Maybe you can help me tarantula because I cannot posibly imagine: What is a rap concert like? Do they still use big video screens or lots of ligts and gels? Is there live instruments or is it all a CD playing in the background? Hehe.
As far as broadway I saw Phantom of the Opera in San Francisco in like '94 or '95 I think. Does that count? I also saw this one show with a guy named "Gussy" and a lot of old fat women called "the last of the Red-Hot Mamas" who came out into the audience and smooched people. One of 'em landed me on the cheek.
I also forgot to mention that I saw Incubus & 311 a while back and it was not all that bad, but at the same time it was not that great and I wasn't much of a fan to begin with. It was a little weird cuz there were a lot of girls in high heels and dresses who were there for social reasons or something. Also it was a very small show compared to, say, TOOL. Nick Hexum (singer, guitarist) almost got in a fight with a crowd member over a thrown lighter that beaned him. What a violent guy. Boooo.
I also saw Weird Al Yankovich a longer while back. It was classic. He put on a freaking incredible show and was turning cartwheels and high kicking all over and dressing up in different costumes for every song. He was at 127%!
(OK. Long-ass post time.)
Let's see, A Perfect Circle was awesome. Maynard (singer) has such a presence that he seemed 7 feet tall, (though he is actually like 5'8", hehe). For most of the show he had his back towards the crowd and was far back on the stage, but when he turned to us it was very dramatic and he would stomp and wiggle all over. For "thinking of You" he started to fish around in his pants and that got everyone screaming. "Judith" was the closing song and had everyone going ape-shit. It was cool, Maynard was like, "We'd like to play a song for you. It's called... Judith." and WWIII broke out.
Nine Inch Nails were also great. They had re-worked a lot of the songs to accomodate live performance and in many cases were better than the originals. Some of the band were on these huge hydraulic platform-arm things that bounced as they stomped on them. Trent was all dolled up in raggy clothes and grease paint and was constantly making obscene gestures at the crowd. There was 150% energy all the way through; even the slower songs had an excited tension to them. The heaviest thing I have even seen at a concert was when they began to play "Closer". I was effectively shoved fifty feet backwards from where I had been standing because the fans just went INSANE!!! For a very accurate depiction of the concerts on that tour see the DVD they have out: "And All That Could Have Been".
TOOL was very good but very hard to grasp. Like you knew you were at their show but you couldn't quite realize it. It was "cool" that they played a lot of their popular songs (pretty much every song they have is popular though) but I think everyone wanted a little more esoterica and jamming, (although some of the songs were re-worked to have extended interludes or longer endings, which really served to break momentum rather than build) I guess they were kinda slowing down with "Lateralus" and fans still wanted "AEnima" or even "Opiate". They did have lots of psychedelic art playing on some huge video screens and at one point the two performers from the "Schism" video came out and swung around from the ceiling naked. Everyone cheered when they finally embraced in the air. It was cathartic and healing. This was the first concert I've been to where I wasn't pretty high, so it was a little different. Any concert with Maynard is a great treat!
Tricky opened for TOOL and he was pretty good although he seemed to get pissed off and let the backup singers carry most of the show. The crowd was absolutely terrible and I was ashamed to be amongst them. They were heckling and booing him from the get-go. Tricky was a weird choice for an opener and he's no contest for TOOL, admittedly, but the discourtesy was not deserved. The bass was also very loud to the point of negatively affecting the sound. One girl told me later on that she only wanted to see Tricky and was going to leave during TOOL. She was late and missed Tricky's entire set so she never even went. I think she's better off having missed it then seeing him publicly humiliated like that.
Carlos Santana I saw on his "Supernatural" tour which is really too bad cuz he rocked in his day and still does, but the man is old! He played far too much of the new material and many of the songs were unrecognizable. Also there was like a boring 20-minute keyboard interpretation of "a Jimi Hendrix song" that was anything but Hendrix and stopped the show cold. I only wish I'd seen him back in his prime. Still, worth going I suppose. The opener was Mana, a very popular contemporary band from Mexico, and another brass band that was really good. Lots of Mexicans in the crowd and onstage. Hehe.
Okay, Tori Amos was a brilliant performance! I could not believe how inhumanly, impossibly awesome she sounded. It was only the drummer, the bass player, and her sandwiched between a piano, two keyboards, and a little footlong casio toy-keyboard.
She just had so much goddess beauty or something, the entire thing was very introspective and her performance was just otherworldly beautiful. All the songs were a billion times better live than on the albums. When she got to the last song "Putting the Damage on" we were all in tears. She is surely one of the best musicians ever to live, I will back that up 7000%!
OK, so I've wasted enough space here as it is. Anyone else wanna give some in-depth concert reports?
P.S.: Oh yeah, Daft Punk. Can't stop, must... fight... it, One More Time... aaaack!!!
And Lifehouse I one word thank you.