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The Show I'll Never Forget: 50 Writers Relive Their Most Memorable Concertgoing Experience
In The Show I'll Never Forget , writer Sean Manning has gathered an amazing array of unforgettable concert memories from a veritable A-list of acclaimed novelists, poets, biographers, cultural critics, and songwriters. Their candid, first-person recollections reveal as much about the writers' lives at the time as they do about the venues where the shows occurred or the artists onstage. Ishmael Reed on Miles Davis Luc Sante on Public Image Ltd. Heidi Julavits on Rush Daniel Handler and Andrew Sean Greer on Metric Diana Ossana on Led Zeppelin Maggie Estep on Einsturzende Neubauten Dani Shapiro on Bruce Springsteen Gary Giddins on Titans of the Tenor!
Nick Flynn on Mink DeVille Susan Straight on The Funk Festival Rick Moody on the The Lounge Lizards Jennifer Egan on Patti Smith Harvey Pekar on Joe Maneri Thurston Moore on Glen Branca, Rudolph Grey, and Wharton Tiers Chuck Klosterman on Prince Sigrid Nunez on Woodstock Jerry Stahl on David Bowie Charles R. Cross on Nirvana Marc Nesbitt on The Beastie Boys And many more . . . No matter where your musical taste falls, these often funny, occasionally sad, always thought-provoking essays-all written especially for The Show I'll Never Forget -are sure to connect with anyone who loves, or has ever loved, live music.
Nick Flynn on Mink DeVille Susan Straight on The Funk Festival Rick Moody on the The Lounge Lizards Jennifer Egan on Patti Smith Harvey Pekar on Joe Maneri Thurston Moore on Glen Branca, Rudolph Grey, and Wharton Tiers Chuck Klosterman on Prince Sigrid Nunez on Woodstock Jerry Stahl on David Bowie Charles R. Cross on Nirvana Marc Nesbitt on The Beastie Boys And many more . . . No matter where your musical taste falls, these often funny, occasionally sad, always thought-provoking essays-all written especially for The Show I'll Never Forget -are sure to connect with anyone who loves, or has ever loved, live music.
- GenresMusicNonfictionEssays
320 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
February 1, 2023
This was an uneven but ultimately satisfying read (in part because I skimmed the boring ones). Often, when I found myself fully immersed in an essay, I’d check the author and be, like, oh, of course I’m enjoying this—it’s Jennifer Egan! Ishmael Reed! My favorite essays (including theirs) were those that focused on conveying the experience of the music—including the essays by Maggie Estep, Marc Nesbit, Alice Elliott Dark, and Samantha Hunt. There were interesting stories, too, like Public Enemy getting booed at a Beastie Boys show, and sitting next to the Pogues at a Red Sox game (and trying to explain baseball to them).
April 15, 2021
Mr. Manning is Executive Editor at Simon & Schuster and has also edited five critically acclaimed anthologies, which feature original contributions from Ray Bradbury, Jennifer Egan, Susan Choi, Chuck Klosterman, Paul Muldoon, Francine Prose, Ishmael Reed, Julia Glass, Joyce Maynard, Jim Shepard, Matt Taibbi, and many others.
In 2007, he came up with the great idea of calling up 50 of his best friends who are writers, critics, musicians, editors, journalists, and pop culture gurus, and asked them each to submit a piece about the most memorable live concert experience in their personal lives.
The 50 reviews cover the gamut and, more times than not, the recounting is more about what happened in the parking lot, who passed out and who didn’t, who got busted and who didn’t, the cultural milieu at the time, and occasionally, the musical show itself is described in some detail.
A sampling of the more interesting concertgoing experiences:
R.E.M. @ Madison Square Garden – New York City, NY (11-4-04) By the book editor, Sean Manning – At the time, the journalist was an unpaid fashion internship with a pop culture glossy. Leaving his place of work in the Empire State Building at the end of the day on said November evening, he had to run an errand over to one of his superior’s apartments, and he passed a bald man leaving the elevator, but couldn’t quite place him before the door closed. His boss, for all the trouble of walking the few blocks to her apartment, promptly gave him a comp ticket for that night’s R.E.M. show in the Gardens. It was the Around The Sun tour. He entered the famous venue, and found himself going down the escalators, instead of heading up the escalators where he normally sat for Knicks games. He soon found himself on the vaunted varnished basketball hardwood floor, was escorted past the surrounding glitterati, including celebrity chef Mario Batali tossing popcorn in the air and catching it in his mouth. He eventually was stopped on the second row and was speechless. In short order, the arena went dark, and at the edge of the stage dressed in a white suit with a purple blindfold painted around his glistening head, he recognized the man he’d passed earlier in the elevator. The band opened, for the first time ever up to that time, with “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It,” and proceeded to blow the Gardens and NYC on their ass. It was his most memorable concert ever. But the best concert he ever saw was Elvis (THE Elvis) on July 11, 1975 in the Richfield Coliseum in Akron, OH. To each, his own.
