I was about to post in the “Most miserable looking live band” thread, and realized I don’t want to revisit those nights in my head. I’d rather dwell on the nights when the performer was engaged with the audience, fun was had and witty comments were made. As was a connection to the audience.
I’ve been to a lot of performances that were basically listening to the band’s latest album. I feel let down, but then I realize I got spoiled early by a friend dragging me 100 miles to see a young Springsteen (who I’d never heard of). Sure, he rocked hard for over three hours (and I date my hearing loss to that night). But he laughed and chatted with us, and at one point sat down on the edge of the stage and told a story from his childhood.
Fast forward forty years, and I finally got to see Neil Finn at a festival. His band was his wife and sons, and without Crowded House he seemed looser. He talked a lot, joked and made fun of his boy Elroy (who was trying to fit his new Theremin into a song… Neil stopped the song and Elroy had to do his electronic music solo, and kind of gave up). Oh, and later Neil got all of us to wave and shout at the passengers on a tram til they waved back.
But for authentic dad-joke banter, how can you not love Chris Isaak walking out on stage in full rhinestone cowboy gear and drawling, “Y’know, little hint here… When you see someone dressed like this, it’s your assurance that you are in for an entire evening of Adequate Country Music!”
John Sebastian was just great. He played in Memorial Chapel at my college and came on stage looking around wonderously. “I never played in a chapel before.*” And started playing “Chapel of Love.” It was amazing.
Loudon Wainwright III is a great performers in concert - very funny and entertaining.
For a group, it’s the J. Geils Band. Peter Wolf did a lot of patter leading into every song and put everything into every note he sang. Magic Dick was a great showman. J. Geils just played without much fuss, but when he did a solo, you couldn’t take your eyes off him.
*I found out recently that the Lovin’ Spoonful played there, so it was hyperbole.
I know this is pretty much the exact opposite of what you’re after, but I was always a big fan of the way that the band Fear engaged with the audience between songs. (They basically taunted the crowd and/or told dirty jokes in a drunken drawl.) I mean, it wasn’t really like friendly or positive or anything, but man oh man was it clear that every one was very, very alive at that moment.
For the type of thing you mean tho, Jamey Jasta is the masta (Hatebreed) (of positivity). He pumps a crowd up, pumps each person in the crowd up, and then keeps that increase in intensity going into each song. He’s been great at this since he was 15 and all he’s done is honed it to a perfect razor edge.
Jimmy Buffet used to do quite a bit of storytelling and audience interaction back in the day; there’s reasons he got so many crazy diehard fans besides the fun songs.
You don’t know “connection to the audience” until you’ve had undead Hitler’s cum in your face or robotic space pope’s arms ripped off and had q double barrel blast of blood in your eyes. Oh, and then there is the crack-addicted t-rex brains and blood in your hair…
We saw Michael Franti & Spearhead a few years ago and wow was he pumped. At one point he was walking through the crowd and he stopped by us to sing a while. He danced with my gf and hugged me. He was the sweatiest person I’ve ever hugged. I was totally into the music, but still managed to feel a tiny bit disgusted. It was a great show.
(Mumble) decades ago my girlfriend wanted to spend New Years Eve in Las Vegas. I forget which casino but the headliner was Doc Severinsen. It was… adequate and I won’t say he was miserable-looking but it was obviously just a job. Perhaps he wasn’t feeling well.
The opener, though, was Tony Orlando (no Dawn) and he lit up the place. Bantering with the audience including a good-natured heckler, telling an on-the-set story about a TV movie he’d just completed shooting and pretty much making the evening worthwhile.
I’ve seen some great live shows, but in terms of connection with the audience it’s hard to beat New Orleans rock band Cowboy Mouth. Drummer and frontman Fred LeBlanc’s energy could power a small town, and at some point every audience is asked – nay, commanded – to crouch down really small and then jump up with a primal scream. You don’t just go to a Cowboy Mouth show; you *experience *a Cowboy Mouth show.
That’s exactly my answer, Misnomer. The connection to the audience I’ve seen Cowboy Mouth gives is astonishing. From stopping the show after a stage dive to sing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ to the squished girl - and hauling the guy onstage to apologize - to buying beers for people on the fly, a Cowboy Mouth show is a spectacle of good times where the band and the crowd are pretty close.
Believe it or not when I saw U2 before they went huge Bono was like that, too. You could tell he personally needed to connect with the audience and hear them as much as they wanted to hear him.
Arlo Guthrie - honestly, a lot of the folkie types - interact with their audience a lot, too. Personal requests, people on stage, asking questions and telling stories has a strong tradition in the folk world.
His entire show is him telling stories, seemingly interspersed with a few songs. He even jokes about it, appearing to be starting a song and then stopping - “Hey, that reminds me of a story…”
Barenaked Ladies are pretty good when it come to telling stories and connecting with the audience. The past two times I’ve seen them, they had a comedian as an opener, and different band members would wander onstage to joke with him, or play an instrument in support of the jokes he was telling. Lots of audience engagement as well.
I popped in to say Barenaked Ladies too. I’ve seen them once at an arena and it seemed like a much much smaller show. I saw them some 15 years later, this time at an outdoor stage, without Steve, and they still had great banter and made it seem very small. They talked a lot about hanging out in Cleveland for a day.
Like the Neil Finn story from the OP, BNL was performing on a stage near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River. They thought it was super cool that ships were going by behind them. They really wanted to get a ship to blow its horn so they stopped the show when one came by so we could all wave and get the passengers to wave and the ship to blow its horn. It worked!
the Mountain Goats are my easy answer for this one. The leader, John Darnielle, is a fascinatingly charming and engaging guy. He does a lot of stage banter about how songs were written or experiences he’s had that really bring the songs to life, and he commands a crowd extremely impressively. Every concert is unique, and he’s really known for mixing in obscure deep cuts with the “hits” and he’ll often talk about how he chooses what to play. And he writes the kind of albums where every random track off every album is SOMEBODY’S favorite, so it feels like there’s always a reaction in the room. One of the first shows I saw ended with the whole crowd screaming along to a song I’d never heard and only found out later is an unreleased track.
I’ve seen him play raucous punk clubs with mosh pits, large theaters with captive audiences, and, once, unamplified with an acoustic guitar walking around a music store with the audience sitting on the floor. He can completely own every space.
