Your best and worst gigs of 2007.

I only think I went to 11, but the majority were superb.

1. Cardiacs, London Astoria
2. Oceansize, at The Graduate, Cambridge
3. Six By Seven, a London venue I forget
4. Youthmovies, The Graduate again
5. Authority, The Camden Barfly
6. Shall We Set Ben On Fire, a London venue
7. Patti Smith, The Cambridge Junction
8. Ivan Lazic (my friend's band), a London venue
9. Porcupine Tree, The Cambridge Junction
10. Ivan Lazic, another London venue (earlier when the songs weren't so slick)
11. The December Plan, a Cambridge venue I forget

best:
ween, hampton beach casino ballroom, new hampshire
the evens, the space gallery, portland, maine
los straitjackets, grand theatre, ellsworth, maine
most of the stuff i saw at the american folk festival in bangor, maine

worst:
morrissey, bank of america pavilion. he stormed offstage a third of the way into his set and canceled the rest of the show because his throat was sore.

everything else: fair to middlin', including gogol bordello (this was more due to a shitty venue and shitty crowd), of montreal, bob dylan, more i'm forgetting.

Best:
Super Furries/Rufus Wainwright/ Arcade Fire/Bjork back-to-back on the Other Stage Friday at Glastonbury.
PJ Harvey/LCD soundsystem/Electrelane at SummerCase, Barcelona.
The Fall at Liverpool Academy
Sonic Youth at Primavera, Barcelona

Worst:
No stinkers, but Flaming Lips at SummerCase seemed to be dedicating more effort to wacky stage antics than playing music.
Manics at Glasto also going through the motions.

???:
Faust at Liverpool Barfly: I have no idea if this was good or bad - ironing, drilling and welding on stage, shouting random numbers out - but it was immensely entertaining.

best gig year ever!

1. daft punk
2. boredoms
3. the ex
4. mahmoud ahmed
5. bun b
6. jamaica to toronto showcase
7. patti smith

It was the best of times:

Mutek
Daft Punk
Thomas Brinkmann
Alex Smoke
Boredoms probably

And it was the worst of times:

Beats, Breaks, and Culture festival (pretty much everything held at the harbourfront in toronto was a big disappointment this year, which is too bad)
All the openers for Daft Punk, of course!
All of the X-Avant festival subtracting the night Marc LeClair performed. Why did I buy the whole pass when I knew I hate world music?

Terrible year for live music. Mountain Goats and Morrissey cancellations didn't help. Neither did the fact that I missed Jesu and Battles.

Best: Lee Perry. Way surprisingly good.

Worst: Fred Anderson and Chad Taylor at Umass. Taylor, to my ears, was utterly overpowering, and appeared to either not be listening to Anderson, or to be unable to meet his playing with anything resembling an adequate reponse/contribution. I was totally disappointed. After a few minutes, I found myself longing for Anderson solo. Particularly due to Taylor's total lack of dynamics.

2nd Worst: Blonde Redhead. Utterly superficial, totally forgetable. They used to have promise, and now they make music designed to help self-conciously trendy college girls feel cultured.

Good:
Battles.
Boredoms.
DMZ 2nd Birthday.
DMZ Leeds.
Reinhard Voigt at Nitsa.

Not so good:
Bjork.

Nothing particularly awful.

Best:

Madness at Budapest Sziget
Interpol
LCD Soundsystem
Of Montreal
The Hives

Nothing particularly awful too

Best: Battles at Green Man festival and Green Velvet (if a DJ set w/ vocals counts as a gig) in Cardiff

Clipse in Bristol wasn't the worst thing I saw this year but it was prolly the most disappointing

Best - Joanna Newsom, City Halls, Glasgow

Worst - Boredoms, Arches, Glasgow (I kept thinking "aquatarkus")

T-Diva's no.14 was one of my disappointments - Euros Childs being insipid in front of a captive audience of grown-up britpop/psych kids. Das Wanderlust were pretty great that night but didn't get much back off the old 'uns.

Best - Torche, GZA, LCD Soundsystem, Stephen Marley, Girl Talk, Common

Worst - M.I.A. (!), Isis, Bob Dylan

best gig year ever!

1. daft punk
2. boredoms
3. the ex
4. mahmoud ahmed
5. bun b
6. jamaica to toronto showcase
7. patti smith

-- s1ocki, Sunday, December 30, 2007 9:15 PM

damn son

best:

ooioo
rhythm & sound soundsystem
jesus & mary chain
earth
daft punk
karizma (dj)
booka shade live in detroit
prins thomas (dj)
carl craig (dj)
ursula rucker/jonah sharp

worst:

underworld
booka shade live in san francisco
switch (dj)
sebastiAn/kazynski (dj, opening for daft punk)

I haven't even had time to think about the worst yet. Here are some memorable ones though.

It's been an awesome year for live music.

RUSH!, Fireballs of Freedom, Red Fang, Black Elk, Danava, Rollerball, SubArachnoid Space, Stinking Lizaveta, Sightings, Stovokor, Faith & the Muse, Big Business, Minsk, Middian, Engorged, Octis, Marnie Stern, Mary Timony, Ludicra, Jesu, Sunn 0))), Oxbow, Slough Feg, Hammers of Misfortune, Tool, Trans Am, Wolves in the Throneroom, Twin, 31 Knots, Marissa Nadler, Jackie O Motherfucker, Whitehorse, Silentist, Giant Squid, Ahleuchatistas, The Obituaries, Pierced Arrows, Wormwood, Aldebaran, Hatchet, Pelican, Clouds, Witchcraft, Enslaved, Stereo Total, The Octopus Project, Melvins, Burmese, Acid Mother's Guru Guru, Akimbo, Amber Asylum, Thrones, Captured! By Robots, Ruins (alone), Clipd Beaks, Fist Fite, Turambar, Grey, Smegma, 27, Monotonix, Genghis Tron, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Bunny Rabbit, Panther, Totimoshi, Matt and Kim, Green Milk from the Planet Orange, Old Time Relijun, Neko Case, Merle Haggard, Grails, Neurosis, Christ on Parade, Skeletonwitch, Nachtmystium, Boris, Asunder, High on Fire, The Hidden Hand, Daughters, Don Caballero, Zombi, Noxagt,...