best opening/ending you've seen a band do live?

[The Mask]

best opening would have to be vanishing by APC. pretty incredible way to start the show, with the silouhettes and lights and the drum things. proper hairs on the back of your neck deal there.

As for the best ending, i'd probably say Muse, what with the big fuck off balloons full of confetti or some bollocks, and the 70 million black balloons they dropped on everyone. awesome.

[El Vaquero de Infierno]

Ending wise, it will be Cradle of Filth finishing off the gig with "From the Cradle to Enslave," with the stage performers taking drills and circular saws to their chests, and sparks flying everywhere (in time to the music as well.)

I'd probably go for the APC thing as well.

[samichna]

The lead-in to Can't Stop by RHCP was amazing.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Super Furry Animals there last week in Dublin. They have a large projector screen at the back of the stage which shows animations and other stuff during their songs.

At this gig, when the lights went out, the screen showed a blurry camera image of one of them in the SFA golf cart with a trumpet fanfare playing, in his luminescent overalls. Showed him driving along and picking up the other members of the band in various situations, like jumping out of trees, out of phone boxes etc. until they were all on there, two inside and three hanging off the back.

Then the A-Team music came on, and there was like a montage of speeded up clips of them driving around Dublin, finishing with them coming round the corner to the alleyway, through the back entrance into the venue.

Then they came out on stage in front of us in the golf cart, all jumped off and saluted the fans in their luminescent overalls.

The crowd was loving it. It was madness. Then they bust into the gig.

They finished by playing The Man Don't Give A Fuck, over-layed by a Bill Hicks soundbyte, going into one of their techno noodly dance beats. They drove off again in the golf cart, then the projector showed them driving up a ramp into a big truck out the back of the venue, with the door closed behind them.

Then they played a little farewell video, little clips of each band member with a 70s TV show style credit arrangement, where it'll pause and have like GRUFF 'G-UNIT' RHYS beside him in some comedy situation.

DId that for the whole band, production crew, road crew etc. then finished with AND YOU, THE PEOPLE OF DUBLIN and then played a sped up montage of Dublin obviously filmed early that day, of sights and people around the city.

They did something similar at Oxegen, just without the intro video. They started then with the electronica intro to "Slow Life" which was brilliant, and Gruff Rhys sang it with a microphone pressed to the side of a gigantic head thing he was wearing.

I'll try to post some photographs of the Oxegen gig.

Also at Oxegen, Interpol finishing on PDA was a hair-raising experience. Simply perfect.

[Just John]

Kiss, with symphonic orchestra traditionally ended with Rock N Roll all night and a whole lotta pyros.

[asphyXy]

Best opening: Hypocrisy. Opened with "Fractured Millennium" with the synth intro. The bassist walked out onto the stage when the bassline started. Then the guitarists both walked out when the song kicked in. The lights hit and the vocalist let out a scream. Perfect way to start a show.

Best closing: Manowar. Closed with Black Wind, Fire, and Steel. The very ending scream was insane. Joey ripped off all the strings on his bass, then smashed it and tossed it into the crowd.

[What Would Kevin Do?]

Guns and Roses opening with Welcome to the Jungle was insanse... They also had a slick ending with November Rain ( Raining sparks, ala Christians old entrance doing the long ass solo. Good shit.)

Believe it or not, Kidrock also has some great openings, and some decent endings.

[Tornado]

As for the best ending, i'd probably say Muse, what with the big fuck off balloons full of confetti or some bollocks, and the 70 million black balloons they dropped on everyone. awesome.

:heart:


Muse's opening at Earls Court was pretty awesome. On the giant screens you had a camera shot of someone walking into Earls Court from the street, and then all the way to the stage. Matt Bellamy then appears on stage with the camera, and breaks out Hysteria.

[Dave Youell]

A simple but effective one for me was seeing Saliva a while back, the stage went black, and then within sec seconds click click boom kicked in as the lights came one, it was great, probably worked well cos it was a smaller venue, but I loved it

[JJ Moore]

Oh christ, a good start was seeing Sebastian Bach crushing into Slave to the Grind and seeing the whole band charge the stage and get the pwnege on the go.

Guns N' Roses in 2002, opening with WTTJ.

Opeth few weeks back openign with Deliverence.

Megadeth closing with Holy War's several times this year.

Crowd surfing to Maiden in 2002, Run to The Hill's.

David Lee Roth closing with Jump.

Sebastian Bach closing with Youth Gone Wild

Isis opening with Backlit.

[Buzzkill]

Decemberists, where on their last song (The Mariner's Revenge) they launched a giant (I'm talking 200 feet in diameter) inflatable whale into the audience.

[Cactus Sid]

The Pixies opening with U-Mass and finishing with Gigantic was pretty awesome

[Bad Company]

Cypress Hill, A Big inflatable buddah with a weed leaf on it kinda blew up, then they rocked on on out. Simple. but Effective :D