For the first time in years, I actually listened to Triple J in my car the other day. I had left my CDs at home, 612ABC were droning on about rugby league and 4ZZZ were talking about god knows what, so I had no choice. But they were asking people their 3 favourite live acts. All in anticipation for their Impossible Music Festival.
This festival is when Triple J listeners vote for their favourite live acts and over the course of a weekend live sets of these bands are played. It's a novel idea. Back in the day I took a few down on casette and I still have Frenzal Rhomb's and Rage Against the Machine's. I lost my At the Drive-In one though. (Future project maybe, copying these to my computer...) So I got thinking, what are my three favourite live bands and what were my three concerts over the approximately 200 I've been to in the last 9 years?
Live bands:
3. The Bronx (the lead singer chugging wine in the pit while singing at Soundwave 2007)
2. The Matches (so much energy, stage presence and character. Also the lead guitarist broke his hand and played everything one handed)
1. The Dillinger Escape Plan.
And my favourite concerts in general:
3.Norma Jean/Every Time I Die/Darkest Hour/A Secret Death, 8th June 2007 at the Arena in Fortitude Valley
At the time, I knew maybe 3 Norma Jean songs, but was told to go. And I was glad I did.
The crowd was only half full, but the Norma Jean singer encouraged us to get into the music, just to "scream any words, it doesn't matter if you don't know the song!" And we did. The final song featured the singer climbing up and hanging off of the Arena's rafters while screaming into the mike. Not to mention I heard Every Time I Die for the first time.
I can't wait for Norma Jean to finally come back.
2. From Autumn to Ashes/The Bled/The Getaway Plan/The Paper and the Plane, 23 November 2006, at her Majesty's Basement in Brisbane
This was a great day for me. Earlier in the morning I went to the opening day of the Ashes cricket match, where Steve Harmison famously did this in the first ball:
I also got offered my engineering job that day. And later that night, Clus and I trooped into Queen Street Mall at 11 pm to go to this show. There were maybe 50 people in the audience. We didn't know of the problems with FATA losing their singer just days before. We didn't realize they had brought in a drummer and that Fran, the original drummer, only just learnt how to scream the vocals (as a consequence, he did his voice in and the tour was cancelled days later).
It was pure insanity as the clock ticked over towards 2 am. I was already tired (and fairly intoxicated from the morning). The Bled came out hard and fast, doing their first song as a sound check. The lead singer was stopping halfway through and asking for "more kick and snare" on his monitors. FATA squeezed onto the tiny stage and instead of doing an encore just played Short Stories with Tragic Endings (apparently for the first time in 5 years). There was broken glass and falling moshers everywhere, my legs were cut to shreds. There was a guy that had just got out of prison an hour before and had the band sign his parole docket. I walked out of that tiny basement stage as deaf as I have ever been.
1. Dillinger Escape Plan/Poison the Well/Every Time I Die/Evergreen Terrace, 25 February 2009 at the Forum in Sydney
This was a sideshow to the Soundwave festival and Clus and I trekked down to Sydney for it. Fucking hell Clus, you were standing next to me for all of these shows. I guess I've got you to thank for it all.
The lineup was incredible for Australia, 4 international bands that I loved for $40. The crowd were pretty shit for the first few bands and I got stuck in a lineup trying to get in for most of Evergreen Terrace (Nine Inch Nails were playing directly across the road and it was chaos) but when Dillinger came on, my entire idea of what live music is was changed forever. This video of Milk Lizard I took on my phone was about as quiet as they got all night:
Quiet, yet they are still jumping around like idiots. At one point the singer was climbing on the PAs, one guitarist was 2 storeys up swinging off chains while the other guitarist was on the balcony leaning over it and playing like a madman. I have never seen a band put so much energy into a show before.
Special mentions also go to:
Brand New (July 5 2003 at Gabes Oasis in Iowa City and 22 January 2008 at the Tivoli in Brisbane) - In Iowa City they were bumrushed on the stage and had all of their instruments unplugged. Jesse climbed up to the roof, hung upside and played Weezer's Say it Ain't So, while the rest of the band plugged their instruments in and joined. Never once did they make us clear the stage. And at the Tivoli they were a band possessed, trashing their instruments in an amazing 10 minute finish of Welcome to Bangkok (I think).
Mars Volta (24 January 2006 at the Arena) - Third time of seeing them, yet the first as a headliner. No openers, just them playing for hours of insanity. Including Frances the Mute.
