Best Band You Have Seen Live

[Big Jols]

Rage Against The Machine BDO 08 (most intense mosh ever)
Foo Fighters (Dave Grohl is awesome witht he crowd)
Red Hot Chili Peppers (Just awesome)
Living End(very good live)
Powderfinger(another good live band)

 

[Sammy J]

Opeth - 2006, Thebarton Theatre
Decapitated - 2007, Adelaide Uni Bar
Cannibal Corpse - 2006 (i think), Fowlers Live
Suffocation - 2007, Hi-Fi Bar

Those were probably my favourite shows.

 

[smasha]

Plant And Page-Tennis Centre with the MSO.

Amazing show.

 

[anti.]

explosions in the sky
battles
pnau
arcade fire

explosions was probably the best.

 

[Crumpler83]

Opeth - 2006, Thebarton Theatre
Decapitated - 2007, Adelaide Uni Bar
Cannibal Corpse - 2006 (i think), Fowlers Live
Suffocation - 2007, Hi-Fi Bar

Those were probably my favourite shows.

I've got a DVD of a Decapitated show and it is ____ing awesome. One of the most intense crowds/pits I have ever seen!!

 

[skilts]

In no particular order.

Thorpe & the Aztecs - 1965 at Surf City, Sydney.
Bee Gees - late 60s - Festering Hole.
Tom Waits - Late 70s - Palais.
Dylan - late 70s - Myer Music Bowl (Reggae Tour).
Dylan - Early 90s - Palais.
Models (Original lineup) - Early 2000s - Corner Hotel.
Max Merritt and the Meteors - twice a week for a year in the late sixties - places like the Thumpin' Tum and Sebastians.
Ellen McIlwaine (best guitarist I've seen live) - 1980 - Dallas Brooks.
Ray Charles - Early 80s - Dallas Brooks.
Bowie - Early 80s - MCG
Kate and Anna McGarrigle - Mid 80s - Dallas Brooks.
Steeleye Span - Late 70s - Dallas Brooks.
Kinks - early 70s - Festering Hole.
Spectrum/Aerial - 1976 - ANU Refectory.
Daddy Cool - early 70s - Sebastians.
Black Feather - early 70s - some disco in High St Prahran, near Chapel St.
Lobby Lloyd and the Coloured Balls - Late 60s - Much More Ballroom (Has there ever been a better name for a venue?)
Ram Jam Big Band - Late 60s - Catcher (in Flinders Lne, near Spencer St).
Red Onions Jazz Band (just before they became The Loved ones)- Mid 60s - 431 (So-called because it was at 431 St Kilda Rd).
The Mixtures - 1965 - Tenth Avenue (a contrarily named lunchtime disco in Bourke St).

If I had to choose, I'd go for Tom Waits and the twelve black mothers he had playing jazz riffs with him.

Geez, I feel old, and that's merely because of the remembering and typing I just did.

 

[Schism]

In no particular order.

Thorpe & the Aztecs - 1965 at Surf City, Sydney.
Bee Gees - late 60s - Festering Hole.
Tom Waits - Late 70s - Palais.
Dylan - late 70s - Myer Music Bowl (Reggae Tour).
Dylan - Early 90s - Palais.
Models (Original lineup) - Early 2000s - Corner Hotel.
Max Merritt and the Meteors - twice a week for a year in the late sixties - places like the Thumpin' Tum and Sebastians.
Ellen McIlwaine (best guitarist I've seen live) - 1980 - Dallas Brooks.
Ray Charles - Early 80s - Dallas Brooks.
Bowie - MCG - Early 80s - Dallas Brooks.
Kate and Anna McGarrigle - Dallas Brooks.
Steeleye Span - Late 70s - Dallas Brooks.
Kinks - early 70s - Festering Hole.
Aerial - 1976 - ANU Refectory.
Daddy Cool - early 70s - Sebastians.
Black Feather - early 70s - some disco in High St Prahran, near Chapel St.

