The best and worst concert you've ever attended?

[dashv]

Ive only been to one.... I was arrested. 

C'mon dude. You can't leave it at that.

Inquiring minds wanna know more!

[turf]

Ive only been to one.... I was arrested. 

C'mon dude. You can't leave it at that.

Inquiring minds wanna know more!

Was it that Hanson concert you were telling me about?

[gf78]

Best: Rammstein in Worcester, MA (flamethrowers, giant dick cannons shooting foam, more flamethrowers, band members crowdsurfing in an inflatable raft...)

(Muse also puts on a good show)

Worst: Radiohead somewhere in CA (booooring and sleepy)

Want to see Rammstein in the worst way.     Watching the live footage from the Liebe ist für alle da tour when they play "pu$$y" with the giant cannon...hilarious.  Their pyrotechnics are second to none and the music is pretty friggin awesome too!

I haven't been to many concerts and none I would call bad.  The worst would have been the USO tour a year or so ago with Chevelle.  They played well, but it was just dull. 

My favorite would be Type O Negative when they were touring in support of their Life is Killing Me album.  They were great and even before that, Lacuna Coil came out and Christina Scabia's beautiful voice was captivating. 

[stealthrush]

I can't say I went to a particularly bad concert, well if you count a show with multiple artists I did. I had to sit though a performance by the Finnish band HIM. The lead singer sat down and smoked while singing and performing the songs. Lackluster to say the least.

One the best I've attended, and nearly passed out from lack of oxygen, was from the punk-ska band The Aquabats! They played at a tiny in-door venue that included crowd surfing from the singer (multiple times) and it was jam packed like sardines with attendees. Full of energy on stage and great crowd reception, real exciting and enthralling show.

[turf]

One the best I've attended, and nearly passed out from lack of oxygen, was from the punk-ska band The Aquabats! They played at a tiny in-door venue that included crowd surfing from the singer (multiple times) and it was jam packed like sardines with attendees. Full of energy on stage and great crowd reception, real exciting and enthralling show.

Isn't that the band that was on Yo Gabba Gabba?  My kid was huge into that when he was about 2

[stealthrush]

One the best I've attended, and nearly passed out from lack of oxygen, was from the punk-ska band The Aquabats! They played at a tiny in-door venue that included crowd surfing from the singer (multiple times) and it was jam packed like sardines with attendees. Full of energy on stage and great crowd reception, real exciting and enthralling show.

Isn't that the band that was on Yo Gabba Gabba?  My kid was huge into that when he was about 2

YES! actually the lead singer started the project Yo Gabba Gabba when his band really wasn't doing all too good. The Aquabats! have been around since 1994.

[fighterpilot562]

Ive only been to one.... I was arrested. 

C'mon dude. You can't leave it at that.

Inquiring minds wanna know more!

Was it that Hanson concert you were telling me about?

Hanson haha.

My friend was drinking, got into a fight, I jumped in to break it up, and they arrested us all.

[soera]

Ive only been to one.... I was arrested. 

C'mon dude. You can't leave it at that.

Inquiring minds wanna know more!

Was it that Hanson concert you were telling me about?

Hanson haha.

My friend was drinking, got into a fight, I jumped in to break it up, and they arrested us all.

I noticed you didnt deny the Hanson concert. Mmmmm bop!

[amauriel]

The best concert for me was probably the Barenaked Ladies on their Maroon tour. I was in high school, they were my favorite band, and the night was just amazing. They always talk on stage and do a little improv and you don't go "Oh my God, I just saw the Barenaked Ladies!" you go "Oh my God, that was a lot of fun!" and it's really refreshing.

