Live music meme via sfred! How nice to see a proper old-fashioned meme cross my screen.

First Gig - Undoubtedly many children's productions of Peter and the Wolf and the like, but the first proper concert I remember is seeing Debbie Gibson at Madison Square Garden for a friend's birthday in (I think) 1988.

Last Gig - TMBG at the Bowery Ballroom with J and Lorelei and a friend of hers, 2/8/20. In retrospect, being in that room full of people all yelling together was riskier than it seemed at the time! Mostly I remember how ecstatic Lorelei was to hear "The Communists Have the Music" and how loudly the crowd sang along with "Your Racist Friend".

Worst Gig - I hated the Garbage concert I went to in 2015, which made me very sad because I love their music. But it was just noise and noise and more noise and super-heavy bass that made me feel ill and I couldn't wait to escape.

Best Gig - Whenever I get a "best" or "favorite" question like this, my only response is rapid blinking. Insufficient parameters! How do I compare Dream Theater and Iron Maiden at Madison Square Garden* with David Ostwald's Gully Low Jazz Band at Birdland, or the Chieftans at Carnegie Hall with Savatage in a San Francisco waterfront dive, or Alice in Chains in a suburban Oregon high school's shoddy basketball stadium with Sooj and Vixy singing directly into my ears in a darkened train car? How do I rate the most technically outstanding TMBG show I've been to (Bowery Ballroom, 8/1/07) vs. the one that was most emotionally meaningful (the Fillmore, 7/17/02)? Impossible. I'll just say I've been blessed to enjoy a great many wonderful live shows in my time, in an enormous variety of genres and venues.

* I was quite distressed when I couldn't find the entry I was certain I'd written about this show. I thought maybe I'd deleted it by accident, so I searched my hard drive for a key phrase... and found it in my Twitter archive! At least I wasn't wrong about having written it.

Loudest Gig - See above re: Garbage. Flogging Molly was also pretty loud, but a lot more fun. I generally like loud bands as long as I have earplugs, so I don't notice their loudness, and I also tend to see them at fairly large venues. Like, I assume Iron Maiden was loud, but they were playing at MSG and it's hard even for a very loud band to sound loud in that giant cavernous space.

Seen The Most - TMBW says I've been to 22 TMBG shows. No one else comes close.

Most Surprising - TMBG had a while of picking really dreadful opening acts, so when I saw Noe Venable open for them in San Francisco, I wasn't expecting much. She was incredible. I grabbed her album from the merch table and still listen to it now and then. I also have to mention the inimitable S.J. Tucker; I did not expect to encounter a world-class musician at Lunacon.

Next Gig - I had tickets to see Marc Cohn on my birthday last June. They've been rescheduled and re-rescheduled to this July; they might be re-re-rescheduled depending on how the spring goes. But one way or another, it will happen and I will be there! I also have tickets for two TMBG shows that have been re-re-rescheduled, so one of those might happen first.

Bucket Gig - Beyoncé. I'm not enough of a die-hard fan to be happy with the seats I could afford, but she's such a magnificent performer and I'd love to be able to see her up close just once.

Would Have Loved to See - Too many to list, going back people who performed well before I was born. But one show I was invited to and regret declining is Moxy Früvous back when all my friends were into them and we didn't yet know what a shit Jian is. I think I would have enjoyed that.