What's the most seminal thing you've ever seen?

Does it count seeing The Strokes at the Mercury Lounge before they were famous? I don't feel like that was seminal, I just feel like that was one of the unavoidable liabilities of the Lower East Side.

My faith in humanity has still not recovered.

I guess seeing the famous Beastie Boys vs Prodigy at Reading 98 is kinda seminal.

Can I miss the point of this thread even more and note that 1995 would surely have been too early for this occurence? At best they might have gone under their previous name, Tragic Love Company... I don't like knowing this sort of thing but living where I do it tends to stick to you :(

Failing that it would have to be The Strokes at Heaven. It was full of media ponces so I instigated some general pushing and jumping around which livened things up a tad. Backstage afterwards I was talking to a girl who was going on and on about how beautiful they were, but seemed oblivious to the fact that Nikolai was right next to her.

I said "don't do it that way, you'll never make a dime"

sorry

These were all a very long time ago.

I saw Miles Davis; The Cure, U2 and Radiohead before any of 'em had an album out; Nirvana when there were still 4 of 'em; Manic Street Preachers in a tiny half-empty club in Reading a couple of days before Richey took a razor blade to his arm and it all started to go rapidly downhill....

I'd rather have seen Captain Beefheart 'though.

'Rapmania' at
the Apollo in '90,
LL getting booed;

Jeff Lorber Fusion
before Kenny Gorelick
dropped the 'orelick'!

Also, Pantera opening for Suicidal Tendencies and Exodus in 1990...the Cowboys From Hell tour, I guess. Nobody knew who the hell they were, and most weren't particularly impressed.

Was behind the goal for Germany-England Euro 96 semifinal.

and i'd just like to add for the record that i saw milli vanilli. garden state arts center, new jersey, 1989. with young mc.

i saw heroin, spanakorzo, and one of justin pearson's early bands around the same time in a high school garage party in la jolla and thought they stunk (and turned me off to lots more gravity stuff despite dwelling in the epicenter)

saw the boredoms perform the "super ae" material for the first time in the usa at the radio station i worked at.

neil hamburgers first performance ever.

i saw the treepeople open for beat happening my first week of college circa time whore tour.

i saw beck open for the treepeople and further at raji's, i think one of his first shows.

i saw a lot of the shrimper stuff pretty early on in pomona, or al's bar or jabberjaw: refrigerator, nothing painted blue, diskothi-Q, mountain goats, super early creeper lagoon when it was a one man band (and good).

maybe j0hn can help me out here, but i think i saw one of the first extra glenns shows with thingy and jim yoshi's pile up in cory brown's living room just up the street from me. thingy did a 5 song misfits medley for an encore.

bulb/jack show in oakland... when black jack records and bulb records first joined forces in the mid-90s, first west coast performances for the early Bulb roster which helped shape a lot of the SF noise scene to this day.

I saw a whole raft of gigs in '83-84' by the Dream Syndicate, Bangs (nee Bangles,) Rain Parade etc...a few Black Flag gigs from the same period. The first fIREHOSE gig, which--as it was direct from the Minutemen's ashes--might count. I walked out on an early Hole show, and wish I'd never been there in the first place. I went to the Cocteau Twins' first American gig. The most seminal *feeling* gig I ever went to was the first American show by Union Carbide Productions. That's gotta remain the greatest display of rock aggro I've seen, and that would encompass quite a few things...but I'm not sure they're remembered enough to call "seminal." Dinosaur played in my college dorm long before they were forced to adapt the "Jr." tag...there must be others...

I saw Union Carbide Productions too, they played at the Marquee in London. You're damn right about how impressive they were as a live unit.

And man. That Union Carbide gig was something else again. It's hard to imagine, say, Iggy in his prime being as purely kinetic as that singer. I thought for sure we'd all go home bloody. (Just as it's hard to imagine the fat guy in a kaftan fronting the Soundtrack of Our Lives being the same person...)

Oh yeah? Well, I saw Redd Kross, D.O.A and the Circle Jerks at the Ritz in 1985.

