Best concerts/shows you've been to

[Pug]

I haven't been to many shows in the last few years, but here's the ones I can remember:

Swollen Members: Probably around 99-00, a decent show, the openers were awful, but the group did a solid performance, just before they switched into pop music. Prev was a solid MC.

De La Soul - 2001, great show marred by AWFUL sound system setup. I could barely hear anything but bass the entire time. It was amazing to see the them live, performed all their classics, plus some new stuff they were releasing that year. Just a shame about the sound... fucking terrible.

Prince Paul: Don't remember when... around the time he was doing shit with Paul Barman. Anyways, he was DJ'ing and supporting Paul Barman, who was pure garbage, and I couldn't wait for him to get off the stage. Prince Paul basically played classic hip-hop after that, so it was nice, not much dj'ing though... decent show.

People Under the Stairs: Nice show! I saw them when they were performing at the jazz fest here in Montreal. They mostly did songs from their first LP and debuted a few from their follow up LP. Both guys are very talented. Decent sound.

Lootpack: Man, this show was pretty awful. It was Lootpack + Declaime. The show was supposed to start at 10:30-11:00pm, but they only arrived at around 12:30am, and only got on stage at around 2:00! Declaime and Madlib were smoking some blunts behind the stage and were clearly incomprehensible when performing. Luckily Wildchylde killed it on the mic. Worth it just to see him... sadly I was fucking exhausted, so it was hard to enjoy. Sound was shit also.

Can't remember other shows... so, what shows have YOU been to?

 

[Fade]

Good thread.

Public Enemy - 1990
Pretty good show, wasn't an amazing setting and the crowd wasn't TOO into it (why, I have no idea, you're witnessing PE at their best), but I was just pumped to see these guys on stage, especially with the S1W's doing their moves!

Ice-T - 1992
Hands down, the best fucking show I've ever witnessed. The crowd was bananas, the venue was packed beyond belief, and I was about 5 feet from Ice and the whole Rhyme Syndicate! The opening acts were dope too, they really set it off. Two of the best moments were when Ice performed "Colors", everyone went crazy, and also when he brought out Donald-D, which no one knew was there. He then sprayed champagne all over the place, I was soaked!

KRS-One - 1995
Seeing the Blastmaster performing a medley of his hits was pretty amazing to see live, then he brings out Supernatural who just went nuts with the freestyles, taking people's stuff out of the crowd and putting into his rhymes. Sick.

GZA - 1996
The Liquid Swords tour. One thing I liked about this show was that there was security EVERYWHERE, LOL I felt safe! GZA's performance was dope, plus he brought Killah Priest with him! The only thing I didn't like was that towards the end he got some locals from the crowd to come up and battle, while that was going on the GZA just left, LOL.

The Roots - 1998
Amazing show. The place was packed, there were some local acts that were okay, then out comes Jeru the Damaja. At this point I'm all psyched and his performance was really good, but then he tried to show everyone how dope he was so he says he wants to battle someone, ANYONE. Up comes 3 local guys from the crowd, he took out 2 of them, but the 3rd guy was a guy my friend knew and he was really, really good. Jeru couldn't touch him, I don't care what anyone says. Needless to say, Jeru got served big time and to save face, he took the mic away from the guy, told him the battle was over and looked like a complete dick. Ironically, Jeru's career also died that night.

Then the Roots came out, wow what a show. These guys performed for at least 1.5 hours and absolutely killed it. I was getting tired just watching them, imagine how they must have felt! They did all their hits, mainly the Illadelph stuff, then also did covers of rock, funk, a whole bunch of shit. This is before they went Pop. Roots at their finest.

There's also tons of DJ shows I went to, that's a whole other thread though.

 

[Formant024]

Seen so many good stuff, at best ratm in 94/95, the wailers 02/03 and the worst of all time was biz marky followed wiz theodore... Along the lines of hiphop, best ive been is arsonists, putz, louis logic, jzone, maylay sparks, non phixion, breeze evaflowin, pharcyde..f it, just to many...

 

[dacalion]

Q-Tip - 2008
I can't honestly say it was "The Best" Show but it was definitely the "most enjoyable" by far. Tip really put on a performance that night, the only thing that was missing was Phife. I believe he was having health issues at the time or whatever but Tip really did a helluva job. It was like every TCQ hit that he performed brought back good memories. There was even a great vibe after the show...I remember while leaving the building, people were saying how great the show was and everybody was smiling. (and y'all know how rare that ish is!) No drama at all.

 

[sYgMa]

Wasn't that long ago. It was The Roots and Erykah Badu. The Roots were the opening act and brought the big guns. Went to some of their old songs. Did a little "radio mix"... some cool ish...
Then... a guy comes on stage.. talks with the band... and after a few moments, they start playing again... They played, in total, for about 1h 45min! Why? Miss Badu got lost and was late.