Miles Davis @ The Casablanca – Buffalo, NY (9-21-55) By poet and jazz musician Ishmael Reed – Mr. Reed was a high school dropout in Buffalo who had a local jazz band comprised of all the other local jazz hipsters, and of course Miles Davis was their God. After wearing out the grooves of Birth of the Cool, Miles was the group’s Fountain of Knowledge and it was announced that he was actually coming to Buffalo! At that time, the city was a backward, dull town where there was little to do. The imminent arrival of MILES DAVIS was the equivalent of a seismic event. The night of the show, Ismael and his buds were hanging out on the corner of The Casablanca when a cab drove up and Miles got out and unsurprisingly, was “decked to the nines.” He was performing that night with Sonny “Lockjaw” Davis on keys. He had trouble keeping up with Miles, but the Great Trumpeter was cool about it and didn’t get shitty. Another incident tested the great Miles’ degree of affability when a man knocked his prized trumpet off its perch atop the piano. He inspected the instrument for any damage, and seeing none. continued his break. According to the budding Buffalo jazz man, “Miles at this club on William Street in Buffalo. This was the most memorable concert for me, even though I don’t remember all of the numbers played. But Miles, in his sharp suit and dark glasses and cool sounds, convinced me that I wanted to be where all of that was taking place. That my hometown could not hold me. That I wanted the world.”
The Rolling Stones @ The Academy of Music – New York City, NY (5-1-65) By Lynne Tillman who is a novelist, short story writer, and essayist, as well as a teacher at the University of Albany – Ms. Tillman was a young college student in 1965. The Beatles were too fresh and sunny for her dark, youthfully jaded, sort-of-hip character. However, the Stones were rebels and existed for her and her college buddy; Bad Boys for Bad Girls. The fact that The Beatles were actually working-class and The Stones were solid middle-class boys, made no difference. Word spread that the Bad Boys of Rock were playing their first show ever in NYC at the Academy of Music. The venue was past its glory as a performance hall, with broken marquee letters, uncomfortable seats, and just a tad seedy; perfect for the Stones. Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells opened, but the audience was indifferent. They exited the stage in an hour and then nearly another hour passed of absolutely nothing and the audience was slowly becoming enraged. Then they finally walked onto the stage, as if they were going to the men’s room. No band member looked out to the waiting sea of female hormones, Mick mumbled a barely intelligible, “Hello, New York” and Brian Jones sat down on the stage. There was a type of stasis watching the band with Brian’s head down, Charlie steady behind the drums, Bill unmoving and dour, and Keith unremarkably doing his thing, but not in the crouching way he does now and uncoiling like a rattlesnake ready to strike. “The Stones played eight songs, the songs were three or four minutes each. They were onstage less than half an hour. They finished their set and walked off the way they’d walked on. They just walked off. No one clapped or shouted, everyone was fed-up, pissed off, let down. We’d become the anti-audience, and rose, grabbed our jackets, left our seats, and filed out. There was no fighting, no talking. We spilled onto 14th Street, a morose confederacy of rebels. Life continued, but something had changed: the Rolling Stones had played New York.”
