My Top 5 Concerts

I’ve been to a lot of great shows throughout my life, I’m not out there every week though catching live shows, as much as I would love to, there just isn’t enough time to. But I make an effort to see the artists I love. There have been some pretty epic shows that didn’t make it into this list, like Childish Gambino’s arena show, the epic 3 and a half hour set by The Mars Volta and even getting to see one of The Beatles.

These 5 shows were something special for me in each of their different ways, seeing a hero up close and personal, an intimate show before a tragic death and something you’ve never really experienced before in a live show.

The Polyphonic Spree

The Forum - 2010

The Polyphonic Spree make it into my top 5 for the experience I felt that I had not felt before. If you don’t know who they are, go look them up on YouTube, they’re a choral rock band based out of Texas, USA known for all being in white gowns. This show was one of the earliest shows at one off my favourite venues in Melbourne, The Forum.

I was so excited to see this band as I had heard so much about their performances as such a big group, and couldn’t wait to see how they presented themselves as well. I can’t remember the exact number of people on instruments but usually they’re a 12 piece band augmented by a huge vocal choir which was so much fun to see. There was a party vibe to the whole show, with the band giving out hats and New Orlean style bead necklaces to the audience. And at one point in the show they dropped balloons down onto the audience as well, a great fun night. If I could put one memorable moment from this show was Tim DeLaugher coming out into he audience during a epic cover of Lithium by Nirvana - the crowd went nuts during this song - I have a video somewhere of this moment but would have to hunt it down. I hope I haven’t lost it.

The Smashing Pumpkins

Hordon Pavillion - 2008

This was the very first time I got to see one of my favourite bands of all time live, and that’s why this show makes the list. By the time I really became obsessed with this band they had announced they were splitting up (2000) and we didn’t get a tour in Australia. Fast forward 7-8 years later Billy had revived the band and ever since have been to every tour here down under.

This show was special and being able to see the band (missing a few original members) was still pretty special, I’ll never forget hearing the opening riffs to Thru The Eyes of Ruby as they opened this tour in Sydney - I went to all the shows except Perth on this tour along with some amazing friends too, it was like we had our own rock tour as we went out to pubs, laid in parks and even sleeping it off outside the venues while waiting in line (I’m not posting photos of that) - it was a truly memorable tour that I’ll always have fond moments of.

Nine Inch Nails

Metro Nightclub - 2007

I headed to this show not knowing what to expect! As a brand new NIN fan at the time, I had never been to a show of theirs. Was I in for a surprise! This was no regular arena NIN show either, in 2005 they had completed some arena shows, and this time they were back in a smaller club tour. I was lucky enough to get the front row at Metro Nightclub (no longer a venue in Melbourne).

When they opened with Somewhat Damaged, that just set the tone for the night as they ripped through a pretty awesome setlist by my standards. It was an intense, heavy industrial rock show that Trent Reznor was delivering with all his energy and vigour, one of the memories that stands out is having him standing on a speaker stack right in front of us bending down and screaming into his microphone for the song Piggy.

That’s not the only memory too, unfortunately that night (this was the first of three shows) there were some idiots in the crowd that were shouting our who knows what during a intimate performance of Hurt - you know that famous Johnny Cash song 😜 - and because of these idiots he cut the song short, quickly went into The Hand That Feeds and cut the show short there. Even though the show cut short, it was still an experience I’ll always remember.

Prince

The Arts Centre - 2016

Thinking back to this show, now knowing it was the last time to see him live as we know that he tragically passed away this same year and within a month of this show. As part of his Prince and a microphone tour, this was just him, his piano and a microphone. An intimate show to a smaller audience rather than a huge arena spectacular. With a setting like this you knew that you were in for a special night.

What made this even more special for me was this was a very last minute decision to go to the show. I guess I just had a feeling that I had to be there. I had arrived home from work, knowing the show was that night, jumped online and saw that tickets were still available, for $350 a ticket I was a bit hesitant but knowing what I know now, this ticket was priceless. News that day that one of Princes old collaborators from his early days, singer Vanity had passed away this very day was circulating and I started to think what effect it might have on him and the show, and well it did, but not for a bad night, but a special night.

“Someone dear to us has passed away, I’m gonna dedicate this song to her” Prince said as he came onto the stage and opened with Little Red Corvette/Dirty Mind. He also opened up a few times in the show telling stories of Vanity (Denise Matthews) and then talked about how he didn’t do this much, just him and a piano and closed out the set with an incredible version of The Beautiful Ones - one of my favourite Prince songs.

You can read more here with an great write up from Cameron Adams

Billy Corgan

Marquee Nightclub 2005

And lastly, another very intimate affair with the man from The Smashing Pumpkins - Billy Corgan. This was during the hiatus of The Smashing Pumpkins and part of his solo album tour for The Future Embrace (go listen to it on YouTube, this album was ahead of its time). I jumped at the opportunity to see one of my musical idols in the flesh and went to all of the shows on this tour, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane - this tour was also the first opportunity to meet new friends from the scene who are still life long friends today - you know who you are!

At the end of the 2nd night of the tour - Billy teased that he would be doing a secret show at an unannounced venue the next night. And our crew following the tour had to be there, and had to find out where this show was. It spread pretty quickly where the show was, and had some great friends lining up early - which in the end we didn’t really need to. About 20 minutes before doors were opening my friend Linda Strawberry (who was part of Billy’s touring band) came out and grabbed me and my friends to get into the venue early before anyone else, it was a very rock star moment for us all as there were probably 50 people in front of us and we were being rushed through.

This show was different to the regular tour, this was a small intimate venue, and was going to be an acoustic performance. We were treated to acoustic versions of a very heavy electronic album, as well as songs from the Zwan days too, and this show would be the last time some of these songs would have been performed. Unfortunately he didn’t surprise the crowd with a Smashing Pumpkins song - as much as everyone would of loved it and probably blow the roof of it, and you know what - we were ok with that.

We were treated to 25 songs over a couple hours, you can see the set list here on Setlist FM. My highlight from this set was being able to hear Linda perform one of her solo songs - Dig

If you want to hear the show too, it was recorded and uploaded onto the Internet Archive.