Perhaps it could be dismissed as recency bias—or maybe even hyperbole—but trust me when I say that in all my years of going to shows I’ve never seen anything like the Have Heart sets at Sound And Fury 2019, and I doubt I will ever again. After 10 years apart, the Boston hardcore band announced eight shows, with portions of the proceeds benefitting a women’s shelter in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the same organization that supported a decade ago. Across two nights at Sound And Fury, the band proved they were anything but a nostalgia act. With a sign that read “Separating migrant children from their families is a human rights violation” displayed prominently, vocalist Pat Flynn offered an in-depth explanation on the subject, as his status as a history teacher made him uniquely qualified to speak on the United States’ long history of avoiding ratification of the , while also allowing a local indigenous person to preface their second show—and final U.S. performance—with a short speech reminding people of Los Angeles’ indigenous tribes, and that this event was happening on land stolen from them. Beyond the band, who were as tight as they ever were, the reaction from the crowd was monstrous. People sang along so loud that the band was often drowned out, and Flynn had to tell the crowd to be mindful of the stage, as the mass of people pushing forward had it teetering on the edge of collapse. But even that warning couldn’t stop fans from flooding the stage during “Watch Me Rise.” A week prior to their Sound And Fury appearances, Have Heart played to , inspiring debate about whether or not it was the biggest hardcore show in the genre’s history. The jury may still be out on that one, but for me, I’ve never seen one bigger, better, or more inspiring. [David Anthony]
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The inaugural Q101 Summer Jamboree (1995) was largely forgettable: Duran Duran was on auto-pilot, Sheryl Crow was boring, Faith No More amd KMFDM were ok but felt out of place. But some unknown proto-rap/rock act called Phunk Junkees took to the small stage in mid-afternoon garbage time and spent 30 minutes absolutely tearing shit up and whipping the ever-growing crowd into a frenzy. They insulted the crowd, propositioned all the women in earshot, and repeatedly advocated for the consumption of narcotics. On paper, it sounds like a train wreck, but they had the charisma (and just enough musical talent) to have everybody on their side by the end of their set, salvaging what was an otherwise wasted day.
Gotta be that chick at Alpine Valley that was flashing everyone for, like, the entire time Static-X was on; Ozz-fest, 2000-something.
Sounds like every Ozzfest I went to and most WASP shows lol
I haven’t thought of Static-X existing for at least several years, and I owned multiple CD’s from them
Forgotten Rebels at MusicWest in 1997(?). After being amped up by a friend for weeks (“You should hear them. No, you can’t borrow a CD. You have to hear them live. Trust me, you’ll thank me after), they came on stage, only played a short set, pitched their new album hard, and were kind of, um, bad.That’s where I learned the valuable lesson of disappointment.So, thank you, Forgotten Rebels, and the friend whose name I won’t mention. You have to see him live. Trust me, you’ll thank me after.
Lambchop – Merge XX
Sigur Ros in Singapore.Greatest set to watch while in the rain.My dream is still to watch Kraftwerk and Fleet Foxes live one day.
I saw Kraftwerk live a few years ago and I swear my IQ went up a few points as a result. Like, my friends and I literally felt smarter by the end. Do not miss them if you’re even passingly familiar with their music.
Buddy Guy with John Mayer at Summerfest
Oh, man, that’s a tough call. I’ve seen some of my all-time favorite performances at various music festivals. But, after careful consideration, I think the top vote still goes to LCD Soundsystem at Panorama 2016. At least part of it occupying that top slot is contextual: I knew of the band before the retirement, but hadn’t really fallen hard in love with them until after so, until this show was announced, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the chance to see what had become one of my favorite bands, or dance with a bunch of strangers to what had become one of my all-time favorite songs, “All My Friends.”So, it gets announced they’re headlining Panorama, a mere 35-minute hike from my apartment! Yay! Except…Panorama’s dates in 2016 coincided with pretty much the ONE out-of-town trip I have to take for work every year. I was crushed. Instead of giving up, though, I decided to YOLO the shit out of the situation, lying to my job and telling them I had a “family commitment” that would force me to come back from the trip a day early. I then redeyed back from California (and I can’t sleep on planes), got two hours of sleep at home, and headed out to the festival, which happened to be taking place during a NYC heat wave so bad it got a special name (the “heat dome”). It was all worth it. The band absolutely destroyed, the crowd was totally batshit, the drugs were FANTASTIC, and I’ve never again felt the euphoria I felt while pogoing my ass off the set-closing insanity that was the climax of “All My Friends.” So, yeah. That wins.
