Tbone’s Top 11 All Time Favourite Concerts.

T-Bone’s Top 11 Live Concerts

HEY FOLK’S! Did you all see Tbone live on Mikey’s stream last night? Well in case you missed it here is the man himself going into full detail about his all-time Top 11 Live Shows! Take it away Tbone….

1. Tragically Hip. Man Machine Poem- Final Tour. Winnipeg. 2016-Most emotional concert I’ve ever attended. We all saw the final show in Kingston on CBC when Canada shut down for the day to pay our respect. I consider myself extraordinarily fortunate to have been invited to take this one in and will never forget it. The only time I’ve opening cried at a Rock concert “… Get Ry Cooder to sing my eulogy” hit me very hard that night. Gord Downey was on stage by himself at the end of the show looking everywhere in the arena at everyone in the crowd and literally thanking every single person it felt like and the crowd was deafening and this went on for such a long time but yet you didn’t want it to end. Because the end would be final. This one will be very, very hard to top for me personally.

    

   2--Aerosmith Pump Tour 1990-Before the summer of 2016 when I attended what would become my new #1, this was the show for me. Not only was this a phenomenal concert both musically and visually, by a band that only a few years earlier ressurected itself from the Rock’n Roll graveyard, but I was still a somewhat impressionable, Smith fan seeing them live for the first time and this was a bus tour package with an awesome group of people including Deke and my bro’s and the total experience was just incredible. And Skid Row opened so that didn’t hurt either. I could go on and on but I’ll leave it at that.
2. 3-U2. 360 Tour. Montreal. 2011-This is the biggest concert I’ve ever attended, 80,000+, and U2 did not disappoint. Even though this outdoor show concluded in a huge rainstorm, that only adds to my memories of this show. Great, great show supporting “No Line on the Horizon”, which is one of their better post “Achtung Baby” albums in my opinion.

1. 4-Van Halen. F.U.C.K. tour. Minneapolis. 1992-Van Halen since 1984 has been unabashedly been my favorite band, and this was my first time actually getting to see them live. This was the height of the Van-Hagar version of the band and myself and a friend (Funk, Deke knows who this is.) actually got to sneak into soundcheck. As we went to the Target Centre to collect our tickets at Will-call, we could here Van Halen riffs pour out of the arena so we snuck down some corridor and popped out in the upper deck and quietly just took it all in. Very cool experience.

1. 5-Rolling Stones. Voodoo Lounge. TO. 1994-What can you say about the Stones? Legends, awesome tunes, Keith Richards is a God that no drug or substance on the planet can take out. This was a time when many first and second-generation Classic Rock Bands were doing huge reunion tours or in the Stones case, business as usual, and this tour was huge doing huge numbers and Deke I got to experience first hand why. And it didn’t hurt that STP opened the show as I was just becoming a fan of their music and this concert cemented that for me.

1. 6-Rush. Vapour Trails. Minneapolis 2002-I have only ever had the privilege of experiencing Rush once, live in concert, but it was worth the wait. Wow! Neil Peart in particular just blew me away. Drum solos usually mean Washroom break or let’s go check our the T-shirt mech, but not when he’s on the kit. Geddy and Alex were equally impressive in their business type approach to nailing every song but still maintaining a sense of humor along the way. One of Canada’s most impressive exports for sure. And “ NO Deke” I am not prepared to share any of the Big Red exploits from this trip. LOL

1. 7-Bon Jovi. Jersey. Winnipeg. 1989-This was my first out of town, big concert event with Deke, and in my opinion, Bon Jovi was supporting their best Album, so for those reasons, it makes the list. Skid Row who I was also into at the time opened, so this was the real-deal…. Full-On, Arena-Cock-Rock as Deke would say, not for the faint of heart. Jon popped out of the stage at the beginning of Lay Your Hands on Me to start the show and from that moment on I wasn’t sure whether to watch the band or the girls throwing their underwear at them. First World Problems, I guess.
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1. 8-Paul McCartney. New World Tour. Winnipeg. 1993-Seeing Paul live was seeing a living legend and as close as I’d ever get to experiencing the Beatles, so what more really needs to be said. Even in his later years the guy could then and still delivers. Only weird memory from this show was he was really pushing a promoting Vegetarianism, which Deke and I found a little humorous. Should have snuck in a couple Big Mac’s or Whoppers just for fun.

1. 9-Pink Floyd. Division Bell Tour. Winnipeg. 1994– I never have been a huge Pot consumer, beer and whiskey are more my vices, however, I wish I had smoked up before this show as I’m pretty sure Deke and I were the only two in Winnipeg Stadium who weren’t lit up. That said, even though this was the David Gilmour version of Floyd, whom I love as a guitar player, Pink Floyd was and is an iconic name with iconic tunes, and getting a chance to experience that live was not lost on me.

1. 10-Motley Crüe. Dr. Feelgood. Winnipeg. 1990-I struggled with where to slot this one in as in more recent years my Crue fandom has waned somewhat but still, I knew this show had to make the list. At the time I think it’s fair to say, that Deke and I loved this show. Tommy Lee’s drums rose up off the stage and traveled out above the crowd, the band came on at the very end of the show and played a second encore (Don’t Go Away Mad) with the house lights on which at least felt like an ad-lib at the time with Vince saying to the rabid Winnipeg crowd “You guys have been kicking our asses all night so here’s one more for ya”. This was Motley at their best.

1. 11-Sloan. Navy Blues. Crocks/NV. 2019– This is the only Thunder Bay show to make my list and I wanted to have at least one and I also needed to have Sloan on this list as I’ve never seen them in a larger setting but have seen them with Deke here in Thunder Bay in the bar/club setting a couple times, and I absolutely love these guys. And since Navy Blues is my favorite Sloan album, slam dunk, easy choice. I love the concept of playing the whole album as a first set and then play a second set of favorites. Also, love watching Chris play drums when Andrew steps up to the mic. His drumming style looks like it’s about to fall off the rails at any point but it never does. Awesome! …. S-L-O-O-A-N!

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Serious contenders but I wanted to keep things one per band. These are in no particular order.

1. Tragically Hip. Thunder Bay. Crocks. 1988
2. U2. Vertigo Tour. Minneapolis. 2005. 
3. Bryan Adams/ Steve Miller/ Extreme. Birds Hill Provincial Park, Manitoba. 1992
4. Sloan, One Chord to Another, Thunder Bay. Crocks. 2016
5. Aerosmith Nine Lives, Minneapolis. 1997
6. Aerosmith. Just Push Play. Minneapolis. 2001. Mainly for opening act The Cult. Ian Astbury was worth the price of admission on his own.
7. Georgia Satellites, In the Land of Salvation and Sin. Thunder Bay, 1989
8. ZZ Top with Colin James. Recycler. Winnipeg. 1990
9. John 5 with Jared James Nichols, Crocks/NV. Thunder Bay. 2020
10. Helix. Razor’s Edge. Thunder Bay (LU Agora). 1985
11. Ted Nugent. Little Miss Dangerous. Thunder Bay. 1986
12. Jeff Healy. CLE Colesium. 1990

 

***Too many cool TBay shows to mention, never mind remembering them all at my age. LOL