50 bands...

The internet has been infuriatingly slow these last few days and appears to have brought Facebook to a grinding halt. One little gem I did find though (but haven't been able to reply on there yet) was a tag to list 50 bands you have seen live.

Cue a trawl through the memory banks after which I was surprised that I managed to count 50, but I did impose a few rules to get there. I included solo artists aswell as bands, but only counted most of them once. Personally I think Marillion with Fish were a different band than when I saw them with Steve Hogarth, likewise, the remaining Queen members at the Freddie Tribute were significantly different to the Queen & Paul Rodgers show. Having seen Quo a dozen times with several line-ups but with Rossi & Parfitt to the fore, I've only counted them the once.

Oh and I've seen so many pub bands over the years, some excellent, some shall we say less so, I've left them all off the list too. So for anyone who's interested, here they are in approx. chronological order starting from about 26 years ago (gulp) and rather like the pub bands, most were excellent although some were significantly less so...

Spider (my first gig)
Status Quo
Air Race
Meat Loaf
Chas & Dave (Quo's Farewell London Concert)
Little Steven (Quo's Farewell London Concert)
Phil Lynot & Grand Slam (Quo's Farewell London Concert)
Dave Edmunds (Quo's Farewell London Concert)
Jason & The Scorchers (Quo's End of the Road Concert)
Gary Glitter (Quo's End of the Road Concert)
Marillion (with Fish) (Quo's End of the Road Concert)
Nazareth (Quo's End of the Road Concert)
Marillion
King of the Hill
Extreme
Deacon Blue
Elkie Brooks
Tears for Fears (Silver Clef Award Winners Concert)
Cliff Richard & The Shadows (Silver Clef Award Winners Concert)
Genesis (Silver Clef Award Winners Concert)
Oleta Adams (Silver Clef Award Winners Concert)
Phil Collins (Silver Clef Award Winners Concert)
Eric Clapton (Silver Clef Award Winners Concert)
Elton John (Silver Clef Award Winners Concert)
Paul McCartney (Silver Clef Award Winners Concert)
Pink Floyd (Silver Clef Award Winners Concert)
Dire Straits (Silver Clef Award Winners Concert)
Paige & Plant (Silver Clef Award Winners Concert)
Metallica (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
Def Leppard (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
Bob Geldof (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
Spinal Tap (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
Guns N Roses (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
Roger Daltrey (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
Zucchero (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
Paul Young (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
Seal (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
Lisa Stansfield (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
David Bowie (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
Mott the Hoople (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
Annie Lennox (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
George Michael (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
Liza Minelli (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
Queen (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
Crown of Thorns
Thunder
Van Halen (with Sammy Hagar)
Bon Jovi
Queen & Paul Rodgers