I’m talking about in their heyday …
The Beatles
Elvis
The Doors
Jimi Hendrix
Janis Joplin
Mamas and Papas
Queen
Gene Vincent
Buddy Holly
Ted Nugent
The Beach Boys
The Animals
James Brown
The Blues Brothers
Sam and Dave
Otis Redding
Chicago
Blood, Sweat and Tears
Ten Years After
Santana
The Ramones
The Allman Brothers
Bob Wills
Alice Cooper
Blue Cheer
Grand Funk Railroad
I’m sure I missed a couple hundred others. 
Pink Floyd w/ Roger Waters.
I’d sell organs to have been able to see that. Well, not vital ones, at least 
As I have mentioned on these boards before, once I had free tickets to go to a Janis Joplin concert in Chicago - I was and am a big fan. But the same night, there was some party (that I no longer recall nor remember why it seemed more important) so I gave the tickets away and said, “I’ll see her next time.”
There was no next time as she died shortly thereafter.
I could still kick myself in the butt for not going.
Did I learn? Nope.
Also had tickets to go see Led Zepplin in Berlin and then decided not to go. Again said, “I’ll see them next time they are here.”
I think those Berlin shows were the last, if not one of the last, venues they ever played together.
The original Allmans are on my list, too. I could give you dates if you wanted.
Bob Marley
Hendrix, especially the in-between lineup with Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox
Alice in Chains
Nirvana
Ray Charles
Zappa
The Beatles - especially the rooftop show
Benny Goodman w/Charlie Christian
Any of the Miles Davis or John Coltrane groups, I don’t know the different lineups anyhow.
Oh jeez, how many bluesmen… Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Son House, Robert Johnson…
The first week of my Freshman year of highschool there was a concert on a school night and I wasn’t allowed to go because it was all the way downtown (we lived in the 'burbs) and it would have ended late and my mom had no interest in driving and picking up, and it was a schoolnight anyway, and the first week of school.
This was over 15 years ago and I still regret not going.
One concert, one night at the Spectrum in Philadelphia.
The line-up:
The The
(touring Mind Bomb)
The Pixies
(touring Doolittle)
Love and Rockets
(touring Love and Rockets)
The Cure
(touring Disintegration)
Montery Pop Festival…
Jimi, Janis, The Who, Mommas and the Poppas…
Wish I coulda seen a Beatles concert, but from what I’ve seen there was no way to actually Hear them, there. I’d settle for a ticket in a time machine to go back to Hamburg and watch them play 8 hours a day…
Alice in Chains comes to mind immediately.
When I was at Penn State, Pearl Jam and the Smashing Pumpkins opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the gymnasium, and nobody went. The Peppers weren’t big yet, and the other two were unknowns :smack:
The latter four bands put on an excellent show in their heyday.
My biggest impression of the Doors concert ('70 or '71?) was Morrison drinking Coors.
I would have loved to have seen Van Morrison in his heyday.
The Jam
The Clash
The Who (early)
The Kinks
The Sex Pistols
The Music Machine
Elvis in '56
Rose Tattoo
AC/DC with Bon Scott
I’m sure there’s others, but I can’t remember right now.
I mentioned Jonathan Richman and Kirsty MacColl over in the thread on concerts we have seen; somehow, I keep finding out about Jonathan Richman gigs near me a day or two after they happen, and when Kirsty MacColl overcame her stage fright enough to do a tour in 1993-4, I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to go with me, and the night of the show (November 4, 1993) there was a torrential downpour going on, and the parking situation at the venue (Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, in Little Five Points) meant that there was a good chance I’d have to walk several blocks in the rain, and I just decided that I didn’t want to spend the whole evening drenched to the skin :smack: .
The list of groups I’d like to have seen in their prime would go on for days, but would certainly include:
Big Star
The Clash
The Jam
The Pogues
Ducks Deluxe
Brinsley Schwarz
The Records
The Dream Syndicate
The Three O’Clock
The Rain Parade
Wreckless Eric
The Swimming Pool Q’s
Guadalcanal Diary
Link Wray
Marshall Crenshaw
Shoes
The Replacements
I’ve seen most of the bands I’m interested in seeing live - exceptions from my early listening days in the 70s are
Curved Air - I tried twice to see them and failed both times.
