Here we are at the top ten live shows I saw last year. Each one gets more intense. Read on!
#10: Osees – Hotel Vegas, Levitation Austin, November 02, 2024
Osees have been doing a four-night residency at Hotel Vegas during Levitation Music Festival for a couple years now. We caught them on night three, and the crowd was wild, possibly fired up by the spiked humidity and all the booze. I lost count of the number of crowd surfers at this show.
#9: The Damned – Concord Music Hall, Chicago, IL, June 02, 2024
I was not going to miss this tour. This was the lineup of The Damned I discovered in the early 1990s by seeing them on The Young Ones. For lack of a better expression, this is “my” version of The Damned. It was a great show in a packed venue that pretty much moshed non-stop for the last third of the set.
#8: Deap Vally – Thalia Hall, Chicago, IL, February 10, 2024
Speaking of shows I wasn’t going to miss, I sure wasn’t going to miss Deap Vally’s final (?) tour. The VIP meet and greet before their powerful set was also a must. I’d seen them twice before and somehow managed to meet them each time, so going out on the same note for me was a no-brainer. The were only five of us there, and they were gracious and wonderful as always. Their set included playing Sistrionix in its entirety and then a wild run through of other tunes. They left nothing on the table by the end.
#7: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Lincoln Hall, Chicago, IL, February 22, 2024
When I saw Pigsx7 on their first U.S. tour, I knew right away that they were a band I would see at any opportunity. So, I caught their second show ever in Chicago and was again floored by the massive sound they create. It’s difficult to describe the power that hits you at one of their shows, and the crowd was mostly people who hadn’t been at their first show, so it was fun to see a lot of people having their unprepared minds blown.
#6: The Black Angels – Stubb’s BBQ, Levitation Austin, October 31, 2024
I hadn’t seen The Black Angels in too long, and this was my girlfriend’s favorite time seeing them. She’d fallen in love with their sound, so we managed to get up close and listen to them play Phosphene Dream in its entirety and then another long set of stuff from across their catalogue. They never fail to impress me, and they’re the band I’ve seen the most live (over a dozen times now, for certain).
Who’s in the top 5? Two bands I saw twice, another one of my girlfriend’s favorites, a three-hour-plus show, and another band I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to see.
Keep your mind open.
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