opportunity to see Gwar again. I've seen them three more times since.
  
• Green Day 1994 @ Lollapalooza - I've already told this story.
  
• They Might Be Giants 1992 @ The Warfield - This was the tour for Apollo 18. I'd seen TMBG a couple of times before, but this is the show that sticks out in my mind. This was days after I arrived in San Francisco for the first time, to attend a summer semester at the Academy of Art. Upon arriving here, I found The Guardian and hence, the plethora of awesome concerts to go to. It was during this semester that I would decide that one way or another, I would live in San Francisco.
  I found the Warfield to be an amazing place. It was big and old. It had character. It was unlike any venue in Phoenix, that was for sure. I had a general admission ticket, and I was at the front of the floor for the whole show. TMBG had no opening band. They played for like three hours, doing FIVE encores, and covering pretty much their entire catalog. It was an amazing show.
  Afterwards, while walking back to my rented room in the Tenderloin, I watched as a guy got shot in the stomach in front of a liquor store. I hurried home, but the ugly side of the big city did not deter me from wanting to live here.
  
• The Cure 1992 @ Spartan's Stadium, San Jose - This was another amazing show I attended while here for school. I bought the ticket as soon as I found out about the show, not realizing how far away San Jose actually was. I don't know if Caltrain existed back them, but everyone told me that the only way to get there was going to be via Greyhound. So, I bought a bus ticket, despite the horrible experience of spending 24 hours on a Greyhound bus to get to San Francisco a couple of weeks earlier.
  The show was on the 4th of July. I took the bus down to San Jose and then somehow figured out how to walk from the station to the stadium. I got inside and pushed through the most gigantic sea of people to a spot about ten feet from stage.
  Dinosaur Jr. opened the show. I was never a big fan, but they were alright. I couldn't believe they played their cover of "Just Like Heaven". At some point during their set, my shoe came off in the crush of the crowd and I was panicked. I was 17 years old, in a strange place, and that was my only pair of shoes. I'd spent all my money on concert tickets and art supplies. Miraculously, I found my shoe again just as The Cure started!
  This was the Wish tour, which was a little bit more cheery than I like my Cure, but it was still a great show. They sounded awesome in that gigantic stadium and they played a really great variety of their stuff. At one point during the set, Robert Smith got distracted watching 4th of July fireworks and lost track of the lyrics to whatever song he was singing.
  He dedicated "Just Like Heaven" to "Dinosaur Jr., and you".
  
• They Might Be Giants 1990 @ After The Gold Rush, Phoenix - I know I already have a TMBG show on this list, but this one was memorable as well. It was a couple of weeks after we moved to Phoenix. My parents were being pretty lenient about letting me go to concerts and driving and stuff, because they knew I was really pissed off about having changed cities twice during the first two years of high school. They knew I loved this band, so they didn't say anything when I bought a ticket to see them the day we arrived in town.
  This was the Flood tour. TMBG consisted of only the Two Johns, a DAT, and various instruments. True TMBG fans will be interested to know that prior to The Stick, the accompaniment to "Lie Still, Little Bottle" was an old school metronome, which Flans had dubbed the "Rock Metronome". Linnell played a giant baritone sax.
  
• Depeche Mode 1990, Orlando - This show was shortly before we moved to Phoenix. We lived in a small town near Orlando for just under a year. During this time in my life I had a huge Depeche Mode fetish. I'd gotten to see them before, when I was way younger, but this show was important because it was one of the first big concerts I went to without any adult supervision.
  This was the Violator tour, and the set consisted of mostly songs from that and Music for the Masses. The best Black Celebration songs were played as well. This is what I consider the sweet spot of Depeche Mode's music, and I doubt there will ever be another show so awesome played by them.
  
• Pixies 2004, Victoria, BC, Vancouver, BC, Spokane, WA - I saw the Pixies twice before they broke up. Once was when they opened up for the Cure in 1989 and it was the first time I ever heard them. I fell in love with them immediately, and as I bought their albums and listened to them, they quickly became my favorite band. The second time was on their last tour. They were opening for U2, who I had no desire to see at all, but they scheduled a little side show at the University Ballroom at the University of Arizona in Tucson. My friends and I went and were gravely disappointed. The room was small and overpacked and sweaty. The band had no opener and hit the stage almost two hours late. Kim Deal was so strung out that she could do nothing but stare at the lights. There was no talking. It was all business. A couple crushed against the backs of myself and my then girlfriend fornicated through the entire show. A few weeks later, I opened up Spin magazine to an article entitled "There Goes Your Band" telling news of the Pixies' breakup.
  Eleven years later. Rumors are going around. Frank Black's been playing more Pixies songs in his set. There's been mention of possible thoughts of maybe considering a reunion, but there's no way I'm believing it. Finally, I run in to a friend at a Camper Van Beethoven show and he tells me that it's been announced on Frank Black's forums that the Pixies will be playing Coachella. I'm crazy excited but bummed that it's going to be at a festival show.
  In the weeks between then and when tickets go on sale, it's announced that they'll be playing a series of warm up shows in smaller cities. Many of them are in the Northwest. Plans are made. I spend a cold February night on a sidewalk in Victoria, BC waiting for a box office to open, at which time I am able to purchase tickets for three of the shows. A friend gets me tickets for the fourth.
  The first show I got to see was in Victoria at a place called the Curling Club. That's not a clever name for a nightclub. It's an actual curling club. Where they practice curling. In Canada. I take a position in front of stage left and before long I'm looking at the reunited Pixies! The sound in the venue sucked ass, but the band was energetic and fun. They played most of my favorite stuff from the first few albums, and not much else. Incredible! I met some new friends at this show, including a couple that live here in San Francisco that Susie and I still hang out with from time to time.
  The second and third show were at the same club in Vancouver where the Pixies had played their last show. These two shows were amazing amazing amazing. For the first one, I stood right against the stage again. The band were fun and happy and they really put a lot in the performance. Of all the Pixies shows I've seen since they reunited, this one was by far the best. For the third show, I hung back with my friend Mary right near the sound guy. For some reason, we were the only two people in the place allowed to stand on our chairs (perhaps because the only person's view who we blocked was the sound guy), so we had a great view from 20 feet away and perfect sound. The set was a little different from the previous two nights, but still loaded with favorites.
  The fourth show in Spokane was great as well. It was at a really cool club with a great sound system. Once again I was able to position myself against the stage and have a great show experience. This was the show where all of the friends with whom I'd conspired to get tickets were in attendance. We celebrated together.
  
