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Thought it'd be a little fun to hear people around the globe's best and worst concert experiences. Mind you, I dont mean the shows themselves, but the experience, what happened, etc.

For me:

Best: Saw Boston in late 70s in an August heat wave in Civic Arena in Pitt.  AC wasnt working and it had to be 100 deg in the arena. people being carted out by the minute by staff for dehydration, etc. About 1/2 way through the show, the powers that be opened the roof of the large domed arena, and after all the bellowing smoke poured out, the cooler night air poured in and saved us all.

Worst: Saw Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (also in 70s, geeze Im old!!) and someone laced a doob being passed around with (I believe) angel dust. well, needless to say, I spent almost the entire concert puking my brains out in the hallway. 

love to hear some from the crowd.

Angel Dust.....let me have a think about that. Isn't that the stuff that affected the optic nerves and made you feel as if you were really small ? Changing the perspective of your visual capabilities.
          You know what I mean ? Could make a key hole in a door look so big that you almost wanted to walk through it. Er,no no, never knew anything about it..
        All my bad experiences at gigs seem to revolve around teenage kids who thought that they were being clever adults by behaving very badly and causing trouble.(that applies to when I was a teenager myself too)

Best - 1986 Queen at Knebworth...my first gig.....the sights  ;D the sounds  :-X :G.........and their last ever public performance, to the best of my knowledge

Worst - Elton John, Leeds Castle. There was some little gobshite with small man attitude, pi**ed as a fart in the row in front thinking he was there solely to pi*s off the rest of the audience by being shouty and sweary and basically ruined the second set for all those around him.  He thoroughly deserved a right hook and being told his fortune there and then, but everyone was too british about it....I vowed never again to put up with such nonsense and have in fact had to offer my feelings of displeasure to occasional d*ckheads several times since..........although as Mike will testify, my fortitude has got me close to a rumble once or twice since!!!!  :-[

Best for me has to be Pink Floyd at Maine Road , Manchester 08/08/88.  The first time I had seen Floyd live (I know I started late ???) I was totally gob smacked by this concert, the atmosphere and crowd were amazing, the visual effects mind blowing and the sound was ear numbing I will never forget it. The thing about this concert was before Floyd came on stage there was a group of youths 'steaming' the crowd (running into people robbing them) where we were we could see this happening and could also see the police closing in on them, the police caught up with them and a huge roar from the back of the ground went up.

The worst has to be a group called Helix, they supported, of all groups Kiss at Bingley Hall, Staffs. They were total crap, people were throwing hot dogs, hamburgers and drinks at them all the time they were on stage, and one stage the bass player got hit square in the face with a bottle , he was not too pleased, the unpleasant thing was people were pissing in the bottles, some pissed up twat threw up down my mates back, we went home smelling like a nightclubs toilet, not pleasant at all.

The other bad gig was Download when Metallica came on stage late due to Lars throwing a mardy and not turning up, the bottle fight that erupted in the long break before they came on stage was frightening, the idiots at the back of the field decided to fill 500ml bottles up with stones and throw them around, we were in the middle of it and got hit a few times, likely no one was seriously hurt.

Been involved in a few scrapes at gigs, most of which are caused, yet again by youths that think they can act like twats all night, that don't pass with me I'm afraid.

I was at that gig too, and I believe pinkfossil was too.
Best gig: Led Zeppelin, Knebworth. Maybe my worse gig was Sham69 in 1978 at Reading Festival. The headliners that day were Status Quo and the Hells Angels and skinheads decided to have a bit of a ding dong. The sky literally darkened with flying cans and half-full Party Sevens until the police horses charged into the crowd to separate the two sides. The arena was knee deep on mud and cans and bodies. Hey, maybe it wasn't THAT bad. Oh yes and Patti Smith was pretty dull too.

Best: YES at Reading Festival in 1975 when they headlined. The weather was terrible and it rained and thundered during the YES set, but the lightshow was something to behold, as well as their stage set. This was the early days of lasers and I had never seen them before. They shot them out over the crowd at very high intensity (no health & safety in those days) and with the rain streaming down they shimmered. It was magical to watch and I have never seen anything like it since. A brilliant show that I will never forget.

Worst: Very hard to say, as you tend to remember the good times and forget the bad! Only because it happened a few weeks ago, I would put Motorhead forward as a nomination - ridiculously loud, which for me spoiled it. I have only walked away from 2 live acts ever, they are one and Styx are the second (support to Deep Purple this year). They were staggeringly bad, in fact they take the prize!

GG