who surprised and who disappointed

Disappointing
Van Morrison at Jones Beach- 45 minutes of hostility, he couldn't wait to get out of there.

The Clash at Bonds 25 years ago. The SINGLE WORST venue ever. Terrible sound and no sightlines at these "legendary" shows.

Patti Smith in Ann Arbor ca 1975. Her band was snowed in and she tried to do an entire poetry/acapella show.

The Dead at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City. I was uncomfortable and bored. Five hours of Dead is at least two hours too much for me.

Eels at The Roxy five years ago. One of the best songwriters alive decides to dress as the Unabomber and drown his perfect hooks under a barrage of noise.

Surprising

Kim Richey Opened for some alt. country band and blew everyone away.

Taj Mahal I had tried to see him for 20 years so I didn't want to set myself up for disappointment when I finally got to see him play. I anticipated a low key acoustic blues set. Instead, he was all over the place: acoustic and electric and on top of his game on both.

John Hiatt's Perfectly Good Guitar Tour. I'd seen him many times and really liked his shows, but this one, with a younger, much harder rocking band was tremendous. I believe Cheryl Crow opened.

John Fogerty's comeback show at Town Hall, NYC. CCR was always about the records-not the shows. Fogerty went away for 15 years and when he came back he had learned how to play guitar AND he found a great band to back him. The songs are as good as can be.

SNS - Have you seen Seinfeld's "Bizarro Universe Episode"?

I saw The Who's Quadraphenia tour at the Pontiac Silverdome ca. 1975. Much of the music was on tape, Keith Moon had just died, and the crowd booed the opening act (Toots and The Maytalls) off the stage. In particular, the less than accepting suburban Detroit crowd may have pissed off the band, which sleepwalked through the concert. While this may have been one tour after the one you so enjoyed, this was a TERRIBLE show.

OTOH, Todd Rundgren NEVER fails to delight me, even when his choice of material roams into the margin (quite often, actually).

Is this an official bizarro inversion of the time-space continuum?

Boa - Not to hijack, but....

World Party is back on tour. I thought Karl Wallinger had died, but evidently he was merely quite ill. Anyway, they're in LA in August and I plan to attend.
Thought you might want to know.

Marty

SNS: I guess today we learned that "Timing is everything in life"!

BTW Every time I see The Who (once in each of the lasr four decades) they are better than the last. The most recent show was last year at The Hollywood Bowl and I thought PT really upped his game on the leads.

FWIW Music choices aside, Rundgren is a fantastic player and usually surrounds himself with very capable accompaniment. It's unfortunate that you seem to have caught an exception to that rule.