\u2018Every song was crisp and fully formed\u2019Changing music \u2026 Jerry Harrison and David Byrne of Talking Heads perform at the Rock Garden on 13 May 1977. Photograph: Gus Stewart\/Redferns<\/p>\n
Talking Heads, the Rock Garden, London, 13 May 1977<\/p>\n
Talking Heads broke off from a European tour supporting Ramones in 1977 to play two shows at the Rock Garden, a small basement club on the Covent Garden Piazza, now the site of an Apple Store. After an apprenticeship as a three-piece (David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz), the band had recently added a fourth member, Jerry Harrison, and were close to completing work on their debut album.<\/p>\n
In London, every song was crisp and fully formed, with Psycho Killer as the set\u2019s devastating climax. The audience included Brian Eno, who invited them to his flat the next day for a meeting that would lead to collaborations on More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music, Remain in Light and (as a Byrne\/Eno project) My Life in the Bush of Ghosts: a series of albums that changed music. Richard Williams<\/p>\n
The sun shone out of their behinds<\/p>\n
The Smiths, The Refectory, University of Leeds, 29 February 1984<\/p>\n
I remember what I wore: a 1950s charity shop raincoat, traditional black slacks and a \u201cgrandad\u201d shirt from a vintage shop, dyed brown in a pan in our kitchen. This was topped off with an atrocious attempt at a quiff. So many of us scrambled to adopt the Smiths\u2019s restyled retro chic because we wanted to be in their gang.<\/p>\n
In the nine months since their first single, Hand in Glove, they\u2019d swept through John Peel\/NME culture and into the Top 20. That night, stage right, Johnny Marr resembled a prettier Keith Richards as cascading riffs tumbled out of him. Morrissey, wearing a big girl\u2019s blouse, whipped the stage with the microphone lead to emphasise every \u201ccrack on the head!\u201d during the then-unreleased Barbarism Begins at Home. They were progressing so fast that even while touring the debut album, they played a song intended for the follow-up. Dave Simpson<\/p>\n
Shambolically appealingAbout to change the face of rock \u2026 Nirvana at the London Astoria on 3 December 1989. Photograph: Steve Double\/Camera Press<\/p>\n
Nirvana, London Astoria, 3 December 1989<\/p>\n
In later years, I liked to tell people that I was one of the first people in Britain to buy Nirvana\u2019s debut album, Bleach. True enough \u2013 my copy was on white vinyl, part of the initial batch of 300 copies \u2013 but I tactfully left out the fact that I thought it was \u2026 all right. I didn\u2019t dislike it: I recognised that About a Girl was fantastic. But I didn\u2019t love it the way I loved their labelmates Mudhoney\u2019s debut, Superfuzz Bigmuff.<\/p>\n
Likewise their show at London\u2019s Astoria, supporting Mudhoney and Tad. Nirvana were good, noisy and shambolically appealing. Broken guitar strings forced them to temporarily abandon their set and jam a version of I Wanna Be Your Dog. People stage-dived and they smashed their equipment up at the end: all splendid chaotic fun.<\/p>\n
But if you\u2019d told me that night I\u2019d just witnessed a show that would be deemed historically important \u2013 about which articles would be written and which would be cherrypicked for tracks on a posthumous live album, because Nirvana were 18 months away from literally changing the face of rock music \u2013 I\u2019d have been genuinely baffled. Then, if you looked over 18, I\u2019d have asked you to go to the bar for me. Alexis Petridis<\/p>\n
Eggsactly maybe\u2018Pproperly loud, occasionally ponderous\u2019 \u2026 Oasis at the 100 Club on 24 March 1994. Photograph: Paul Slattery\/Camera Press<\/p>\n
Oasis, 100 Club, London, 24 March 1994<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, there isn\u2019t another band worth frying an egg on!\u201d This unlikely observation came from Liam Gallagher, leaving his brother Noel so bewildered he exhorted me to turn my dictaphone back on. \u201cFrying an egg on?\u201d he said in a \u201cWhat is he like?\u201d voice.<\/p>\n