Buddy Guy & Jimi Hendrix @ The Scene – New York City, NY (1968) – By Gene Santoro who is the author of several notable music books, essays, and features in many publications, such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, Spin, Rolling Stone, and is currently the music critic for The Nation Magazine – To be a teenager on the loose prowling for music in New York City in the late 60’s was “like being a young tomcat in an eight-bay, three-story barn full of mice.” Clubs still dotted the West Village: The Night Owl, MacDougal, The Village Gate, The Café Au Go Go, The Village Vanguard, Tompkins Square Park, the old Village Theater morphing into The Fillmore East, The Wollman Rink in Central Park, and a way-off-the-beaten-path club on West 46th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues called The Scene. “That club is where The Show I’ll Never Forget happened – or not. I remember being there, my teenage running buddy Ishmael remembers being there, and Buddy Guy told me he remembered being there when I asked him years ago. The best bet is 1968.” Buddy blew into the The Scene from the Windy City, which was the home of most of all the great American bluesmen. “He was wearing a shiny sharkskin suit, right?” Ish said. “This totally black look and attitude. He walked over to tables during the set and just picked up people’s glasses and drank from them. And he was picking his guitar with his teeth, and behind his back, and I thought, ‘He’s stealing all this stuff from Hendrix.’ Then I found out I had that backwards.” Buddy looked like Hendrix “through the wrong end of a telescope.” He had been ripping it to shreds for a good while and then, as the reviewer recounts, “out ambled Hendrix. He jacked-in to his single Marshall and they kicked into a Muddy Waters tune, I think ‘Hoochi Coochie Man.’ As the jam rolled and they traded licks, Hendrix’s overdriven space-blues devoured Guy’s increasingly buried if frantic comebacks. It got to be like watching a mime show through billows of standing wave blasts. Or so I remember. See, Ishmael and I disagree about whether Hendrix showed up. I thought about calling up Buddy for a good while and decided the hell with it. Just once, thanks, this old cat would rather keep the lid on his box of memories.”
The book contains a myriad of engaging reviews encompassing shows from the mid-50’s up through the mid-oughts ending with Metric @ Slim’s in San Francisco (11-3-2005).
A handful of standouts —–
Jimmy Reed @ LuAnn’s – Dallas, TX (April, 1958) by David Ritz
The Beatles @ Plaza De Toros – Madrid, Spain (7-2-65) by Rebecca Brown
James Brown @ Boston Gardens – Boston, MA (4-5-68) The night of MLK’s assassination by David Gates
Television @ CBGB’s – New York City, NY (Winter, 1975) by Bruce Bauman
Bruce Springsteen @ Madison Square Garden – New York City, NY (August, 1978) by Dani Shapiro
The Pogues @ Metro – Boston, MA (7-2-86) by Robert Polito
Redd Kross @ The Town Pump – Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (May, 1987) by Carl Newman
Clarence Carter @ Bobby’s Hideaway – Waldo, FL (1-18-90) by Kevin Canty
Prince @ The Fargodome – Fargo, ND (12-8-97) by Chuck Klosterman, then a cub reporter for the Forum Newspaper in Fargo.
Fun read.
In 2007, he came up with the great idea of calling up 50 of his best friends who are writers, critics, musicians, editors, journalists, and pop culture gurus, and asked them each to submit a piece about the most memorable live concert experience in their personal lives.
The 50 reviews cover the gamut and, more times than not, the recounting is more about what happened in the parking lot, who passed out and who didn’t, who got busted and who didn’t, the cultural milieu at the time, and occasionally, the musical show itself is described in some detail.
A sampling of the more interesting concertgoing experiences:
R.E.M. @ Madison Square Garden – New York City, NY (11-4-04) By the book editor, Sean Manning – At the time, the journalist was an unpaid fashion internship with a pop culture glossy. Leaving his place of work in the Empire State Building at the end of the day on said November evening, he had to run an errand over to one of his superior’s apartments, and he passed a bald man leaving the elevator, but couldn’t quite place him before the door closed. His boss, for all the trouble of walking the few blocks to her apartment, promptly gave him a comp ticket for that night’s R.E.M. show in the Gardens. It was the Around The Sun tour. He entered the famous venue, and found himself going down the escalators, instead of heading up the escalators where he normally sat for Knicks games. He soon found himself on the vaunted varnished basketball hardwood floor, was escorted past the surrounding glitterati, including celebrity chef Mario Batali tossing popcorn in the air and catching it in his mouth. He eventually was stopped on the second row and was speechless. In short order, the arena went dark, and at the edge of the stage dressed in a white suit with a purple blindfold painted around his glistening head, he recognized the man he’d passed earlier in the elevator. The band opened, for the first time ever up to that time, with “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It,” and proceeded to blow the Gardens and NYC on their ass. It was his most memorable concert ever. But the best concert he ever saw was Elvis (THE Elvis) on July 11, 1975 in the Richfield Coliseum in Akron, OH. To each, his own.
