Big Bad Concert Rankings: 130-121

My second CD as a new driver was Eagles’ Hotel California, which, if you played the lead track back-to-back was the exact distance to my high school from home in moderate traffic. Also in between school and home was a Little Caesar’s. During football season I would sometimes listen to Hotel California No. 1 on my way to a post-practice LC stop before buying a quick pizza and eating it on the way home while listening to Hotel California No. 2.

I would still eat a full dinner, of course. I was a growing boy. A scant 6-foot-6, 240 pounds. Practically a skeleton.

130 - Screaming Females

Tips for Dating: 1) Don’t take a date to a concert. They’re loud and you shouldn’t talk during concerts anyway. 2) Make sure person you think you asked on a date already has a boyfriend. But like, for sure for sure, not Biz Markie ‘Just a Friend’ iffy about it. All that aside, it was a really fun show, and the only show where I’ve been taller than a lead singer (Marissa Paternoster) on an 18” stage riser.

129 - Alicia Keys [Stephen Marley]

Keys edges out Groban in the silky-sweet voice competition. The only thing lowering this concert was that it was on a tour before the Empire State of Mind release. That would have been something special.

128 - The Who

I have to say, the symphony orchestra accompaniment really made this show stand out. Roger Daltrey doesn’t quite have it, Pete Townshend’s jibber jabber was nonsensical at times, and the show just kind of … ended. Starting the show off with Tommy was a real positive, and playing Eminence Front with a green aura light show was definitely not bad for $20.

127 - Rick Springfield

Summerfest Rick Springfield was special for one reason, Alejandro. Let’s take a kid who doesn’t speak English, drive 250 miles in his first week in America, in a car with no AC, bypassing Chicago’s skyline no less, and then let him rock out to Rick Springfield. And he had fun! **Encore song was Beatles’ We Can Work It Out, which coincidentally was my favorite Beatles song at the time.

126 - Tim McGraw [Jason Aldean]

Tim McGraw might be the nicest man in show business. Before the show he took some of us to play pick-up basketball (I was not one of them, but it was cool to see). Add in a sold-out crowd for flavor, Country’s biggest up and comer as an opening act, and the fireworks over Milwaukee, and it made for a real cool night by the lake.

125 - Breaking Benjamin

St. Al’s Class of 2002 came to play that night. I ran into five middle school classmates during this bit of Alt-Rock nostalgia.

124 - Orville Peck [The Bobby Tenderloin Universe]

Imagine the following: A Young Elvis meets Roy Orbison at a drag show and decides to lay their voices over each other Singin' In The Rain style and adds some face-disguise theatricality, all while Tammy Wynette and George Jones duets are playing on the juke box and everyone is wearing cowboy hats while sipping on light beer or vodka tonics. Might be the best show I’ve ever seen someone do with only one album under their belt.

123 - Ludacris [Ciara, Chris Brown, T-Pain]

If you remember my writeup for Tool a while back, this was the second-most active concert I ever worked, but I actually had time to listen to the show. Mainly because my partner and I had our roles switched to cover a pit pairing for the headlining act (not for the early T-Pain DJ set, Chris Brown dance party or Ciara’s silver tracksuit shininess). It got heated when a white guy who was purposefully sitting in the wrong seat maybe 12 rows back from center stage, stood up and poured his beer on the 15-year old black girl who the seat belonged to. That white dude should have to send me monthly thank you cards for saving his life that day from a justifiable homicide. I had to use some lineman techniques getting her out of the seats and toward the satellite police station. No, she wasn’t at fault, but she was going to fuck that dude up. She got to stay in the venue and I think she pressed charges.

122 - Alt-J [Bishop Briggs]

Our second Bishop Briggs sighting pairs her with Alt-J. Those two were a power duo of a show. Briggs had volumes of ebullience while Alt-J brought out some crazy light work that rivaled ODESZA.

121 - Rush

The Snakes and Arrows Tour. With real snakes. I know there are so many Rush fans who absolutely LOVE Rush and can’t fathom any number after the 1. I just wasn’t one of them. Neil Peart is good at drums. Top 3 I’ve ever seen. Geddy Lee’s voice is still right up there, and the aside to South Park’s Tom Sawyer was cute. And yet, it felt more like the annual association of The Lone Gunmen cosplay convention than a rock show. So, if anything, this ranking falls firmly on the crowd’s acceptance of rock legends instead of their hind-sighted fervor for being in the presence of the greatness they claim the band belongs to.