• The Rentals, 2006 @ Great American Music Hall - The first time I heard or saw The Rentals, they were opening up for Blur at the Wiltern Theater in Hollywood in 1996. I was blown the fuck away. They were so amazing and they had such a cool sound. I loved them. I bought their album and worshiped it. I later bought their second album and worshiped it less. I never saw them in concert again before they sort of petered out. Then, one day last year, I opened up the Guardian and saw that they'd be playing at GAMH. I thought this had to be a mistake or a new band with the same name, but it was them. Well, it was at least Matt Sharp and Rachel Haden, who were the key members. I got tickets immediately and looked forward to the day.
  The show was so much better than I could possibly have expect. Susie and I watched from our perch in the balcony over the stage. The band was so excited and happy to be on stage with an audience, and the crowd was so amped over having the Rentals back. The energy in the room could have powered this city overnight. Most of my favorites were played, many with awesome new arrangements. I left looking forward to hearing more from them.
  
• The Cramps/Groovie Ghoulies Halloween 2006 @ The Fillmore - I already wrote about this show, so in the interest in getting through this list, all I'll say is this: Two of the most awesome ghoulish punk bands on one stage on Halloween. The Cramps were celebrating their 30th anniversary. What more could you ask for?
  
• OK Go 2002 @ The Crocodile, Seattle - I don't remember when in 2002, but one day Liz called me up and told me she had a +1 for Fountains of Wayne at the Croc. I decided to go. Even though I didn't know much about Fountains of Wayne, I liked what I'd heard, so what the fuck. I was there early and caught the opening act - a little band by the name of OK Go. The lead singer's leg was in a cast and he would alternate between sitting in a chair and standing on the crutches. He'd frequently apologize for not rocking out properly, due to the leg he'd broken falling off stage or something earlier in their tour. They had a different guitar/keyboard player back then and a pretty short set. I don't think their album was out yet. I didn't like that the bass player had sideburns and no hair - this is a pet peeve of mine. Still, they rocked so hard that I didn't bother staying for more than two songs of F of W. I bought OK Go's album when it came out, and saw them again at the Croc a few months later (headlining this time).
  
• The Beautiful South 2006 @ The Fillmore - This was my first, and probably my last, time seeing The Beautiful South. Simon and I had plans to go to the Tucson-Nogales scooter rally in Arizona together when we found out about this show being the same weekend. The Beautiful South were apparently releasing a new album and doing like five shows in the U.S. total. I bitched a little about missing the rally, but told Simon if he'd rather do that, then that's what we would do. I was sooooo glad I agreed to that. The show so great. They played all my favorite songs, and a lot of the stuff from the new album, which I really like. The crowd favorite "Don't Marry Her" got the crowd really excited, especially at every mention of the Sunday sun shining down on San Francisco Bay. Simon and Paul and I were reunited, which always makes me happy. This was an awesome night. 
• Too Much Joy 1995, Washington DC - In 1994, I answered a post on alt.bootlegs about a Pixies show that had been going around. My signature file for Usenet at the time contained a line by a lesser known band called Too Much Joy. A guy named Shawn in Chicago saw this and forwarded the post to a friend of his in Delaware with a comment along the lines of, "Hey, this guy likes the same shitty music you like." She emailed me, I emailed back, yadda yadda yadda, I asked her to move in with me. I flew out to the east coast to help her pack up and drive to Arizona. After plans were made and tickets were booked, we learned that Too Much Joy was playing not one, but two shows in D.C. the day after we were to leave Delaware. So, we got tickets and spent the next day and night in D.C.
  The shows were great - TMJ's performances always had a ton of energy, a lot of witty banter, and some good improv while wrecked stage equipment was fixed. They were a fun band and were always happy to hang out with fans afterwards. These shows are especially meaningful to me because they sort of marked the beginning of an important era for Steve. This particular time in my life was a key component of what makes me me.
  Later in life, like a year and a half ago, I would go to work for Real Networks on Rhapsody after being referred to a recruiter there by a friend who knew I was hating the job I was working at at the time. One of the key factors in me accepting the job was the fact that Tim Quirk, lead singer of Too Much Joy, was the VP of music services and I'd be working with him often. In the five months that I worked there, I'd often cause him to question my sanity with stories of driving all night long to get to some city where they'd played, and hunting around for rare records of theirs. Tim and I still talk over email from time to time, and I still insist to him that his band was more awesome than he remembers.
  
• Morrissey 2002 @ The Paramount, Seattle - I've seen Morrissey a ton of times, but this show was a particularly wonderful set. I was there with Simon, who is one of my best friends and also the world's biggest Smiths/Morrissey fan. He threw gladiolas at the stage and he wept when Morrissey played "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out". I managed to snag a set list for him.