We were wrapping up an interview and, time being tight, I took up the offer of a ride in their van with lots of scouse mates. As we entered the 100 Club by the tradesman\u2019s entrance, a harassed security guard, seeing the tiny basement venue suddenly half full, said: \u201cWhere have you lot come from?\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019d love to say Oasis were incendiary but, really, it was like most of their gigs: properly loud, occasionally ponderous, with Liam always compelling. Afterwards, I knocked over a table of drinks backstage and lived to tell the tale. My most memorable gig or the most messy? Both \u2013 and definitely worth frying an egg on. Martin Horsfield<\/p>\n
Kevin was met with bottles and boosCourage and vulnerability \u2026 Kevin Rowland at Leeds festival on 28 August 1999. Photograph: Piers Allardyce\/Rex\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Kevin Rowland, Leeds festival, 28 August 1999<\/p>\n
When Kevin Rowland took the stage, he was met with a barrage of bottles and boos. It wasn\u2019t the music people were protesting, but the fact he was wearing a dress and white stockings. It was an eye-opening moment for me, as an avid reader of the music press (anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobia). Naively, I\u2019d assumed most indie fans to be similarly open-minded. This was my introduction to a more dispiriting reality.<\/p>\n
And yet this short performance \u2013 three songs in 15 minutes \u2013 has endured. Not because of the music (Rowland performed his stunning cover of The Greatest Love of All), which was largely drowned out by the jeering. But because of the courage and vulnerability shown that day, an artist unafraid to be anything other than himself. Tim Jonze<\/p>\n
An unknown New York quintet<\/p>\n
The Strokes, The Paradise, Boston, 26 February 2001<\/p>\n
I\u2019m habitually late everywhere except for concerts, because I always like checking out opening acts. Back in 2001, my strategy totally paid off: the openers for Doves \u2013 a band I adored who were then promoting their first album, Lost Souls \u2013 was a practically unknown New York quintet called the Strokes. During a musical epoch dominated by deeply misogynistic nu metal, the band was a revelation: nonchalant, scruffy and totally cool.<\/p>\n
I was blown away by their energetic set, which served as a preview for the band\u2019s eventual debut album Is This It? Their songs were taut and gritty, pairing defiantly ragtag Velvet Underground posturing with Television-esque strumming. I distinctly remember leaving the concert and raving about the Strokes to friends. In fact, I bought The Modern Age EP just a few weeks later. Annie Zaleski<\/p>\n
\u2018Tonight God\u2019s wearing a Hawaiian shirt!\u2019Nailed it \u2026 Brian Wilson at the Royal Festival Hall in January 2002. Photograph: Yui Mok\/PA<\/p>\n
Brian Wilson, Royal Festival Hall, London, 28 January 2002<\/p>\n
The impossible had happened: Brian Wilson had come back from the dead. It seems ridiculous now but we didn\u2019t get tickets, scared that \u2013 after all we\u2019d heard about his health, mental and physical \u2013 he would sully all those fantastic songs.<\/p>\n
When the time came, we had a change of heart and my pal Russell went down to the Royal Festival Hall to see what touts were charging. One hour later, he called. \u201cThere is a God,\u201d he said, \u201cand tonight he\u2019s wearing a Hawaiian shirt!\u201d A woman had given him two tickets at face value, despite being offered huge sums by a tout.<\/p>\n
What a night ensued. Exuberantly backed by the Wondermints, Brian nailed it like he\u2019d never been away, from California Girls to I Just Wasn\u2019t Made for These Times. The crowd, dancing right from the start, were clearly in awe \u2013 and often in tears. Good Vibrations closed the main set, leaving everyone in ecstasy. Then an encore of five more bangers ended with Fun, Fun, Fun. The second encore was just one song: Love and Mercy. Perfect. Andrew Gilchrist<\/p>\n
Jittery but danceable<\/p>\n
LCD Soundsystem, Great Eastern Hotel, London, 23 November 2002<\/p>\n