Nick Cave, Bat For Lashes, (“The London”) Suede. The only one of those I was expecting to be blown away by was Nick Cave.Biggest letdowns: Kraftwerk (literally less interesting than listening to the CD at home; I wasn’t surprised to find out one of them does his e-mails during gigs), Manic Street Preachers
Never saw Nick Cave, but definitely a bucket list artist.
I fiiiinally saw Nick Cave in DC last fall and was NOT disappointed.
Been a fan forever and he keeps making good music too, that Skeleton Tree album was great.
The Flaming Lips showed everyone how it’s done at it was either the first or second Bonnaroo. Everyone was just blown away.
-d
Primus at 1993 Lollapalooza.
I got in free to the 91′ Lollapalooza cuz my friend worked at a radio station in Dallas. Great freaking show. Janes’. Siouxie, Living Colour, NIN, Ice T, Butthole Surfers and Henry Rollins Band.
Ive been going to see Primus since ’94. Prob seen then 14 or 15 times now, counting random festival appearances. Oddly enough, I think the best Primus show I’ve ever seen was in the Fall of 2017. They played this great little theater like 5 blocks from where I live in Akron OH, and it was absolutely fantastic. Larry just blew my mind. That guy’s style is so different from pretty much any other guitar player I’ve ever heard. It might have been the best Les Claypol show I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen him with a ton of band. Sausage, Primus, Frog Brigade, Fancy Band, Bucket of Bernie Brains, The Duo, and Oysterhead. I’m probably forgetting one somewhere. Lol.
Arcade Fire at Coachella 2011 was life-changing for me. Despite coming off their surprising Grammy win, they had a lot to prove being a headliner that rose to the top largely on critical acclaim alone. What followed was a beautiful performance that culminated in an LED ball drop that synced up to the last several songs of their set (didn’t catch one since they were flying around at such ferocious speed, but did get socked in the face with a few). Everyone was smiling at the end, including to random strangers as everyone was stuck in the parking lot afterwards.Honorable mentions to Foo Fighters in a downpour at Lollapalooza (not even a big Foos fan, but that was memorable as all hell), Gorillaz at Outside Lands, The National at Homecoming where Matt was even more shitfaced than usual, and that time I made out with a stranger at LCD Soundsystem who later revealed that she was married.
Easy answer and I am sure everyone here would agree who attended.SUNDAY BREAK outside Austin, Texas, Peter Frampton, 1976! (okay don’t everyone pile on at once……..)
I moved to Austin in the early 2000s and all of my Austinite friends tell me about the great shows I’ve missed over the years. I’ve been going to the Psych/Levitation fests though and those are always great.
I saw Frampton at the Rock Circus in Edmonton in ‘79, and found him kinda disappointing. Maybe it was asking too much for him to live up to my expectations.
Frampton Comes Alive had been released earlier in the year. Maybe it was timing. But he was really great, the weather perfect and 50,000 fans.
Yeah. Three years later, he was probably pretty tired of being asked to play the same damn thing all the time.
Off the top of my head, I’ll go with Ice Cube at Lollapalooza ‘92. He got 20,000 white kids from the mean streets of Irvine, CA to flip him off and yell FUCK YOU ICE CUBE over and over again. So great. Then Ministry played right after him and played so goddamn hard that the power went out for 40 minutes.
Those first few Lollapaloozas were just special, something about the vibes and turning fans of one band onto other bands of different genres.
Absolutely. It really was about newer bands, not just getting Metallica or whoever to headline it again. I remember seeing The Breeders and Cypress Hill on the small stage when they really were just getting their start. Magical fucking times.
Fishbone, Alice In Chains, Rage Against the Machine, Tool. It was sick…
While I’ve no doubt the set was amazing, get white kids from the suburbs to embrace gangsta rap in the early ‘90s was not exactly a heavy lift.