Miles Davis @ The Casablanca – Buffalo, NY (9-21-55) By poet and jazz musician Ishmael Reed – Mr. Reed was a high school dropout in Buffalo who had a local jazz band comprised of all the other local jazz hipsters, and of course Miles Davis was their God. After wearing out the grooves of Birth of the Cool, Miles was the group’s Fountain of Knowledge and it was announced that he was actually coming to Buffalo! At that time, the city was a backward, dull town where there was little to do. The imminent arrival of MILES DAVIS was the equivalent of a seismic event. The night of the show, Ismael and his buds were hanging out on the corner of The Casablanca when a cab drove up and Miles got out and unsurprisingly, was “decked to the nines.” He was performing that night with Sonny “Lockjaw” Davis on keys. He had trouble keeping up with Miles, but the Great Trumpeter was cool about it and didn’t get shitty. Another incident tested the great Miles’ degree of affability when a man knocked his prized trumpet off its perch atop the piano. He inspected the instrument for any damage, and seeing none. continued his break. According to the budding Buffalo jazz man, “Miles at this club on William Street in Buffalo. This was the most memorable concert for me, even though I don’t remember all of the numbers played. But Miles, in his sharp suit and dark glasses and cool sounds, convinced me that I wanted to be where all of that was taking place. That my hometown could not hold me. That I wanted the world.”
The Rolling Stones @ The Academy of Music – New York City, NY (5-1-65) By Lynne Tillman who is a novelist, short story writer, and essayist, as well as a teacher at the University of Albany – Ms. Tillman was a young college student in 1965. The Beatles were too fresh and sunny for her dark, youthfully jaded, sort-of-hip character. However, the Stones were rebels and existed for her and her college buddy; Bad Boys for Bad Girls. The fact that The Beatles were actually working-class and The Stones were solid middle-class boys, made no difference. Word spread that the Bad Boys of Rock were playing their first show ever in NYC at the Academy of Music. The venue was past its glory as a performance hall, with broken marquee letters, uncomfortable seats, and just a tad seedy; perfect for the Stones. Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells opened, but the audience was indifferent. They exited the stage in an hour and then nearly another hour passed of absolutely nothing and the audience was slowly becoming enraged. Then they finally walked onto the stage, as if they were going to the men’s room. No band member looked out to the waiting sea of female hormones, Mick mumbled a barely intelligible, “Hello, New York” and Brian Jones sat down on the stage. There was a type of stasis watching the band with Brian’s head down, Charlie steady behind the drums, Bill unmoving and dour, and Keith unremarkably doing his thing, but not in the crouching way he does now and uncoiling like a rattlesnake ready to strike. “The Stones played eight songs, the songs were three or four minutes each. They were onstage less than half an hour. They finished their set and walked off the way they’d walked on. They just walked off. No one clapped or shouted, everyone was fed-up, pissed off, let down. We’d become the anti-audience, and rose, grabbed our jackets, left our seats, and filed out. There was no fighting, no talking. We spilled onto 14th Street, a morose confederacy of rebels. Life continued, but something had changed: the Rolling Stones had played New York.”
Buddy Guy & Jimi Hendrix @ The Scene – New York City, NY (1968) – By Gene Santoro who is the author of several notable music books, essays, and features in many publications, such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, Spin, Rolling Stone, and is currently the music critic for The Nation Magazine – To be a teenager on the loose prowling for music in New York City in the late 60’s was “like being a young tomcat in an eight-bay, three-story barn full of mice.” Clubs still dotted the West Village: The Night Owl, MacDougal, The Village Gate, The Café Au Go Go, The Village Vanguard, Tompkins Square Park, the old Village Theater morphing into The Fillmore East, The Wollman Rink in Central Park, and a way-off-the-beaten-path club on West 46th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues called The Scene. “That club is where The Show I’ll Never Forget happened – or not. I remember being there, my teenage running buddy Ishmael remembers being there, and Buddy Guy told me he remembered being there when I asked him years ago. The best bet is 1968.” Buddy blew into the The Scene from the Windy City, which was the home of most of all the great American bluesmen. “He was wearing a shiny sharkskin suit, right?” Ish said. “This totally black look and attitude. He walked over to tables during the set and just picked up people’s glasses and drank from them. And he was picking his guitar with his teeth, and behind his back, and I thought, ‘He’s stealing all this stuff from Hendrix.’ Then I found out I had that backwards.” Buddy looked like Hendrix “through the wrong end of a telescope.” He had been ripping it to shreds for a good while and then, as the reviewer recounts, “out ambled Hendrix. He jacked-in to his single Marshall and they kicked into a Muddy Waters tune, I think ‘Hoochi Coochie Man.’ As the jam rolled and they traded licks, Hendrix’s overdriven space-blues devoured Guy’s increasingly buried if frantic comebacks. It got to be like watching a mime show through billows of standing wave blasts. Or so I remember. See, Ishmael and I disagree about whether Hendrix showed up. I thought about calling up Buddy for a good while and decided the hell with it. Just once, thanks, this old cat would rather keep the lid on his box of memories.”