If I had to choose, I'd go for Tom Waits and the twelve black mothers he had playing jazz riffs with him.

Geez, I feel old.

Going by that list, you are older than dirt.

Man i would have loved to see Billy Thorpe in his heyday. I had no idea how good a guitarist he was 'til Rage did a tribute to him after he died. Blew me away.

 

[skilts]

Going by that list, you are older than dirt.

Man i would have loved to see Billy Thorpe in his heyday. I had no idea how good a guitarist he was 'til Rage did a tribute to him after he died. Blew me away.

Sensational band and performance. It was a Tuesday night if I remember, and there were about 27 people in this huge barn of a place. His work from this period repays close listening. As you say, brilliant guitar work, but I'm not really sure Billy was playing lead at that time. I seem to recall him saying he learnt a lot from Lobby Lloyd, so it may have been someone else. I'll see what I can find out about that.

Edit: Unusually, I was correct. The guitarists in the band I heard would have been Vince Maloney (later with Bee Gees) and Tony Barber. Thorpie only started playing lead in 1969, according to Wikipedia.

 

[smasha]

In no particular order.

Thorpe & the Aztecs - 1965 at Surf City, Sydney.
Bee Gees - late 60s - Festering Hole.
Tom Waits - Late 70s - Palais.
Dylan - late 70s - Myer Music Bowl (Reggae Tour).
Dylan - Early 90s - Palais.
Models (Original lineup) - Early 2000s - Corner Hotel.
Max Merritt and the Meteors - twice a week for a year in the late sixties - places like the Thumpin' Tum and Sebastians.
Ellen McIlwaine (best guitarist I've seen live) - 1980 - Dallas Brooks.
Ray Charles - Early 80s - Dallas Brooks.
Bowie - Early 80s - MCG
Kate and Anna McGarrigle - Mid 80s - Dallas Brooks.
Steeleye Span - Late 70s - Dallas Brooks.
Kinks - early 70s - Festering Hole.
Spectrum/Aerial - 1976 - ANU Refectory.
Daddy Cool - early 70s - Sebastians.
Black Feather - early 70s - some disco in High St Prahran, near Chapel St.
Lobby Lloyd and the Coloured Balls - Late 60s - Much More Ballroom (Has there ever been a better name for a venue?)
Ram Jam Big Band - Late 60s - Catcher (in Flinders Lne, near Spencer St).
Red Onions Jazz Band (just before they became The Loved ones)- Mid 60s - 431 (So-called because it was at 431 St Kilda Rd).
The Mixtures - 1965 - Tenth Avenue (a contrarily named lunchtime disco in Bourke St).

If I had to choose, I'd go for Tom Waits and the twelve black mothers he had playing jazz riffs with him.

Geez, I feel old, and that's merely because of the remembering and typing I just did.

Wow.

I have a Red Onions vinyl here.

Great jazz.

I'm in my 40s but I have a fascination with 60s and 70s music.


My deep love is early Genesis.

Tony Banks is my idol even though I've been drumming since 7.

Noone plays synths and the tron like Tony Banks.

Robbery,Assault and Battery from A Trick Of The Tale floors me everytime.

I would've loved to see that Ariel show!

I recently bought a few years ago the newly packaged A Strange Fantastic Dream from Ariel -brilliant stuff.

Jamaican Farewell-I remember that playing on 3xy.

Any kids who want to hear some great aussie rock get the newly packaged Lobby albums.
I bought the blue one Ball Power.

I've never heard a better cover of Whole Lotta Shakin' in my life.

Blows acdc away even!

R.I.P. Lobby.

 

[Leaping Lindner]

Sensational band and performance. It was a Tuesday night if I remember, and there were about 27 people in this huge barn of a place. His work from this period repays close listening. As you say, brilliant guitar work, but I'm not really sure Billy was playing lead at that time. I seem to recall him saying he learnt a lot from Lobby Lloyd, so it may have been someone else. I'll see what I can find out about that.