Redbone - what can I say! I was young, and I liked them! They toured here once here before I was going to gigs.
And, from the 80s
The Triffids from Australia - they played several times that I could have gone to, but I didn’t bother listening to them until, as it turned out, they were about to split, and they never came back…
Inertia has kept me from seeing Neil Young or Van Morrison but I feel I should have seen them by now, so I’ll probably get to them eventually… typing that make me think that Them would have been good!
Oh, and Bunny Wailer, Keith Hudson and Burning Spear!
Guns and Roses back in “the day”. I was a little young (11 or 12) when they were first touring in the mid-80’s so I wasn’t able to go (or rather, wasn’t allowed). My husband is a few years older than me, though, and got to see them when they FIRST came to DC. Even at the age of 15, he said he knew he was in the midst of greatness. He’s seen hundreds upon hundreds of live acts since then, and said nothing EVER compared to the first time he saw GNR live.
Elvis Presley at any point in his career. My parents saw him in the early to mid 70’s, when he was in the fat, bloated period and said he still knocked their socks off.
I’m so lame. I could list the Beatles in the late 60’s. I could say the Rat Pack in Vegas. I could name off some greats like Elvis in '68, Woodstock, The Stones in the early 70s, or Johnny Cash’s prision concerts. Those answers are at the top of the list.
But truthfully, I wish I had seen that big 1992 Guns & Roses/Mettalica concert!
God, I wish I was alive to see Band of Gypsies. I don’t think they’ll be doing a reunion show:(.
If I could time-travel, one of the things I’d do would be to attend the all-night jam sessions in Harlem jazz clubs in the '40s, when visionaries like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Theolonius Monk, and Max Roach were inventing the revolutionary form of jazz called bebop. Just to see Yardbird Parker playing in his prime would be like a dream come true. I’d also catch Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli at a Paris hot jazz club in the '30s, and then take in all the big bands of the day (especially Count Basie and Duke Ellington). Oh yes, must see Ella Fitzgerald too, maybe fronting Ellington or Chick Webb’s bands!
I’d love to have seen the Pogues, the Ramones, the Clash, Tom Waits, U2, the Smiths, Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, the Stray Cats and/or the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Queen, Morphine, Portishead… luckily, it’s not too late to catch a few of them some day.
Good call on the Johnny Cash prison concerts, watsonwil! I’d check that out too, but preferably not as an inmate!
Peter Gabriel-era Genesis. Almost any of those must have been mindblowing…
The famous performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony where a musician had to turn him around so he could see the audience cheering, he was so deaf.
And The Beatles.
Despite being a huge fan, I have no desire to have seen the Beatles live. Maybe in Hamburg or the Cavern before they were huge. Afterwards, it just seems like it would have been an annoying experience - poor sound quality, short sets, screaming girls, and nothing but the #1 hits, even in later years. They gave up touring for a reason.
And the rooftop show - I have a bootleg of it. It’s nothing special. They go through the ones that made it to Let it Be 2 or 3 times, do a godawful version of Two of Us, toss off some covers and works-in-progress, and go inside.
Some picks of mine:
The Miles Davis Nonet/ “Birth of the Cool” Band: They only performed one two-week live gig. I have a CD including radio excerpts from that gig (not very good, as sound quality goes), but I would very much like to see it.
The Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra: According to many who saw them perform, they gave the finest show of any of the big bands, but there’s very little left (IIRC, one short subject and a cameo in a feature film) to show for it. I’d like to see if the reports were correct.
Django Reinhardt, Bix Beiderbecke, Charlie Parker: Three legendary jazz musicians with little film evidence of their work.
A visit to New Orleans, c.1900: Just to conclude some debates as to what the musicians of the era were playing.
Any of the great classical composers either conducting their own works or performing them: Self-evident.
Any musician of note in any field of whom there is little to no surviving film of their work: Again, the reason why is obvious.