It's a toss-up for worst concert though. Everclear was BAD. It was even the first night of the tour and they just had no energy at all. The other one was back when Nintendo did the Fusion tour and Hawthorne Heights was the headliner. A bunch of friends went with me because the lobby of the venue was going to have the Wii set up and playable, long before it launched. The demo units kept crashing and the only game any of them got to actually play was Excitetruck. I was actually there for the concert, but it was in a big high school auditorium and they had the speaker set-up for a stadium. Couldn't hear for days afterward. Hawthorne Heights and Reliant K were terrible live. The only highlight of the evening was the very first opening band. It was the Plain White T's and they started the night with "We're going to do a song we've just finished and never performed live: Hey There Delilah" and then it was fun to see how big that song got about a year after that when they hit it big.

[incide]

The best concert for me was seeing Tool at a midsize arena a few years back. Incredible sound, the visuals were wild, and the whole crowd was locked in, it honestly felt like the music just took over the room. My worst was a summer outdoor show with several bands, but a terrible rainstorm rolled in, the sound kept cutting out, and half the acts bailed. There was zero communication from the organizers. Standing out in the mud waiting for hours, only to leave disappointed, put me off those bigger festivals for a while.

[tripredacus]

This is impossible for me to answer. I've been to and worked so many concerts that any "worst" is going to be something I can't remember. If we're strictly talking about music quality well... I used to run open mics so there were a lot of "bad" shows in there.

As far as best concerts... it used to be about the quality of the music or presentation. Over the past 8 months or so I've actually been trying to keep a 10 top for the year. When I did it for last year, I had shifted my ranking to be based on meaningful interactions rather than anything the bands usually did. Whether that mean meeting or seeing certain people, conversations or an amount of interesting occurances, those particular shows get a higher rank even over shows where the music and presentation was top tier. So I guess I now am looking at the little things regarding the experience. If I were to think back to the olden times where my "best" list was based on the shows themselves, everything would end up being re-arranged significantly.

Like for last year, my top show was not actually my most favorite, but was one in which I had the most meaningful interactions with other people. Limiting my top list to 5 based on that criteria really makes for a difficult time when I have to weigh what is and isn't as important and sometimes it is only revealed later that a particular interaction or memory had a greater impact that initially thought.

To put this into perspective, I only went to 2 shows between 2011 and 2024 that I can remember. One was a local cover band and the other was Iron Maiden. Starting in June 2025, I got back into the scene and in 2025 I had seen 56 shows. So far in 2026 I've been to 35 shows not counting the one I got to after the first band stopped and left before the second band set up. I'm told that one shouldn't count xD

[sly345]

I can even do the best and the worst of a single band: Toto
2002: Amazing, nearly 3 hours of their classics, deep cuts, they had Ian Anderson and Al DiMeola as special guests. Total blast
2007: A shell of everything, while they had great musicians like Greg Philinganes and Lee Sklar, Lukather was drunk, Bobby Kimball was drugged out of his mind and in the end they blew the speakers out, total disgrace

Otherwise:
The absolute best: Iron Maiden on their Brave New World Tour, nothing gets close to that, the band wanted to proof so hard that they're back and they were back with Dickinson and Smith
Worst: Mötley Crüe at Sweden Rock Festival 2015. Obvious lip syncing, total chaos,  sounded like the worst shit imaginable. There was a cover band in the smaller rock tent doing mötley crüe songs a day before and they were awesome and bette than the real thing

[kamikazekeeg]

After my original post here, I had my favorite concert the year after in 2016, where it was that festival I talked about, but they improved it a ton, and it had a crazy lineup for myself.  Megadeth, Anthrax, Lamb of God, and Ghost were the main ones I went to see and it was incredible.  I stayed for the whole day till the night and ended up leaving at Rob Zombie closing for the night after like a song because honestly I was just worn out.  They had a day 2, but I didn't go as there wasn't enough bands that excited me compared to the first, though there would've been a couple I would've enjoyed at the time like Pennywise, Disturbed, and Trivium.

Sadly the people involved killed that festival two years after that because they were greedy money hungry idiots that moved the show to a different city, near Fort Lauderdale, and had problems because of it.  The music scene has been dead here since then for the most part which is so frustrating.