Blog2004 ≫ Q Magazine's best gigs ever

Here's something that's wound me up hugely, Q Magazine's "Top 100 gigs of all time", the top ten of which were in today's Evening Standard1:

  1. Radiohead Glastonbury 1997
  2. Nirvana Reading 1992
  3. Oasis Knebworth 1996
  4. Coldplay V2003
  5. Brian Wilson Royal Festival Hall 2004
  6. Madonna Earls Court 2001
  7. The Beatles Apple 1969
  8. REM Trafalgar Square 2001
  9. Queen Live Aid 1985
  10. Pink Floyd Earls Court 1980

How many of those would you describe as a gig? None of them I would say, but as this is something voted for by readers of Q, only gigs that had a huge attendance had a good chance of getting enough votes to appear... so I think the top ten can mostly be written off, but I won't be buying Q just to see what the rest of the top 100 are. Not sure exactly what my top ten would be, but unless you're first choosing your favourite band, and then picking the only time you ever saw them because you don't go to many gigs, a festival is unlikely to have been the best combination of performance and atmosphere. I would have to slot in Blur at Goldsmith's College, a cheeky Reading warmup in 1999, but as it was a small show there are unlikely to have been enough Q readers there for it to chart. Another reason the full chart might be annoying is the presence of small gigs just like that the voters are unlikely to have attended. Wonder if any Darkness shows made it in?

A bit of local news to finish this megapost - there's trouble at Red Square2, people who bought live / work units with no intention to work in them are being served with notices that require them to return the flats to business use. Also from the Evening Standard1.

💬 RE: Q Magazine's best gigs ever - 1327

💬 RE: RED SQUARE - 1331

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Paul Clarkeʼs blog - I live in Hythe near Folkestone, Kent. Married + father to two, I'm a full stack web engineer, and I do js / nodejs, some ruby, other languages ect ect. I like pubs, parkrun, eating, home-automation and other diy jiggery-pokery, history, family tree stuff, TV, squirrels, pirates, lego, and time travel.