Edit: Unusually, I was correct. The guitarists in the band I heard would have been Vince Maloney (later with Bee Gees) and Tony Barber. Thorpie only started playing lead in 1969, according to Wikipedia.

Just for the record Skilts we should point out that that is a different Tony Barber to the Great Temptation Tony Barber

PS - Very envious of your favourite gig list. Did you ever see The Easybeats?

 

[skilts]

Just for the record Skilts we should point out that that is a different Tony Barber to the Great Temptation Tony Barber

PS - Very envious of your favourite gig list. Did you ever see The Easybeats?

Never saw 'The Easybeats', but in 1965, in Sydney, I saw a band who had the potential to be better. They were called 'The Flies'. I knocked around with them for a while. They were unique and completely anarchic. Totally hard rock, before the term had been invented.The reason nobody ever heard of them was that they dissolved in a haze of drugs and booze. Loved 'The Easybeats' with a passion though, and do to this day. Their music still stands up.

On a similar theme, I forgot to mention 'Chain', who were the best Australian band I've seen. They were allegedly meant to be backing 'The Kinks' in the early 70s at Festering Hole. 'The Kinks' wanted to have a wank, instead of playing what people wanted to hear, and 'Chain' blew them off the stage, to subsequent howls of derision.

Saw 'Mackenzie Theory' (extraordinary musicians - almost unknown currently), 'Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band' (good mates, who were neighbours), 'Skyhooks', 'Madder Lake' and one of the great bands of the 70s, 'The Bushwackers'. All of these gigs happened at 'The Station Hotel', in Greville St Prahran, Melbourne's equivalent of Haight-Ashbury.

It was 'The Bushwackers' version of 'And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda' which introduced me to the music of Eric Bogle, whom I've seen in concert twice, most recently last year, in Euroa. An amazing writer and performer who has no peer anywhere, in his chosen field.

Edit: Haven't the energy to do it myself, but the story behind the creation of 'The Station Hotel' as Melbourne's first, and arguably best, pub music venue is a fascinating one.

 

[Leaping Lindner]

Never saw 'The Easybeats', but in 1965, in Sydney, I saw a band who had the potential to be better. They were called 'The Flies'. I knocked around with them for a while. They were unique and completely anarchic. Totally hard rock, before the term had been invented.The reason nobody ever heard of them was that they dissolved in a haze of drugs and booze. Loved 'The Easybeats' with a passion though, and do to this day. Their music still stands up.

On a similar theme, I forgot to mention 'Chain', who were the best Australian band I've seen. They were allegedly meant to be backing 'The Kinks' in the early 70s at Festering Hole. 'The Kinks' wanted to have a wank, instead of playing what people wanted to hear, and 'Chain' blew them off the stage, to subsequent howls of derision.

Saw 'Mackenzie Theory' (extraordinary musicians - almost unknown currently), 'Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band' (good mates, who were neighbours), 'Skyhooks', 'Madder Lake' and one of the great bands of the 70s, 'The Bushwackers'. All of these gigs happened at 'The Station Hotel', in Greville St Prahran, Melbourne's equivalent of Haight-Ashbury.

It was 'The Bushwackers' version of 'And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda' which introduced me to the music of Eric Bogle, whom I've seen in concert twice, most recently last year, in Euroa. An amazing writer and performer who has no peer anywhere, in his chosen field.

Edit: Haven't the energy to do it myself, but the story behind the creation of 'The Station Hotel' as Melbourne's first, and arguably best, pub music venue is a fascinating one.

Is that the same Flies that Ronnie Burns started out in? I thought they were a Melbourne band.
My cousin (who is a similiar vintage to your good self) saw The Easybeats just prior to their going to the UK (just after Volume 3 came out) and says it was one of the best shows he ever saw. He also raves about a band called the James Taylor Move. Don't know if they toured much interstate but they "ruled" the Adelaide discoteque scene in the late 60's, and had a couple of singles on Festival.

 

[skilts]

Wow.

I have a Red Onions vinyl here.