The book contains a myriad of engaging reviews encompassing shows from the mid-50’s up through the mid-oughts ending with Metric @ Slim’s in San Francisco (11-3-2005).
A handful of standouts —–
Jimmy Reed @ LuAnn’s – Dallas, TX (April, 1958) by David Ritz
The Beatles @ Plaza De Toros – Madrid, Spain (7-2-65) by Rebecca Brown
James Brown @ Boston Gardens – Boston, MA (4-5-68) The night of MLK’s assassination by David Gates
Television @ CBGB’s – New York City, NY (Winter, 1975) by Bruce Bauman
Bruce Springsteen @ Madison Square Garden – New York City, NY (August, 1978) by Dani Shapiro
The Pogues @ Metro – Boston, MA (7-2-86) by Robert Polito
Redd Kross @ The Town Pump – Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (May, 1987) by Carl Newman
Clarence Carter @ Bobby’s Hideaway – Waldo, FL (1-18-90) by Kevin Canty
Prince @ The Fargodome – Fargo, ND (12-8-97) by Chuck Klosterman, then a cub reporter for the Forum Newspaper in Fargo.
Fun read.
Read
September 17, 2020Real hit-or-miss collection of concert recollections. Most enjoyed Klosterman (of course), Thurston Moore, Diana Ossana, Charles Cross, Lynne Tillman, A.C. Newman, and most of all Marc Bojanowski, whose take on a Beck show prompted me to read his excellent "The Dog Fighter." Some essays were crap, though.
March 27, 2014
"To be perfectly honest, I remember almost nothing about the concert itself." Seriously? Then what was this particular essay doing in this book? It wasn't about the band at all. Glad I wasted the 5 minutes it took to read that one.
And here's another thought: Why not get someone who LIKES THE BAND to write the review?
And here's another thought: Why not get someone who LIKES THE BAND to write the review?
December 29, 2020
Highly disappointing volume of writers's recollections of their most memorable live music experiences. Runs the gamut from Miles Davis to Patti Smith to Led Zeppelin to Mink DeVille. Just never comes together and despite being occasionally diverting, it mostly is not.
July 9, 2011
50 Shows...
I wanted to love this book. So so badly. The concept? I wanted to take it out on a backroad and do bad things to it in the backseat, I loved it that much. That's why it pains me a little to give three stars.
I'm a music junky and there is little I find more cathartic than going to a live show with 500 or 20,000 of my closest friends. Throwing your hands above your head, singing as loud as you can and losing yourself somewhere between the music and the lyric, your blood vibrates. Concerts are able to move me. It's the closest I've ever come to a religious experience.
I wanted this book to be about THAT. Some of the essays tried to be that. This quote in particular struck a chord:
If music was a way to discover something greater than me...I wanted it, I wanted the intoxication that music might bring.
I wanted more of that. Sadly I didn't often get it. Maybe that's my fault. In fact, I'm sure it was my own expectation that was to blame for my feeling of 'meh' toward the whole thing. The fact that half of them contained the words "I don't even remember the show" is more than disappointing. Reliving the events around the show was probably great fun for each of the authors. We all love to wax nostalgic from time to time. But that's not what the book is marketed to be. The show, in my humble opinion, should've played SOME part to be included in a title called "The Show I'll Never Forget." It's not "A Crazy Night in the Early 80s I'll Never Forget and There May Have Been a Band Involved At Some Point."
I wanted to scream "this! This is what I've been trying to explain to my family! This is it! This is what I've been trying to say!" It didn't deliver. Again, the fault of expectation, I'm sure.
