Oh man, this is a tough one. I think my first concert experience was when my dad drove us out to the desert behind the Silver Bowl to listen to the audio bleed from the US concert from their Zoo TV tour. Which, according to the internet, would’ve been in November of 1992. It was a kind of a magic experience, sitting in the back of my dad’s Bronco, listening to the songs echo across the desert at night. This was Achtung Baby-era, before U2 had completely crawled up their own collective ass to fester and die.
The first “real” concert is a little trickier to pin down. I’m thinking it was this Pearl Jam show from 1993, where a group of us drove from the Las Vegas desert to the California desert to see them on an old polo grounds. I remember a dude asked me if I had any “papers” and I was really confused because I was/still am a huge square.
Best concert ever was probably seeing the Flaming Lips at the tail end of their Soft Bulletin tour (again, way before they started their long trek into the Inner Asshole) at the El Rey Theater in Hollywood. At the time, the schtick of people in animal costumes and confetti cannons and fake blood and psychedelic rear projections came across as fresh and charming and heartfelt, like a shoestring-budget Pink Floyd show. They also had this thing where they were renting out these portable FM radios that were tied to the soundboard and were supposed to play the higher registered sounds that weren’t being produced over the PA and it sounded incredible. I left the theater just feeling so happy and positive. It was an experience that stuck with me, and not just because I was covered in confetti for days.
I remember seeing them at the Hollywood Bowl a year or two after on Cake’s Unlimited Sunshine Tour and feeling like it had sort of become a gimmick instead of a fun thing. And now? Well, I don’t think I’ll be seeing them any time soon.
Runner up would be seeing Elliot Smith on his Figure 8 tour. Grandaddy opened for them in support of The Sophtware Slump and they were really good. Smith was a little spacey, and, according to this report, it was mainly due to the audience being a bunch of dicks, which is typical for a Vegas crowd. It was at The Sanctuary (RIP), so it was an intimate space, so seeing him there, like 10 feet in front of you, laughing and smiling between songs or when his bass player would try and fail to land a harmony, it was really nice.
BONUS ANSWER: The worst concert I have ever attended – HANDS DOWN – was a Grateful Dead show, again at the Silver Bowl. Like I said, I’m a straight-edge-type who is terrified of drinking/drugs/dirty hippies, but at the time, I was hanging out with stoners who talked me into going, and I thought, “What the heck? Maybe I’m a Deadhead deep down inside.” The mixture of outdoor concert + Las Vegas summer + terrible music (they had like a 10-minute drum solo!) + 90s hippie kids + not being on drugs was the perfect storm of awful. The parking lot was hilarious, though. Best brownies I’ve ever had.
Note: Dylan is awesome.
Second Note: I saw Elliott Smith on the UK leg of the Figure 8 tour, and he was fucking spectacular. Quasi and… someone else…? were supporting, and it was a grand show.