When she arrived (1h30 late)... came on stage, apologized for being late... and started her part. Right in the middle of the 1st song, everybody almost forgot she came in late... PURE FIRE! SUPER DIVA!!

And she gave a little extra time at the end, so we could really forgive her...

 

[Shonsteez]

@Formant - I saw RATM on that same tour...that concert had to be one of the most amazing shows I ever attended...such a huge scale and RATM just has non-stop energy.

Been to too many shows, but these ones stand out in my mind still...
Wu-Tang
Beasties
Heiro
PUTS
Sage Francis
RATM
Red Hot Chili Peppers

 

[LouBez]

Jay-z's last tour SOUNDED AMAZING just stupid good...It was funny to me too how when they brought out jeezy everybody got up to get more beer...

My all time favorite was "Up In Smoke"...the way Dre put that together with the lil short film to them coming on stage outta the liquor store was just nuts. Sooooo many crazy moments at that show.

2008 Rock the Bells was pretty cool, and so was funneling beers at a hip hop show lol.

Oh and the Krs-One show down here a few years back where Fat Joe came through to be his hype man...that shit was NUTZ!

Then there was the Dead Prez show where EVERYBODY was tight....seriously, best group of opening acts ever.

annnnnd the Smif and Wessun show down here bout 3 years ago....Stele got a great sense of humor I was pretty buzzed and was he askin me why miami girls dont dig east coast guys and I told him cause east coast guys ALWAYS dress like its 50 degress out side...we started going back and forth about flip flop and wife beaters vs. tims and hoodies...shit was classic

 

[mono]

i love talking about this, muaha, great fred.

KRS in cologne 97 - man we were 16 years old, i had my arm in a plaster cast, and we were in the front row going bananas. blastmaster performing from shortly past midnight until half past two i think (damn, my memory deserts me a bit here^^). he had those bboy twins on stage from the step into a world vid. crazy stuff. in the end i got props from him for rocking the front row with a broken arm.

The Roots in 2003 (i think) - That day i realized they are not just a live playing hiphop combo, this is a world class band. GREAT music!

Prince in Berlin in 2010 - i went with my cousin and his wifey, they both are huge fans, and i expected it to be somewhere in between quite good and eye roll. it was great, three and a half hours of Prince and goosebumps with 17000 people singing nothing compares to you.

 

[mono]

i also pretty much envy you guys for the wu-tang gigs...eat shit and die

 

[Shonsteez]

I know this is a hiphop forum and all, but is Formant the only other one that found a show outside of hiphop music to be one of the best hes been to???....I find that curious.

 

[Scholar]

B.I.G '94 crazy sick, man crowd was non stop!! warning, that shit went hard! after him Craig Mack and naughty by nature! to finish the night jodeci and mary j. shit didnt end till 2am started at 8. i remember driving back with my girlfriend talking bout how i would never forget that night.

then i got to go see LL cant remember the yr, but r kelly, xscape, and blackstreet i believe. it was LL's mr.smith tour, dude came walkin out of a giant boom box!! r kelly was a cartoon on a big screen then came running out that bitch to the real Kells,that was a nice show!

 

[Shonsteez]

Nice, I woulda liked to see Craig Mack...was he dope live?

 

[Scholar]

yeah, he had the crowd movin real nice! lots of energy!

 

[Shonsteez]

Wooord...

 

[Formant024]

Ratm with 70000 people going ape...saw them for the second time when chuck d was touring with them. Another great concert was ozo matli, great performers, also deliquent habits...mustve seen them 4 times or so (i think they lived in germany with freestyle bback then lol). Also stones throw label tour was mad cozy since it was a packed but small venue i hate the fact that i missed out on krs one last week, jean grae a while ago and we hardly get any nice overseas bookings...ow and that you never if its mf doom or not lol

As for dj,s.... 5th platoon toruing with arsonists, dj craze...not much of us names here.


@mono, you go to hiphop kemp ?

 

[mono]

yeah, i went the third time this year, after 07 and 09. did you go?

 

[mono]

Hiphopskent!! Damn, why are fucking caps disabled? Screaming is a legitimate form of expression.

 

[Formant024]

lol, no ive been missing out but lots of dutch people go there. Ill make an ill euro hookup next year, best euro hiphop festival period!

 

[mono]

yeah, no doubt. you can come and camp with us, and bring some botanic formants, because i didn't smoke any NL quality for ages. snow white type of stuff, if you know what i mean...^^ is there any other ill euro heads around? the brits should come too, we met some english men last year.

 

[Pug]

Oh ya... one other concert I went to that was outside of hip-hop was a drum concert a few years ago. The highlight of it was a drum solo by Joe Morello, who originally played on "Take Five"... that was incredible to see. Won't get that chance again, so I'm glad I went!