If you're like me and you're looking for someone to put into words what you've been longing to express, try Steve Almond's Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life . It's the better book. By far.
Other bits I liked from this selection:
"For a while there, music seemed like one of the best reasons to be alive."
"We experience music and can't help but misread it, then we write about it or make it our own."
"There's something about trying to describe music - and what it does to you - that's like listening to somebody else describe their dreams.. You can see how important it was to them but you can't feel it. When music is great it lifts you up and out of yourself, whatever part of yourself wants to explain things, leaves you quiet in the quiet parts and loud in the loud parts, moving your body in time to the music and in time to the other bodies all around you."
I wanted to love this book. So so badly. The concept? I wanted to take it out on a backroad and do bad things to it in the backseat, I loved it that much. That's why it pains me a little to give three stars.
I'm a music junky and there is little I find more cathartic than going to a live show with 500 or 20,000 of my closest friends. Throwing your hands above your head, singing as loud as you can and losing yourself somewhere between the music and the lyric, your blood vibrates. Concerts are able to move me. It's the closest I've ever come to a religious experience.
I wanted this book to be about THAT. Some of the essays tried to be that. This quote in particular struck a chord:
If music was a way to discover something greater than me...I wanted it, I wanted the intoxication that music might bring.
I wanted more of that. Sadly I didn't often get it. Maybe that's my fault. In fact, I'm sure it was my own expectation that was to blame for my feeling of 'meh' toward the whole thing. The fact that half of them contained the words "I don't even remember the show" is more than disappointing. Reliving the events around the show was probably great fun for each of the authors. We all love to wax nostalgic from time to time. But that's not what the book is marketed to be. The show, in my humble opinion, should've played SOME part to be included in a title called "The Show I'll Never Forget." It's not "A Crazy Night in the Early 80s I'll Never Forget and There May Have Been a Band Involved At Some Point."
I wanted to scream "this! This is what I've been trying to explain to my family! This is it! This is what I've been trying to say!" It didn't deliver. Again, the fault of expectation, I'm sure.
If you're like me and you're looking for someone to put into words what you've been longing to express, try Steve Almond's Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life . It's the better book. By far.
Other bits I liked from this selection:
"For a while there, music seemed like one of the best reasons to be alive."
"We experience music and can't help but misread it, then we write about it or make it our own."
"There's something about trying to describe music - and what it does to you - that's like listening to somebody else describe their dreams.. You can see how important it was to them but you can't feel it. When music is great it lifts you up and out of yourself, whatever part of yourself wants to explain things, leaves you quiet in the quiet parts and loud in the loud parts, moving your body in time to the music and in time to the other bodies all around you."
February 22, 2008
I just realized that I never finished this one. Apparently I had stopped after the first 10 or so stories out of 50. The stories are presented in chronological order beginning with several jazz shows from the 1950s. Being somewhat jazz illiterate probably slowed me down a bit. I am now at a 1978 Patti Smith show.
So far I would have to say the account of the Kinks at Madison Square Garden is probably the most entertaining story in this collection, if only because 16 year old Reggie could certainly identify with 16 year old Thomas Beller. Black Flag at the Hong Kong Cafe was pretty good too, but I suspect that John Albert is more than a bit self-aggrandizing when it comes to the matter of just how big of a badass/misfit he really was. That being said, Albert's story almost serves as a prologue to his book Wrecking Crew: The Really Bad News Griffith Park Pirates.
Update: Best described as a very uneven collection of stories akin to a compilation album with only a few worthwhile recordings. I am looking forward to Kramer's email on the subject of the "50 Shows I'll Never Forget."
So far I would have to say the account of the Kinks at Madison Square Garden is probably the most entertaining story in this collection, if only because 16 year old Reggie could certainly identify with 16 year old Thomas Beller. Black Flag at the Hong Kong Cafe was pretty good too, but I suspect that John Albert is more than a bit self-aggrandizing when it comes to the matter of just how big of a badass/misfit he really was. That being said, Albert's story almost serves as a prologue to his book Wrecking Crew: The Really Bad News Griffith Park Pirates.
Update: Best described as a very uneven collection of stories akin to a compilation album with only a few worthwhile recordings. I am looking forward to Kramer's email on the subject of the "50 Shows I'll Never Forget."