Great jazz.

I'm in my 40s but I have a fascination with 60s and 70s music.


My deep love is early Genesis.

Tony Banks is my idol even though I've been drumming since 7.

Noone plays synths and the tron like Tony Banks.

Robbery,Assault and Battery from A Trick Of The Tale floors me everytime.

I would've loved to see that Ariel show!

I recently bought a few years ago the newly packaged A Strange Fantastic Dream from Ariel -brilliant stuff.

Jamaican Farewell-I remember that playing on 3xy.

Any kids who want to hear some great aussie rock get the newly packaged Lobby albums.
I bought the blue one Ball Power.

I've never heard a better cover of Whole Lotta Shakin' in my life.

Blows acdc away even!

R.I.P. Lobby.

Not wanting to diminish the importance of your post, which I really appreciated, but being me, I can't resist this joke. The singer of 'Jamaica Farewell' was Harry Belafonte. He was known in some Australian circles as the first to ever fly the Atlantic Ocean - Alcock and Brown. BTW, a 3AW radio operative called Dennis Gibbons had a considerable local hit with this same song in the late 50s. Think bland. That was Australia then. That's why Johnny O'Keefe was important.

BTW, I was with a bunch of drunken cricketers at a Leagues Club in Woollongong in about 1977. We were so pissed it didn't matter. O'Keefe was the unexpected entertainment. He was contending with us drunks and a monstrous bank of clanking poker machines. He grabbed the poker machine players, the cricketers and others in the club by the scruff of the neck and demanded attention. Half a song into his set, he had all of us in the palm of his hand. Two and a half-hours of great showmanship, and I didn't pay a zack. By this time O'Keefe was supposed to be beyond his use-by date. You certainly wouldn't have convinced anyone of that who was in the audience that night.

Otherwise, 'Red Onions' were brilliant. Some elements of jazz culture in Melbourne never forgave them for 'turning' by embracing R&B when they became 'The Loved Ones'.

 

[Leaping Lindner]

I suppose I should do mine (no particular order)....

The Buzzcocks - Old Lion 1992
Nick Cave & Iggy Pop - BDO 1993
Radio Birdman - The Palace 1996 ( a truly religious experience)
The Pixies - The Northcote Social Club last year
The Stooges - BDO 2006
The Mark of Cain - The Crown and Anchor 1992
Died Pretty - The Tivoli 1994
Painters and Dockers - The Tivoli 1992

and dozens of others I've left out.

 

[skilts]

Is that the same Flies that Ronnie Burns started out in? I thought they were a Melbourne band.
My cousin (who is a similiar vintage to your good self) saw The Easybeats just prior to their going to the UK (just after Volume 3 came out) and says it was one of the best shows he ever saw. He also raves about a band called the James Taylor Move. Don't know if they toured much interstate but they "ruled" the Adelaide discoteque scene in the late 60's, and had a couple of singles on Festival.

Bejesus, you're probably right about Ronnie Burns. Long time ago, too many substances. When I ran into them they were staying in a sleazy hotel in Kings Cross, trying to make money playing to U.S. servicemen who were on R&R (Rest and Recreation - from the Vietnam War). Funnily enough, I met Burns in a shop in which I worked in the early 90s. I tried to send him up, but he did it much better than I could have hoped. He'd become a touchy-feely New Ager. Have heard of, but don't recall seeing 'The James Taylor Move'.

 

[Bollox]

Rattle some off that i can remember

Clash (Capitol), Rolling Stones (SCG), Sting (Houston), Prince (New York), Hoodoo Guru's (San Miguel), Radiators (Sydney Cove Tavern), Spy V Spy (SCT), Machinations (SCT), Dead Kennedys (Monash), Simple Minds (Coogee Bay), Buzzcocks (Dee Why Hotel), INXS (Manly Vale Hotel+Roundhouse), Hunters and Collectors (Blue Gum Waitara), Midnight Oil (Royal Antler, Refractory), Birthday Party (Coogee Bay), Rose Tattoo (UNSW Roundhouse), Hoi Polloi (the dump down the street from the Rag and Famish in Nth Syd), Misex(UNSW), XL Capris (UNSW), U2 (Syd Ent Cntre, Houston), Divinyls (Mosman Hotel), Pink Floyd (SEC), B52's (Hordern), Kate Ceberano (Basement), and probably a heap more i cant recall or too drunk.

