Life has teeth, and bites, don't feed it open-hand.

[venta]

Stolen from tooth_fairy:

Here is how it works.
Copy this list.
Leave in the bands you've seen perform live.
Delete the ones you haven't and add new ones that you have seen until you reach 25.
An asterisk means the previous person had it on their list.
Two asterisks means the last two people who did this before you had that band on their list.


[I'd just like to add here that this isn't intended to imply endorsement of the bands below, I'm just aiming for a nice cross-section!]


1. The Cure

2. The Levellers *

3. New Model Army

4. New Order

5. Goldfrapp

6. The White Stripes

7. Red Hot Chilli Peppers *

8. The Strokes

9. Belle and Sebastian

10. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

11. Crüxshadows

12. Inkubus Sukkubus

13. Madness *

14. The Divine Comedy *

15. British Sea Power

16. Regina Spektor *

17. The Subways

18. Massive Attack *

19. Lou Reed

20. Bjork *

21. Mercury Rev

22. Runrig

23. The Indelicates

24. Oasis (yes, really - it was by mistake, at a festival)

25. The Mountain Goats

Maybe this would be a better game it Tooth_Fairy and I had a more overlapping taste in music ;)

Comments

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

I didn't have any overlap with the last person who posted this meme. With you, it's just Runrig, who played support at the NEC many years ago. I'll wait for someone else to post it, I think.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Whereas I'm just impressed that there are enough people who've seen twenty-five bands live that this meme can actually propagate. I guess going to festivals helps.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Me too. I can think of about three, I reckon. Maybe more like five. Let's see: GnR, of course; various unknown folk bands - do they count?; Terrorvision; They Might Be Giants; Skid Row; Love/Hate; Otros Aires... I'm out. Thre must have been more than that, but I can't think of them. I've actually never been a fan of live music; I usually find it to be a huge let-down. It's just not as good as the recorded version, and it's far, far too loud. This is also true of live tango music, which is much harder to dance to than recorded tango, because bloody live musicians can't resist the urge to arse around, and to dance you need them to keep a consistent tempo and not ponce about stroking their egos.

The only exception to the live=bad rule that I can think of is Tudor. The experience of Hampton Court's great hall filled to the rafters with the sound of various brasses playing Belleze was one of those transcendent experiences that probably only happen once in a lifetime.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Aerosmith were amazing live when I went to see them for my 21st. Although this may be partly because the improvised messing around with their tracks they did was really, really good. Also the lightshow was very fine.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed that there are people who don't go to see live bands :)

For interest (or not), four of those bands up there were seen at festivals. At least, I mean that four of them were bands I encountered at festivals and might not otherwise have made the effort to see[*]. I figure going to the Tin Pan Alley festival explicitly to see British Sea Power isn't the same as stumbling across Oasis while trying to buy a pie at Glastonbury.

I wonder how many bands I have seen at stand-alone gigs. I used to keep a list of all the gigs I'd attended, but annoyingly it was on my computer at my former place of employment and I forgot to rescue it. Maybe I should start another.

[*] Oasis, White Stripes, New Order, Goldfrapp.

[venta.livejournal.com]

going to the Tin Pan Alley festival explicitly to see British Sea Power

... which was, incidentally, a mistake. They were very disappointing.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Were half the audience carrying bits of tree? If so, what's with that?

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed that there are people who don't go to see live bands :)

I suppose the way I view it is as being like a hobby. So I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that people like yourself and onebyone had seen a three-figure number of bands live, but would expect this to be the exception rather than the rule in the same way that (for example) all roleplayers know what a "D10" is, but members of the public mostly wouldn't.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh, rationally I agree with you. But while I'm not surprised that there are people whom roleplaying doesn't interest, I just find it odd that people can not like/not want to see live music. I concede floralaetifica's points above, but still think it's vaguely incomprehensible.

I have occasionally met people who - never mind live - just don't like music. Weirdos.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Well, I certainly know what you mean - I feel similarly about people who don't like food!

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I think live music might be one of those things like skiing or camping, where if you know how to do it you have a rare old time, otherwise it looks like dauntingly hard work, and if you don't like the cold/rain/crappy sound system at the Zodiac then it's just painful.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I take your point, but:

1) Since I and the people I go to gigs with, go to gigs, I'm not at all surprised that there are a lot of people who go to gigs. In fact, they keep getting in my way at gigs. So I'm slightly surprised that you're surprised.

2) I would expect any non-incredibly-niche hobby top have enough practitioners on LJ to sustain a sheep, especially since people who read each others' LJs are (I'd guess) more likely than chance to share hobbies.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Even without festivals, I see more bands live than I see films in the cinema.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Out of interest, who were they supporting ?

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

I was cautious not to mention it, because there is always a risk of pointing and laughing. Chris de Burgh.

[venta.livejournal.com]

What a bizarre combination. To be fair, I'm not familiar with Mr de Burgh's ouevre (in fact, I'm not even sure I can spell ouevre) beyond the obvious but Runrig don't strike me as a natural choice of support act. Did it all hang together ?

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

Surprisingly, yes. As usual, nobody really wanted to hear the support band, but they did a good enough job (and were good enough for me to remember their name, so many years later.)
The motivation appears to be "Chris is Irish, Runrig are Scots, so we can make it seem like a Gaelic evening." But that didn't work so well.
And I think it's oeuvre. Chris de Burgh's oeuvre stretches far beyond the obvious songs, and the public should get to know that TLIR is not by any means his finest work.

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

What scared me is that although I had only seen one of the bands in Angus's list he has seen most of the one's in my list as well as his own.