July 16, 2014
Quite a variety of "takes" on memorable concerts. Made me think of quite a few myself: Sun Ra @ Hec Ed 1968, Archie Shepp somewhere in Bellevue 197?, Herbie Hancock at the site of the Off-Ramp in 1970, the Doors @ the Arena 1968, Cream @ Eagles 1968, Art Ensemble @ Bumbershoot or @ the Rainbow, Screamin' Jay Hawkins or Big Joe Turner @ the Rainbow, Thelonious Monk @ the Fresh Air, Carla Bley @ Broadway Performance Hall, Ornette & Don Cherry somewhere in Pioneer Square, Lene Lovich @ the revamped Eagles, Joe King Carrasco somewhere in Post Alley or at that basement place in Ballard, Steve Miller Band or Eric Burdon & War @ Eagles, Zappa & the Mothers of Invention @ the Paramount, Son House, Big Joe Williams, Johnny Shines, Bukka White, Mississippi Fred McDowell or others @ the Friends Center in the U District, Miles Davis @ Bumbershoot, Gato Barbieri @ Jazz Alley, Neil Innes @ the Triple Door, Howlin' Wolf @ Howard University as part of the Washington D.C. Blues Festival, Big Mama Thornton @ Newport, etc. There are more I cannot recall right now.
February 9, 2008
I loved the concept of this book - 50 writers write about their most memorable concert experience. Unfortunately, a lot of the writers seem like self-absorbed a-holes that I wouldn't ever want to catch a show with. There are some exceptions, especially Diana Osana writing about Led Zeppelin, John Albert on Black Flag, and Charles Cross on Nirvana.
In some ways, it just reinforces why I don't read some of these authors - like Heidi Julavits, who writes about a Rush concert and makes it clear that she basically sucks as a person.
In some ways, it just reinforces why I don't read some of these authors - like Heidi Julavits, who writes about a Rush concert and makes it clear that she basically sucks as a person.
January 7, 2010
As previous reviews have stated this book is a real mixed bag. Some of the stories are so postively dull that I skip them (not my usual deal). There are definitely some real gems in here though such as Chuck Klosterman's story about seeing Prince in Fargo. priceless! I'm bumping up the review as I've found more and more essays that I really love and just a few clunkers. A lot of the stories aren't focused on the music or the band but the whole concert going experience. I like I like
November 19, 2007
This was an interesting book. I enjoyed not only the stories but how the concert goers remembered what was going on in their lives during the time of the show and not just the playlist, set, performance. Music does influence our lives and this was just another reminder of how much.
January 10, 2008
What a great anthology. Some really great stories. Especially intriguing was the female writer who was in love with Billy Joel, auditioned for the Dancing in the Dark video and married Ben Lee.
Most of the stories had less to do with the concert than the feelings the author had at that time.
Most of the stories had less to do with the concert than the feelings the author had at that time.
March 3, 2008
This was a tremendous idea for a book, a collection of 50 writers recounting their most memorable concert-going experience(s). What made the stories especially nice was the fact that many of the writers admitted to not remembering all (or even most of the details) involved in their experience.
May 7, 2008
Not quite what I had expected, but still not a bad read. I had expected first-hand accounts of shows by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Pogues, and Black Flag but more often than not read about a troubled adolescence. There were still some good essays on David Bowie, Van Morrison and Prince.
June 25, 2018
I read almost this entire book in the bookstore and still need to go back to buy it. The account of the White Stripes concert brought me near tears.
May 8, 2015
Fun read with great writing about concerts/ shows and growing up. The musicians vary and the writing does too, but some nice highlights.
October 20, 2009
I read it for the Springsteen love.
January 17, 2010
Joyous! Sometimes moving, sometimes even haunting. I read it on our Christmas cruise.
April 3, 2010
Great concept, but the essays are a mixed bag.
May 24, 2010
loved this book. The stories took the event and personalized them through each authors experience. Fun read!
June 5, 2010
Charming, endearing, fun read. A bunch of writers write about a concert that changed their lives. I enjoyed it, but it didn't leave a huge impression.
January 6, 2011
A great book about memorable concert experiences. Some of the stories are more about the authors than the music, but overall it's good.
May 22, 2015
Brilliant concept, and a few of these stories are masterpieces. Most are short and I found myself reading 2 at a time for short spells. They pair well.
June 13, 2012
Great Concept- Some Great Concerts. Fun Read
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