1. Wayne Shorter Quartet at Teatro Monumentale 'Gabriele d'Annunzio', Pescara (Italy), 2002. Constantly shifting rhythms from Perez, Patitucci and Blade unsettle parts of the crowd who leave (muttering loudly). This generates a kind of complicity amongst the rest of us who feel more closely drawn to the music. Absolutely outstanding and even more compelling than the live Footsteps recording - the set lists are very similar. ***** 2. Deep Purple MKII (reformed) sometime in the eighties at the NEC. Can’t be any more precise, I’m afraid. Ian Gillan had a sore throat. Blackmore’s solos all sounded like motorbikes falling over. Disappointed doesn’t even come close. Boo! Get off and stay off! * (just)
3. REM at the NEC Arena (again) in 1989 promoting Green. The band was yet to make it Really Big so a third of the hall was curtained off. Stipey danced like a maniac throughout and (I was impressed by this) threw on his jacket with enormous flair. That’s it - I was sold. Until they signed their massive WBG contract anyway. *****
4. Blues legend Lowell Fulson comes to Leeds in 1984 (and a long-forgotten venue well away from the student district) backed by the Norman Beaker Blues Band. White boys (meaning us) were duly impressed. We met him coming out of the gents, otherwise we would have shaken his hand. Awesome.
5. Steve Hackett, Leeds University, 1984. All acoustic gig with his brother, John, on flute and one or two other things. Perhaps harsh economics had forced the decision on him but what a way to tour. I was learning guitar at the time and Horizons was my party piece. Lots of walk outs here too. We sat on the floor, feeling superior, while Steve reassured us we were listening to real music. ****
6. Pat Metheny at Le Naiadi, Pescara. Can’t place the year (early 90s?) as part of the Pescara Jazz festival. An epic concert in the open air that seemed to run the spectrum of jazz in two hours. Apparently he didn’t stop there that night but went on to private jazz club playing Parker and Coltrane till the sun came up. ****
7. The Musical Box performing The Lamb lies down on Broadway at the Liverpool Philharmonic in 2006. Were Genesis ever as good as this tribute band? ‘It hardly seems to matter now’ because That Man ruined them. Dry ice, double-necked guitars and bass pedals a go-go. Eat your collective hearts out, all you people who witter on about how punk saved music! PS. My brother was mugged in broad daylight on the way to the gig. Now that's hardcore. ****
8. Pentangle MkII at the Gatehouse in Stafford (possibly 1985) with Jansch, McShee, Cox, Piggott, Portman-Smith. After a number of concert experiences at the NEC this was heaven. Acoustic set, good sound, small venue - but I still couldn’t understand what chord voicings Bert Jansch was playing. ****
9. Davy Graham at Kendal Arts Centre - the master’s demise is well documented (Will Hodgkinson's Guitar Man among others) but rather than a performance in the strict sense of the word, it was like sitting in a friend’s bedroom while he ran through an impossibly large repertoire in a haphazard way. Do you know this? And this? Classical, jazz/blues, east European folk, anything you can play on acoustic guitar and some things that you can‘t. I never found out whether he played Anji at the end. **
10. Living Color, The Academy, Manchester, 1991 - my loudest ever gig from an amazing band. Think Stevie Wonder collides head-on with Black Sabbath in a crowded fallout shelter. ****
11 Kyung Wha Chung and the Halle Orchestra at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester in 1988 - Bartok violin concerto n.2. Live performance made this fascinating. The violinist was a goddess with amazing presence on stage, he gushed. Scrap your electric guitars and take up the violin, lads. The BBC recorded and broadcast this concert a few months later but it wasn’t the same. ****
12. The Boomtown Rats at Boddington Hall, Leeds, 1984. The group thought they were playing the refectory (Who - Live at Leeds and all that) but instead it was the annual ball. In their disappointment, let’s say they lads didn’t give it their all. But Geldof blamed it on our ‘penguin suits.’ **
13. Radiohead at the Lancashire Country Cricket ground, Old Trafford in 2008. Bizarre acoustic had sound ricocheting back and forth in a very confusing way. Touching crowd sing along on ‘Lucky.’ All together now … Pull mee-eeee out of the aircrash!
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