Top Ten Arena Rock shows I have attended... (Ephemera Project)

Arena Rock (Ephemera Project)

The recent "Buttrock Suites Live!" show brought back the memories of the glory days of Arena Rock. Go ahead and Google that on The Internets, I can wait ... okay, I have been to way too many concerts, which explains my loss of hearing ...

The order is mostly due to the order I remembered them, so that seemed like good enough criteria for me ...

1 Iron Maiden / GNR (Seattle Center Coliseum) 6/1/88
- weeks later GNR would never open again ...

2 Iron Maiden / Queensryche / Halford (Tacoma Dome) 9/19/00
- Bruce, Geoff, and Rob under one roof ...

3 Ynqwie Malmsteen / Lita Ford (The Paramount) 5/23/88
- With Joe-Lynn Turner on vocals, Yngwie really kicked it and Lita was fun too ...

4 Bon Jovi / Skid Row (Tacoma Dome) 5/10/89
- They filmed the show for a video, I think it was "Lay Your Hands on Me" ...

5 David Bowie (Tacoma Dome) 5/21/90
- Bowie, a small band, no elaborate sets, and his greatest hits

6 Def Leppard /Tesla (Beasley Coliseum) 12/2/87
- In the Round and in the 4th row ...

7 Pearl Jam / Wallflowers / Sean Lennon (Memorial Stadium) 7/22/98
- Outdoors on a beautiful night ...

8 Sting (Seattle Center Coliseum) 5/3/93
- like the Bowie show, very stripped down ...

9 Metallica / Cult (Spokane Coliseum) 8/28/89
- over two hours of the Mighty Metallica when they only had four albums to choose from

10 Boston (Tacoma Dome) 7/31/87
- Sadly, Brad Delp recently passed

11 Duran Duran (Everett Events Center) 3/05
- I am still stunned how good a live band they were

12 Robert Plant / Georgia Sattelites (Seattle Center Coliseum) 6/19/88
- an amazing control of the stage, and he played "In The Evening" ...

13 AC/DC / White Lion (Tacoma Dome) 6/16/88
- the same weekend as the Robert Plant show

14 Queensryche / Metal Church (Mercer Arena) 12/31/88
- the first time they tried Mindcrime live

15 Queensryche (The Gorge) 5/26/95
- my only Gorge show ever ...

16 Dio / Yngwie Malmsteen (Seattle Center Coliseum) 12/31/85
- New Year's Eve with Dio, Soto (now with Journey) was with Yngwie

17 The Firm (Seattle Center Coliseum) 5/28/86
- I could reach out and touch Jimmy Page, then the wall broke

I did not include Ozzfests, Monsters of Rock, the Stones, McCartney, or a few others .... Whitesnake / Great White or Cinderella / Winger / Bulletboys or REM or Motley Crue for instance ...

(I could also include a worst of list, which would include Ratt and Kiss, but their opening acts (Poison and Anthrax, respectively) were amazing.)