Thanks for shitting on my memory, though!
Ah, I meant it with love. I mean, *I* was a suburban white kid who embraced gangsta rap in the ‘90s. So, I was right there.
I’ve never seen anything live. I see live music festivals on Youtube instead. And the most I enjoy is when it is on the new years eve.
This is my favorite comment here.
I had to give it a star. I just had to.
Hard to choose, but probably NIN at Lollapalooza in 91′ at the Starplex in Dallas. Honorable mentions for Ministry and RHCP. Craziest pit was Slayer at Clash of the Titans in 91′ at the Starplex in Dallas.
I saw slayer (and anthrax, Megadeth, and Alice and chains) on that tour at Alpine valley, and yes slayers set was fucking insane. It wasn’t just the sod fights, but that there were multiple bonfires on the lawn, and people were moshing around and through the fire. Maybe one of the most metal things I’ve seen.
Definitely the height of Slayer for me. They had the pit up front and then the pit on the grass in General Admission. People were making bonfires and jumping over them and some security guard got pushed into one and an ambulance had to come in. Crazy.
that tour fucking ruled!
NIN at WS94 was an all timer. I had no control over my body. My feet were barely on the muddy ground. Just got pulled along in the wave of people.
Right at the height of their popularity there wasn’t anything like it. I saw them with Manson a year or two later and still one of the best shows.
I didn’t get to see NIN at Lolla but the first time I saw them was at a festival with Soundgarden at Molson Park in Barrie, ON in 1994. It was epic.Having said that, I have a number of honourable mentions;Reverend Horton Heat at that same festivalRATM and Metallica at Woodstock ‘99Gallows at Vans (Calgary) 2007Refused at Amnesia Rockfest (Montebello, QC) 2015The Dillinger Escape Plan, also at Rockfest; vocalist Greg Puciato was refused entry to Canada so the band played an instrumental set in his absence.
During Slayer’s set on that tour in Darien Lake, NY, fans lit a huge trash fire IN the pit. During Megadeth’s set, I was getting squashed by the crowd against the barrier and security pulled me over it then led me to the side of the stage where Dave Mustaine came over to see if I was okay! Then back into the mayhem I disappeared…
I went to the first StreetScene in San Diego (held in a parking lot) to see Los Lobos headline. The band before them was The Call. I had never heard of them, but they played like their life depended on it and blew us all away. As soon as their set ended, my friend and I looked at each other and were think the exact same thing. We immediately left and headed directly to Tower Records (open until midnight!), bought their CD, went to the beach, smoked weed and drank beer, and listened to it over and over.
The last time WOMAD was in the U.S. that I know of was the summer of 2001. (You make your guesses as to what happened to the ease of staging a festival of world artists in this country after that.) It was in Redmond, just a few minutes up the road from me, so I planned the day I went SUPER casually. Peter Gabriel and Afro Celt Sound System were the evening’s headliners. I got there much earlier, though, before the gates opened, and I sat in my car for a few minutes with the book that I’d brought, listening idly to the music that had started to play. I figured it was just a recording playing over the PA. Then I realized it was Peter Gabriel. Then I realized it wasn’t an album cut…but it also wasn’t any live recording I’d ever heard. I very quickly headed up to the venue to see what I could see, and as it happened, the very, very nice gate attendants were letting anyone who had a ticket inside. Upshot: I got to listen to Peter Gabriel’s soundcheck/rehearsal with maybe a couple hundred other people while he and his band ran through most of the set. Those of us watching kept looking at each other like, “HOW ARE WE HERE?!” It was fantastic.By the end of the night, the field was packed with thousands of people and I couldn’t see a damn thing, and I didn’t even care. 🙂
Audioslave at Lollapalooza 2003, Tinley Park IL. They came to destroy and they did. Jane’s Addiction’s set fell with a thud because Audioslave completely blew them off the stage.