It\u2019s pretty postmodern to say \u201cI was there\u201d about a band whose signature song features an ageing hipster making exactly that boast. But I genuinely was there at LCD Soundsystem\u2019s first London show, and the review that I wrote for NME<\/a> is still online. The gig took place on a Saturday night in the ballroom of a newly reopened boutique hotel clearly gunning for the early 00s hipster market. It was part of a club night called Return to New York.<\/p>\n LCD Soundsystem were jittery, awkward and obviously inexperienced live \u2013 a million miles from their current incarnation as an expansive, hit-stacked, festival-slaying roadshow. But the six songs they played showed their quality, and most of them remain in their setlist to this day. They kicked off with Daft Punk<\/a> Is Playing at My House \u2013 somehow I managed to miss the fact that it was about Daft Punk, which suggests that either the sound was bad or I was drunk (probably both) \u2013 and finished with Losing My Edge.<\/p>\n Every song was intriguing, danceable, charged with excitement and seemed to up the ante from the one before, and the extremely dressed-up audience went increasingly bananas. It was fabulous. I\u2019m so happy I was there. Alex Needham<\/p>\n \u2018Hardly room for her hairdo\u2019<\/p>\n Amy Winehouse, North Sea jazz festival, The Hague, 10 July 2004<\/p>\n The first time I saw Amy Winehouse was in my lounge: a cheesy item on the lunchtime news about a young singer from north London who sang like a jazz virtuoso and wrote her own songs. She strummed a guitar, chirped a little and then they cut to the weather.<\/p>\n The next time was at the North Sea jazz festival in The Hague. Off the back of her debut album, she had been given her chance at the world famous event, one graced by Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan et al, but she was a newbie so they allocated to her Paulus Potter Hall. She was 5ft 3in, but in that small, dark hall there was hardly any room between her hairdo and the flat roof.<\/p>\n And then, with an amazing, dynamic, gritty, already knowing performance, she did her set, the jazz stuff, the funk, the ballads, and off came that roof. Word got round, the place filled up, the temperature soared, and soon it was hard to see her through the bodies, but that didn\u2019t matter because in all regards, her concert had morphed into a sweaty club night. We left thrilled, exhausted, and when she became a megastar, no one was surprised. Hugh Muir<\/p>\n Last days as a little band<\/p>\n Arctic Monkeys, Plug, Sheffield, 22 October 2005<\/p>\n Their pre-fame sets at Sheffield\u2019s Boardwalk are arguably even more legendary \u2013 but this gig gets maximum points for poignancy. Arctic Monkeys had gone from local heroes to international pop cultural event in a matter of months, and this home-town nightclub gig was the day before the band reached No 1 with their debut single I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor.<\/p>\n Alex Turner, who still looked like the kid outside an offy who asks you to slip him four fruit ciders, changed a lyric of closing song A Certain Romance to make wistful mention of their chart battle: amused yet disbelieving. That song\u2019s other lyrics profess that \u201cthere in\u2019t no romance around here\u201d but the gig was suffused with the same glorious feeling as a giantkilling FA Cup match. Of course, they were never a little Sheffield band again after that night. Ben Beaumont-Thomas<\/p>\n \u2018Gerard Way was now a kind of deity\u2019<\/p>\n My Chemical Romance, Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom, 14 November 2006<\/p>\n This summer, I\u2019ll be one of 90,000 people watching My Chemical Romance perform their 2006 album The Black Parade at Wembley Stadium. The tour is an evolving spectacle with elaborate sets, costumes and extras \u2013 the manifestation of the band\u2019s grand ambitions.<\/p>\n Twenty years ago, I saw them just after the album\u2019s release, in Glasgow\u2019s 2,000-capacity Barrowland Ballroom. The show didn\u2019t have any theatrical elements yet, but it still felt like a significant shift for the band: with his shock of white-blond hair, singer Gerard Way was now a kind of deity, not just another sweaty kid in the pit.