[martyup]

Time to contribute my own memories ....

Great post Leftcoast.  Nothing wrong with Rascal Flats.  They have great harmony.

I'll steal your format:

Your first concert:   Earth, Wind, and Fire at the Oakland Coliseum while an undergrad at Stanford (probably 1982).  They were good.

Your best concert:  Michael Jackson (Bad Tour) at the LA Sports Center, November 13, 1988.  He was a great entertainer and performer.  

Concert that was way more fun that expected:  Actually, it's a concert that I never expected to attend.  It was late summer afternoon in Paso Robles, CA, in 1991.  I was walking among the exhibits at the California Mid-State Fair with a buddy of mine when someone asked us if we wanted to buy their tickets to the concert.  We said "what concert?" They said that it was MC Hammer and it was starting in 10 minutes.  We bought the tickets for $5 each and made our way to the seats, which were in the 4th row from the stage at the center.  As a bonus, there were cute girls sitting in the seats to the left and to the right of our seats.  The concert was Too Legit to Quit and at one point I counted 35 performers on the stage.  No wonder the guy went bankrupt, paying all of those dancers.

Worst concert: George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic at the Santa Barbara Bowl. This was a rambling mumbling stoned out jam session for George. 

Worst concert experience:  D.C. Throwdown With Rick James, July 1982, RFK Stadium, Washington DC.  I was working as a summer intern for a Congressman and heard this concert being promoted on the radio.  It was a 12 hour event and included, in addition to Rick James, One Way, Zapp, Ray Parker Jr., Cameo, War, Experience Unlimited, and Soul Sonic Force.  I went by myself and was, by my visual experience, the only white person in the stadium.  I took up a viewing location on the stadium floor (grass) to watch the show and the first bad experience was someone in the middle of the stadium firing a gun or firecrackers causing the people on the grass to stampede away from the sound.  I was caught up in a wave of bodies that surged towards the stage.  I managed to stay on my feet, but many went down and were trampled.  It ended up with a crush of people from the fence in front of the stage and out about 20 yards.  When things calmed down, I saw several people hauled away on stretchers and learned later that a pregnant teenager was killed in the crush.  

It took about an hour before the concert resumed.  Shortly thereafter, a man stepped in front of me and faced me.  He told me to not look back, but that there was a man with a knife that was about to attack me.  He said he would try to hold the guy off while I got away.  I quickly moved away towards the stage and sneaked a glance back to where I had been standing.  I saw the man who had warned me standing in front of a guy holding a knife looking at me with pure hate in his eyes.  It was still daylight and Rick James was about to go on, so I quickly headed up into the mostly empty seats of the stadium.  From there I watched Rick James and another group.  While I was up there, there was another round of "booms" from the stadium floor and the crowd stampeded again.  From above it was like watching rings of waves moving away from where a pebble is dropped in a pond.  First I heard the booms, then I saw the wave of people moving away from a spot, then the sound of screams from the crowd.  At that point it was starting to get dark and I decided that I wanted to live more than I wanted to see Zapp and Roger, so I got the hell out of there.

Band you've seen the most:  Ricky and the Redstreaks, just because they were the band that always played at the National Finals Rodeo afterparty at the Frontier in Las Vegas.

Last concert:  George Strait, MGM Las Vegas

[martyup]

Time to contribute my own memories ....

Great post Leftcoast.  Nothing wrong with Rascal Flats.  They have great harmony.

I'll steal your format:

Your first concert:   Earth, Wind, and Fire at the Oakland Coliseum while an undergrad at Stanford (probably 1982).  They were good.

Your best concert:  Michael Jackson (Bad Tour) at the LA Sports Center, November 13, 1988.  He was a great entertainer and performer.  

Concert that was way more fun that expected:  Actually, it's a concert that I never expected to attend.  It was late summer afternoon in Paso Robles, CA, in 1991.  I was walking among the exhibits at the California Mid-State Fair with a buddy of mine when someone asked us if we wanted to buy their tickets to the concert.  We said "what concert?" They said that it was MC Hammer and it was starting in 10 minutes.  We bought the tickets for $5 each and made our way to the seats, which were in the 4th row from the stage at the center.  As a bonus, there were cute girls sitting in the seats to the left and to the right of our seats.  The concert was Too Legit to Quit and at one point I counted 35 performers on the stage.  No wonder the guy went bankrupt, paying all of those dancers.

Worst concert: George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic at the Santa Barbara Bowl. This was a rambling mumbling stoned out jam session for George. 

Worst concert experience:  D.C. Throwdown With Rick James, July 1982, RFK Stadium, Washington DC.  I was working as a summer intern for a Congressman and heard this concert being promoted on the radio.  It was a 12 hour event and included, in addition to Rick James, One Way, Zapp, Ray Parker Jr., Cameo, War, Experience Unlimited, and Soul Sonic Force.  I went by myself and was, by my visual experience, the only white person in the stadium.  I took up a viewing location on the stadium floor (grass) to watch the show and the first bad experience was someone in the middle of the stadium firing a gun or firecrackers causing the people on the grass to stampede away from the sound.  I was caught up in a wave of bodies that surged towards the stage.  I managed to stay on my feet, but many went down and were trampled.  It ended up with a crush of people from the fence in front of the stage and out about 20 yards.  When things calmed down, I saw several people hauled away on stretchers and learned later that a pregnant teenager was killed in the crush.  

It took about an hour before the concert resumed.  Shortly thereafter, a man stepped in front of me and faced me.  He told me to not look back, but that there was a man with a knife that was about to attack me.  He said he would try to hold the guy off while I got away.  I quickly moved away towards the stage and sneaked a glance back to where I had been standing.  I saw the man who had warned me standing in front of a guy holding a knife looking at me with pure hate in his eyes.  It was still daylight and Rick James was about to go on, so I quickly headed up into the mostly empty seats of the stadium.  From there I watched Rick James and another group.  While I was up there, there was another round of "booms" from the stadium floor and the crowd stampeded again.  From above it was like watching rings of waves moving away from where a pebble is dropped in a pond.  First I heard the booms, then I saw the wave of people moving away from a spot, then the sound of screams from the crowd.  At that point it was starting to get dark and I decided that I wanted to live more than I wanted to see Zapp and Roger, so I got the hell out of there.

Band you've seen the most:  Ricky and the Redstreaks, just because they were the band that always played at the National Finals Rodeo afterparty at the Frontier in Las Vegas.

Last concert:  George Strait, MGM Las Vegas