Off the top of my head, I think I’ve only been to two music festivals. One was Bumpershoot in 2002. I HAD to go to see Lou Reed… thank god I did, even though the set was fucking awful. I saw him in person. That’s all I care about. But other than that, I’ve sworn off festivals completely. They’re just not for me. Get in line for this. Get in line for that. Get in line for beer/bathrooms/water. Get in line and fucking wait. No thanks! Get in line to hear music outside which to me just. fucking. sucks. I’m sorry. You need walls for music to bounce off of. There’s a reason why recording studios are, you know… indoors.With all that being said, possibly the best show I ever saw was at Summer Bummer in 2009 in Portland at the shuttered Rotture. It was a festival in name only. I only went on Friday, but ran all weekend. The first night was Eat Skull, maYYors, Sic Alps, Ty Segall (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) which was the first of many times I eventually saw him), and this band called Thee Oh Sees. At that point, they were refusing to play on stages, so… this guy comes over the PA and says Thee Oh Sees would be playing on the tiny smoking patio. So we all went out there and the deck almost collapsed. All for $12.
How square do you have to be to have never heard “Ripple” before 2010? Like, seriously square, I’d guess.
Radiohead at Bonnaroo in 2006. They were testing material for the soon-to-be-released “In Rainbows” and filled the rest of the set with a strong mix of everything else.I have a distinct memory of the chorus of “Paranoid Android” which features a chanting segment (“rain down, rain down”) … followed by a bit of Thom Yorke’s snarl and this massive, punchy riff that gets played with fury until the song’s violent, abrupt end.There were 80,000 people chanting, and when the guitar kicked back in, it leveled the venue. It carried the weight of a 80,000 bombs, exploding simultaneously. It get chills thinking about it. The set had a lot of brilliant moments, but that was the absolute highlight.
that show was incredible
I’m going to get massacred for saying something positive about Woodstock 99, but Rage Against the Machine’s set was ludicrously great.
Lollapalooza 1993. Fishbone had the entire crowd moshing and kicking ass in 100 degree Atlanta heat. Alice in Chains later that night was also amazing, turned me from uninterested to huge fan.
Probably Robyn at Bonnaroo back in ‘11. I had no idea who she was, I was only there because I wanted to be up front to see Beirut who was playing after her. She came out and fucking crushed it and I’ve never had as much fun during a show since. Also she looked at me during her set and winked but no one fucking believes me, I swear to god it happened people.
Im a big fan of music in all it’s forms, and I’ve been to a ton of music festivals (I mean a TON! Like 3-4 a year for a long time). Outside of Phish or the Dead, which I think I’ll exclude from this based on the sheer volume of festival sets I’ve seen from both acts over the years, I think I’d have to say my all time favorite was the late night set from The Mars Volta at Bonnaroo in 2005. I’d never seen them before, and was only vaguely aware of what kind of music they made. A buddy of mine literally dragged me to see them at around midnight the second night of the festival, and they absolutely blew my mind. I never missed a Mars Volta show after that, and while I caught some really great shows from them, I’d still say that Bonnaroo set was my favorite of the bunch. One of my other favorite’s was the first time I got to see Dubtribe at Family Affair in I wanna say ‘95. That set fundamentally changed the way I look at electronic music. It permanently changed the way I look at and appreciate music in general. It was that good.
Those two examples were just the ones that came to mind immediately though. I’ve been to so many festivals I’ve probably caught over 150 individual sets. There have been too many highlights to name. Not to sound like a bitter old man here, but the festival scene just isn’t the same now. It used to be that even the larger ones had a relatively loose kind of vibe about them. These days, while there are still great festivals with excellent music, the corporate and relatively main stream nature of the scene these days has really changed these events, and not for the better. You used to be able to go to a 50,000 person festival and once you got inside you very well may not see a cop for the rest of the weekend. As long as you weren’t hurting anyone, it was a free for all. These days, well… Not so much.
High on Fire at Intonation Fest, dirt tornado in the pit and Jesus Lizard at Pitchfork.
Sturgill Simpson at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass….during sundown at the end of a beautiful day in the park. He later said this was one of his favorite sets.
This will be extremely unpopular but Oleander at Woodstock 99 and Better Than Ezra at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 2016 (yes, I’m stuck in the 90s)
Kanye at Bonnaroo
Katie Rife was definitely not at the first Intonation Fest or is just making shit up. I was there and yes The Go! Team did make everybody dance. But so did DFA1979, The Hold Steady, Four Tet, and Xiu Xiu. Oh and the Les Savy Fav set was just as wild and fun, in not more so, than The Go! Team. The crowd even got hype for the fucking Decemberists.