I saw the first 'real' Jicks show too.

I don't really see that many shows unless artists I already really like a lot are performing.

The result of our school winning a contest sponsored by local radio station Q107.

Minds were blown, asses were kicked, names were taken.

True, but Redd Kross post-Teen Babes/pre-Neurotica was the real coup, there.

You're not Neil Simpson from fleet management are you? (Spotted the Edinburgh thing above).

hmmm... saw Liz Phair play to like 20 people here in Chicago once. I'm pretty sure she was performing as Liz Phair at that point though, not "girly sound".

I saw Tortoise when they were still called Mosquito. I think they were just a 4 piece (Brown/McCombs/Herndon/McEntire) at that point. They were supposed to be opening for the Ex, but customs wouldn't allow the Ex into the country!!

Saw Jim O'Rourke play a bunch of shows where he was just sort of this precocious improvising guitarist-about-town. I was at the show that produced the live cuts on this disc.

I was at the gig at the SouthEnd Musicworks which was the first time Peter Brotzmann and Hamid Drake played together. They've obviously since gone on to have a long a fruitful collaborative relationship.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jo.bhosle/flyer.jpg

Hey, it was their last tour also!!!
Well...
not really.
:(

Tom Waits, in an ol' circus building in Stockholm, 1999. Amazing. Probably the best concert I've ever been to.

Radiohead, Copenhagen, 1997, before they went weird. Luv their new stuff, too, but this was just like a totally, totally pure experience. They were still enhoying playing 'Creep'! Proof: When Thom Yorke sang 'I want a perfect body', he was fondling himself on his chest and stomach. Nice.

R.E.M. in a small, 1500 people venue in Hamburg. They started out with 'Losing My Religion'.

Oh, and Beck at Roskilde Festival in 1997. The end of his Odelay period, complete with cowboy suit and everything.

A few years ago I saw John Mayer with a crowd of about 100; I almost immediately got bored and wandered off!

These were going to be my choices too (the second band on the bill at the Oasis/Verve thing was Acetone). I am not related to Keith. (I also saw Oasis the week before supporting St Etienne at the Plaza in Glasgow).

I guess the Manics last show with Richey and their first without him count, do they? (the Astoria, December 1994 and supporting the Stone Roses at Wembley Stadium, December 1995). Not small, but important. Actually, note of pedantry, not first show without him as he wasn't there at T in the Park in 1994 either - I was there too, obviously - but first show with the new look, stadium-friendly, pie-eating, Gap-wearing, Hoover-loving post-disappearance Manics.

I would put a shout out too for Pulp's introduction to the big time at Glastonbury '95.

Por moi, the most seminal is The Strokes the day their (first) album came out, due to the fact the gig was delayed cos Fab broke his hand.

So, I suppose, the first time garage was ubiquitous.

Blur in 95 is all for me.

my mum has some pretty incredible stories though. She saw Jimi Hendrix in an improv club with 30 other people. Had dinner with Bowie and The Rolling Stones on many occasions. Dated the guy who played the saxophone solo on 'Careless Whisper'. And Lemmy babysat my brother and sister!!!!

I saw Kitchens of Distinction touring Love Is Hell, and saw The Pixies, supported by MBV, at some point between Rosa and Dolittle.

I managed to miss a Oasis pre-Definitely Maybe gig when I was waylaid by the Happy Hour in a local bar. We turned up in time to hear them (from the back room of the venue) play "I Am The Walrus". I think my decision to get drunk cheaply instead was the right one, looking back.

they were all unforgettable, 'important' shows... i feel priveleged to have been there.

Del Shannon in Nashville, mid-'80s, by far the most rock and roll experience of my life.

Seeing the Hi Rhythm Section back up Ann Peebles and many others in Memphis in about '91 was pretty awesome--my first time to see them.

Booker T. and the MGs in Memphis, around '93. OK, it wasn't Al Jackson but still, seeing them play was quite an honor.

And--I'm in my '40s now--I saw Three Dog Night at the Municipal Auditorium in Nashville in the early '70s.