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not the biggest fan of The Black Parade: I prefer the poisoned Day-Glo of 2010\u2019s Danger Days. But even in 2006, I knew it represented a conceptual step-up in the band\u2019s artistry, and that I would never see them in such a small venue again. Claire Biddles<\/p>\n Up all night to get pyramidyTechnological marvel \u2026 Daft Punk\u2019s laser-blazing pyramid at the Wireless festival on 16 June 2007. Photograph: Jim Dyson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Daft Punk, Wireless festival, London, 16 June 2007<\/p>\n Daft Punk\u2019s Alive tour was a technological marvel where the duo appeared in full robot garb within a laser-blazing 24ft pyramid, playing an almighty mashup of big-hitters from their back catalogue like their own baroque rock opera. Sounds fairly standard now, but in 2007 this was unheard of. By contrast, the other headline dance act of the weekend, Faithless, had performed with a full live band.<\/p>\n This wasn\u2019t the first time that Daft Punk had unveiled The Pyramid: it had debuted at Coachella in 2006 where only 10,000 people could get into the tent and at Scotland\u2019s RockNess the week before Wireless; the sides of another tent had to be removed so that more people could see.<\/p>\n But in London, the Gallic pair took their triangle-shaped throne as main stage headliners, just as rock\u2019n\u2019rave was crossing over once more and as the next wave of supersized electronic music (known less affectionately as EDM) was poised to become the next dominant force in youth culture. Kate Hutchinson<\/p>\n \u2018Touched with greatness\u2019<\/p>\n Lana Del Rey, Manchester Ruby Lounge, 4 November 2011<\/p>\n By the time Lana Del Rey played her first UK show, just under six months after she broke through with Video Games, the knives were already out. The internet had quickly rumbled that \u2013 shocker! \u2013 that wasn\u2019t her real name, and that she had a few failed pop incarnations before she found indie balladry.<\/p>\n How dare this pouty charlatan try to get one over on Hardworking Real Music Fans?! Her debut performance on Jools Holland had been savaged (though I was there in the studio and she did a fine job) and so the stakes were high for her first proper show in a tiny Manchester basement.<\/p>\n Looking back on the review I wrote, it\u2019s funny how similar her contemporary shows are to that debut, venue size aside: she was skittish, guileless, touched with greatness \u2013 very much herself, no matter how obsessed some commenters were with trying to prove it was all a pose. Laura Snapes<\/p>\n Wuthering helicoptersJoy \u2026 Kate Bush plays the Hammersmith Apollo on 26 August 2014. Photograph: Ken McKay\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Kate Bush, Hammersmith Apollo, 26 August 2014<\/p>\n The most shocking thing about the Before the Dawn residency was the palpable sense of joy that Kate Bush<\/a> took in it. Returning to the stage after 35 years, she radiated warmth: at first, whipping through hits in front of a black curtain, a spare backdrop that turned out to be a red herring for an immersive show that audaciously blended pre-recorded video elements with live performance and sometimes aggro set-pieces (midway through The Ninth Wave song suite, a helicopter descended from rafters).<\/p>\n The dialogue she created between screens, props and flesh-and-blood artist was nearly a decade ahead of the curve. I didn\u2019t see the fluidity matched until Rosal\u00eda\u2019s landmark Motomami tour<\/a> in 2022. When I interviewed<\/a> Bush, she told me she hoped to create \u201can integrated piece of theatre\u201d with the show, rather than what she sniffily called \u201cmusic with theatrics added to it\u201d. Bush\u2019s contemporary disciples are two a penny: many could afford to take note. Owen Myers<\/p>\n \u2018Kanye covered Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019Walking the line \u2026 Kanye West performs at Glastonbury on 27 June 2015. Photograph: Yui Mok\/PA<\/p>\n Kanye West, Glastonbury, 27 June 2015<\/p>\n The antisemitic and misogynistic version of Kanye West has been around for so long (he has apologised for antisemitism), it\u2019s easy to forget that he used to be controversial for entirely different reasons. Coming off Yeezus, an abrasive, industrial album that represented a wildly successful reinvention at a time when artists such as Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Frank Ocean were rewriting the rules of hip-hop, in 2015 West seemed to be walking the line between eccentric genius and megalomaniac.