Interpol followed by The Cure on Randall’s Island in 2004 for the Curiosa Festival. My first time in NYC, my first time seeing either band- despite the heat the whole experience was magical.
2004 Coachella. Flaming Lips. First time I’d seen Wayne Coyne in a giant ball. Massive balloons everywhere. Furries on the stage. (I was also Tripping Balls!)Otherwise, Gogol Bordello a few years later at Free Tulsa. Those fuckers put on an amazing show. You physically can’t stop moving.
Probably Steve Earle and the Dukes in the summer of 1996 at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. My son was 2 months old at the time and my wife was covering his ears (outside, high up on the hill) the entire show. Richard Thompson another year there was goddamn magic, and at a fest way back in 1980 I remember Warren Zevon tearing it up.
gesaffelstein coachella #nurdthug
I have been to so many festivals that I gotta think about this for a second.
Lenny Kravitz at HORDE in ‘96Pain of Salvation at Midsummer Prog in ‘17Marillion at Cruise to the Edge in ‘18 (it’s a bunch of bands, it counts even if it’s on a boat)Jon Oliva’s Pain, ProgPower USA in ‘14
Jon Oliva’s Pain! NICE. Did you ever see Savatage? I’m from Tampa (and I’m old) so I was fortunate to see them a few times before Criss was killed. Fucking amazing. RIP Criss Oliva.
Alas, no. They played an 18+ show in my hometown a month before Criss was killed when I was still 17 and couldn’t go. I was absolutely gutted. I’ve seen all of the primary members live in some iteration of Savatage over the years, though, between JOP, TSO, and WMD, as well as Circle II Circle.
There was a new, no-name street festival in San Francisco one year and I went and got to see pre-The ArchAndroid Janelle Monae funking up the outdoor stage like the 2nd coming of James Brown.Also, Bootsy Collins at Bumbershoot in the mid-2010s. Just wow. Also wow: Chaka Khan playing live and free at a food festival in Millennium Park in Chicago. I was there for a conference, but dang … that made my trip.
Years ago at Lolla I saw Thievery Corporation and it was so great—so chill, such good vibes, stellar ensemble, pretty much the perfect festival experience. Similarly, I was thrilled with both Of Montreal’s and Flaming Lips’ sets at Pitchfork, pretty unforgettable stuff.
Iggy and the Stooges when they played riot fest the first year it was outside in Humboldt park. Like many have said, festival sets rarely rival club shows… But occasionally you get one of those magical outdoor moments.Like when Iggy is singing “the passenger” and hits the line “I see the stars come out tonight, I see the bright and hallowed sky” as the sun is setting and the moon comes out… And then everyone spontaneously starts dancing and strangers put their arms around you. That was pretty fucking cool.
Die Krupps has a very fun and entertaining set. Saw them on boat A38 in Budapest. Best industrial concert I’ve ever been to.Laibach comes often to Serbia and they’re always awesome and entertaining.Nick Cave also came to Belgrade. His concerts are awesome, really gives it his all.As far as Serbian bands go it has to be Mistake Mistake who regularly played at Exit Fest in Novi Sad.
I’ve had a lot of pretty great experiences, but the very first one I thought of was Stevie Wonder at Outside Lands in 2012. My friend and I had decided (ok I decided and convinced my friend) to just set up camp at the main stage because everyone playing there that day was someone I was interested in and I wanted to be up front for Stevie. So I got there before gates opened, ran to the front of the main stage, held a spot for my friend until she showed up, and then we stood in the same spot in the front row for something like 12 hours. It was just such an energetic and uplifting set. Everyone was happy, everyone was singing, everyone was dancing. The security guards up front were grooving. It was all love and joy.Also I feel like it’s cheating to say anything at Desert Trip because the whole point of the festival was to gather together some legends, but that had one of the most unforgettable moments in shows for me — namely, the second day of the weekend was the Supermoon, and Neil Young’s set coincided with moonrise. He played Harvest Moon while the massive, massive full moon rose behind the stage right over his set and it was so lovely that I honestly get choked up thinking about it. Also I’ve seen Neil Young three times (all at festivals) and that was my favorite set of his that I’ve seen.
