Greatest concert opening ever??

prowla

DrCornelius said:

prowla said:

BillDL said:

I don't know if this was the concert opening or just the opening of that particular song, but I think it's one of the best I've seen.  Shania Twain in Las Vegas 2014 - Man I Feel Like A Woman.

That was good until she appeared.

Beg to differ but then again I find Ms Twain very easy on the eye

I didn’t mean she’s bad, just that it was going great and I was wondering how that version of the song would go and then they just stopped and the song riff seemed a bit lame. 

Shrews

Perrygoround

I liked the Aerosmith opening in the Get a Grip tour, with the percussion intro, the band behind the courtain and it falling down when the riff starts. I liked the AC/DC ballbreaker tour with the demolition ball, that was pretty epic. Also the Rolling Stones when they used the video of the universe merging into the stadium they were playint attacking the chords of Jumping Jack Flash or Start Me Up... the classic KISS opening of "you wanted the best...." and then they showing up in the flying platforms is a classic. Or Motley Crue's in the carnival of sins tour, with the freaks going out of the box and then the band coming in in a storm of fire, that was quite epic too.

Jaycee

BillDL said:

I don't know if this was the concert opening or just the opening of that particular song, but I think it's one of the best I've seen.  Shania Twain in Las Vegas 2014 - Man I Feel Like A Woman.

Whoever came up with that must have been watching Floyd

Reverend

WIth Metallica, the intro works much better going into Creeping Death than Enter Sandman.

I was at that Nirvana gig but they were not band of the day. 

fretmeister

axisus said:

That Metallica in the OP, bloody hell it looks scary going out to play to a crowd like that!

Amusingly - Metallica were the support band there.

AC/DC were headlining. It's their stage.

fretmeister

Best one I saw was Prince at the O2.

He did something a bit different every night and I cannot find footage of the night I went.

Basically there was a column of dry ice smoke down from the ceiling. He had clearly climbed up through a trap door to stand in it.

The only lights that were on were UV. As the smoke rolled away he was wearing a white suit... and he was glowing in the remains of the smoke. He had his arms out in mix of crucifixion and Gozer. It was an amazing image.

The someone from the floor threw him a telecaster and slid a little pedalboard on the stage and he kicked into a brand new song at the time "Guitar".

It was a proper "I am the best and you damn well know it" moment. And for that night at least, he was right.

MtB

Biased as I was there - 2003 Robbie Williams at Knebworth

Jonathangus

Reverend said:

WIth Metallica, the intro works much better going into Creeping Death than Enter Sandman.

This.  All the best Metallica shows I've been to open with Creeping Death.

The first time I saw Metallica was Donington 1991 (again, as @fretmeister says, supporting AC/DC), but we were well back from the stage and could only really see the famed bottle fight.

The first time I saw them properly was Milton Keynes 1993 with Diamond Head, The Almighty and Megadeth.  TBH, I still wasn't a massive Metallica fan - I think I'd only heard the Black Album - but I liked The Almighty (great band) and a bit of Megadeth, so I tagged along.

One of our party took us down towards the front for Metallica.  When they played the opening riff to Creeping Death, I just remember being picked up and dragged forwards.  @onlyonebradders and I gave each other a look which said 'fuck this', and worked our way back to just behind the main crush.

They absolutely blew me away that day.  My first day off after that, I was in HMV buying their entire back catalogue.

Enjoy:



(Oh, and Radio 1 broadcast it live.  I got my Grandma to tape it.  I'm sure she appreciated James's opening line...)

barnstorm

Perrygoround said:

I liked the Aerosmith opening in the Get a Grip tour, with the percussion intro

I always liked the sound of that one on A Little South of Sanity.

fretmeister

I was far too close to the front at Donington - that piss was going everywhere!

FelineGuitars

In terms of explosive openings Queen were always good 

Iron Maiden did some great stage entries in the mid 80s (and maybe still do )

Kiss were usually quite dramatic , and Rammstein have tended to be that way too.

I recall Bon Jovi were good on the New Jersey tour where they sprung up through trapdoors on Lay Your Hands On Me

Wish I had seen Angel who apparently did an star trek style materialising on stage.

prowla

Well, if we're doing the "I was there" routine...

Skip to about 1:12:00 (embedding YT videos at points in time don't seem to work).

(...and I've still got the T-shirt!)

BillDL

fnpt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG7xzB0Jp4U

Cols

Well, it's Queen at Wembley 1986 obviously.  But for an honourable mention, Rammstein had fireworks.

RocknRollDave

fretmeister said:

Best one I saw was Prince at the O2.

He did something a bit different every night and I cannot find footage of the night I went.

Basically there was a column of dry ice smoke down from the ceiling. He had clearly climbed up through a trap door to stand in it.

The only lights that were on were UV. As the smoke rolled away he was wearing a white suit... and he was glowing in the remains of the smoke. He had his arms out in mix of crucifixion and Gozer. It was an amazing image.

The someone from the floor threw him a telecaster and slid a little pedalboard on the stage and he kicked into a brand new song at the time "Guitar".

It was a proper "I am the best and you damn well know it" moment. And for that night at least, he was right.

Can’t remember too much about seeing him at the O2 (though I’m fairly sure it was a different night to what you described) but putting Metallica’s live intro against Prince really is never going to end well for Metallica, no offence to the OP!

oh_pollo

Brothers and sisters
I wanna see a sea of hands out there
Let me see a sea of hands
I want everybody to kick up some noise
I wanna hear some revolution out there, brothers
I wanna hear a little revolution

Brothers and sisters
The time has come for each and every one of you to decide
Whether you are gonna be the problem
Or whether you are gonna be the solution (that's right)
You must choose, brothers, you must choose
It takes five seconds, five seconds of decision
Five seconds to realize your purpose here on the planet
It takes five seconds to realize that it's time to move
It's time to get down with it

Brothers, it's time to testify and I want to know
Are you ready to testify?!
Are you ready?!
I give you a testimonial
The MC5!

alanohagan

fretmeister said:

Best one I saw was Prince at the O2.

He did something a bit different every night and I cannot find footage of the night I went.

Basically there was a column of dry ice smoke down from the ceiling. He had clearly climbed up through a trap door to stand in it.

The only lights that were on were UV. As the smoke rolled away he was wearing a white suit... and he was glowing in the remains of the smoke. He had his arms out in mix of crucifixion and Gozer. It was an amazing image.

The someone from the floor threw him a telecaster and slid a little pedalboard on the stage and he kicked into a brand new song at the time "Guitar".

It was a proper "I am the best and you damn well know it" moment. And for that night at least, he was right.

I saw Prince live about 5 times he always knew how to put on a show - absolutely fantastic.
if I remember correctly the Sign O the times tour got cancelled in the U.K. so I missed that one but on the Lovesexey tour he drove on stage in a white thunderbird and went straight into Erotic City - show stopper right there

alanohagan

Queen 86 at Wembley OMG the opening riff to Tie your mother down (second song) is just a masterpiece in rock n roll riffery