<\/p>\n Still, the Glastonbury booking was divisive enough to get 130,000 signatures in protest and inspired Noel Gallagher to remark that someone who\u2019d never played guitar had no business headlining the Pyramid stage. Just as Jay-Z had lampooned this sentiment by playing Wonderwall in 2009, Kanye covered Bohemian Rhapsody and referred to himself as \u201cthe greatest living rock star on the planet\u201d.<\/p>\n Between the excess, strobes and decision to perform Touch the Sky from a wobbly crane-top platform, the gig gave me a sense that right here \u2013 in this field \u2013 something was being decided. Over the course of 90 minutes, Kanye won over his detractors with a great show and, if anything, his decade-long fall from grace only adds weight to his moment of deification. For one night only, Kanye truly was the greatest rock star alive. Sasha Mistlin<\/p>\n \u2018Even standing at the back, it was unbelievable\u2019<\/p>\n Beyonc\u00e9, Coachella, 14 April 2018<\/p>\n I\u2019ve only been to Coachella once. Beyonc\u00e9 was scheduled to perform \u2013 making up for her cancellation in 2017, due to her pregnancy \u2013 and it had turned the supremely chill festival, filled with a clientele decidedly unbothered about actual music, into a hive of anticipation and rumours. The only gossip I heard anyone discussing was what her set might look like, how many trailers had supposedly brought in gear, which special guests she might bring out, and so on.<\/p>\n Her merch, supposedly a clue to the theme of her set, wasn\u2019t going to be sold until her set was over. Expectations were astronomically high. And, somehow, Beyonc\u00e9 delivered: I consider myself a very casual Beyonc\u00e9 fan and was astounded by the scope and scale of her headline set, designed to look like a performance by a Historically Black Colleges and Universities marching band, on the levels of both art and entertainment.<\/p>\n Even standing right at the back, it was an unbelievable spectacle. I\u2019ve never seen anything like it since. Shaad d\u2019Souza<\/p>\n Physicality at what cost?A bedazzled bra and complex choreography \u2026 Britney Spears at the O2 on 24 August 2018. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole\/BCU18\/Getty Images for BCU<\/p>\n Britney Spears, O2, London, August 2018<\/p>\n At university, I had bonded with a friend over our mutual love of Britney Spears\u2019s Blackout album. So when the Piece of Me tour was announced for 2018, an adaptation of her Las Vegas residency, we raced to get tickets. The residency had seemingly settled a question haunting Spears\u2019s career: whether the show would go on. Raking in $1m a week in Vegas, she showed that she had been down, but was not out. Or at least that\u2019s what it had seemed.<\/p>\n Thinking back to that show, I can remember my elation at seeing Spears\u2019s incredible physicality, commanding the stage in a bedazzled black bra, running through the hits with complex choreography. But of course what we now know from her conservatorship case is that Spears was performing against her will<\/a> and threatened with a lawsuit if she didn\u2019t complete the tour.<\/p>\n I remember my friend and I having had a blast, remarking that an older gay couple in front of us looked like they\u2019d been waiting their whole lives for this, but also that Spears seemed somewhat distant, as if not quite occupying her body. To know that this was almost definitely the last time that anyone would see Britney perform conjures a feeling of melancholic gratitude: yes I got to see one of the divas who defined my childhood, but at what cost to her? Jason Okundaye<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Every song was crisp and fully formed\u2019Changing music \u2026 Jerry Harrison and David Byrne of Talking Heads perform…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-676271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}