Muse Bonnaroo 2018
Vampire weekend at Pitchfork 2008/9? I remember it being a late Saturday afternoon set and they just had a ton of energy and crushed it.
The Postal Service at Free Press Summerfest in Houston in 2013. I had long ago given up on ever seeing them, but they reunited for the anniversary tour and I got to see ‘em. It was an incredible show.
Jeff Beck at Crossroads 2007.An hour of music without lyrics.
Grimes at Moogfest 16. Silver Apples at same. Sitting behind DJ Lance at the 3rd Gary Numan show, also at Moogfest 16. Basically, I had a really good time that weekend.
My husband and I went to see the Foo Fighters 20th anniversary festival in Washington, DC in 2015 (I think? Might have been 2016). We loved the whole lineup and were introduced to some great artists we didn’t know about before, but the best performance of the night went to Heart. Those women CRUSHED IT and I was so incredibly impressed that they were so consistent with the sounds we are used to hearing out of our radios. I would see a Heart show again in a…heartbeat (sorry)!
I was at Sound & Fury on opening night. Holy shit! Have Heart stunned.
Lollapalooza 2008: Lupe Fiasco at the height of fame, followed by Rage against the Machine. Simply amazing.
Hard to pick only one:
Nine Inch Nails at Aerodrome Festival ‘18
Foo Fighters at Rock Werchter ‘17
Fucked Up at Heavy Montreal ‘15
Surprise set from Arcade Fire at Primavera Sound ‘17
Smashing Pumpkins at Nova Rock ‘19
Bruce Springsteen, New Orleans Jazz Fest, 2006. This was the first JazzFest after Katrina, and there had been a LOT of questions about whether the Fest would even be able to go on at all that year – getting basic infrastructure up and running was proving to be challenging enough; the idea of hosting a festival over two weekends with tens of thousands of people attending each day seemed slightly insane, albeit a necessary release for all of us. It was Springsteen’s first festival show in decades, and probably the first time since then that he had to play a full set to a crowd that wasn’t necessarily there to see him. But wow, did he deliver – he crafted the entire set to fit with the time and place where we all were. Songs like “Mary, Don’t You Weep,” “Eyes on the Prize,” “We Shall Overcome,” and (especially, with its pointed criticism of the President) “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live.” But the first encore, of “My City of Ruins,” that’s the one that really got the entire crowd, and I’d never seen anything like it before or since. The Fairgrounds, the Fest’s home, were smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood that experienced significant flooding, so everyone at the Fest had walked through seemingly endless blocks of flooded houses, high water marks, and desolation… and then many of us had to go back to our homes in those same conditions. When he hit the “Rise Up” chants towards the end of the song, it was pure catharsis – seemingly everyone had their hands in the air, singing along, and I kid you not, seemingly everyone around me had tears streaming down their cheeks. I don’t know if a recording or video of it would do it justice – honestly, I’m hestitant to go back and look, because I worry that it will only diminish the magic that I remember from that evening. To avoid leaving us all in such a wiped-out, emotional state, he came back on for a second encore, and wrapped up the show with a great take on “When the Saints Go Marching In,” which put a feather in the cap of an absolutely perfect show. Considering the moment and the context, and how meaningful it was for everyone in attendance, I don’t think I’ll ever top that festival experience.
Second time I saw Sigur Rós (the first time I was on a grassy hill, mid day and fell asleep). They do these incredible drones before the set and the MDMA was just kicking in and I was rolling hard. By the end of the set I was crying hard. Then went straight to see Flaming Lips for more euphoria. Another festival I was tripping balls on LSD and saw Goldfrapp turn into an impossible ball of light on stage.Drugs are great is what I am getting at.
Not much of a fest guy. I’ll say it would either be S U R V I V E at Berserktown as it was pre-Stranger Things, had no fucking clue who they were and they literally were just playing on the totally fogged out smoking patio and I was extremely high. The stars aligned.
Phish’s first festival, the Clifford Ball on Plattsburgh Air Force base.