 

[skilts]

Rattle some off that i can remember

Clash (Capitol), Rolling Stones (SCG), Sting (Houston), Prince (New York), Hoodoo Guru's (San Miguel), Radiators (Sydney Cove Tavern), Spy V Spy (SCT), Machinations (SCT), Dead Kennedys (Monash), Simple Minds (Coogee Bay), Buzzcocks (Dee Why Hotel), INXS (Manly Vale Hotel+Roundhouse), Hunters and Collectors (Blue Gum Waitara), Midnight Oil (Royal Antler, Refractory), Birthday Party (Coogee Bay), Rose Tattoo (UNSW Roundhouse), Hoi Polloi (the dump down the street from the Rag and Famish in Nth Syd), Misex(UNSW), XL Capris (UNSW), U2 (Syd Ent Cntre, Houston), Divinyls (Mosman Hotel), Pink Floyd (SEC), B52's (Hordern), Kate Ceberano (Basement), and probably a heap more i cant recall or too drunk.

I've rarely heard anyone who saw 'Pink Floyd' say anything other than it was the best performance they ever saw. Unfortunately, I can't possibly comment.

 

[camsmith]

Roger Waters a couple of years ago.

 

[Donnybrook]

The Meanies - Herdsman Hotel 94. Opened for the Painters And Dockers and stole the show.

Fugazi - The Grosvenor back room 93. I think it was called Club Origin or some stupid name. Packed in like sardines. A great band in awesome form.

Ministry at the BDO. Loud, so very very loud.

 

[CaptainDavey]

Muse. Saw them 3 times in 2007 and I orgasmed every single time.

Best song they played for each:

BDO - Stockholm Syndrome
Festival Hall - Time is Running Out
Rod Laver - Map of the Problematique

 

[raskolnikov]

Oasis thread

 

[Mobbs]

Skilts, I am amazed at myself for having met a bloke who's got such a list! I envy it. BTW ... umm Mixtures ... err ... Pushbike Song Mixtures?

And Leaping Lindner ... how were Died Pretty for you? They were close to perfection for me.

Bollox, sounds like you have my taste, but actually took the time to see the bands! Hunnas and Spies especially. A lot of Spies songs are on YouTube.

 

[skilts]

Skilts, I am amazed at myself for having met a bloke who's got such a list! I envy it. BTW ... umm Mixtures ... err ... Pushbike Song Mixtures?
And Leaping Lindner ... how were Died Pretty for you? They were close to perfection for me.

Bollox, sounds like you have my taste, but actually took the time to see the bands! Hunnas and Spies especially. A lot of Spies songs are on YouTube.

Yep, the one and the same. It was about three years before Pushbike - they were just starting out. They weren't half bad, and I got to see and hear them from about five metres away, lots of times. They weren't playing the mindless, vacuous pap which was bubblegum then.

 

[Bomber32]

U2
Pink Floyd
Midnight Oil

 

[Leaping Lindner]

Skilts, I am amazed at myself for having met a bloke who's got such a list! I envy it. BTW ... umm Mixtures ... err ... Pushbike Song Mixtures?

And Leaping Lindner ... how were Died Pretty for you? They were close to perfection for me.
Bollox, sounds like you have my taste, but actually took the time to see the bands! Hunnas and Spies especially. A lot of Spies songs are on YouTube.

Brilliant Mob. Brett Myers (along with Penny Ikinger) is the most underated guitarist in this country.
I saw them live many times and they never disappointed, and the Tivoli gig was the best ever. "Underbelly" is one of those songs that must be experienced live.