There has recently been quite a bit of talk around Philadelphia about how the Spectrum, a leading concert venue for decades (as well as home to the Flyers and '76ers for years) is going to be demolished and replaced with something, the likes of which I'm sure are extremely important. Dan DeLuca of the Philadelphia Inquirer has a story this week about his favorite shows at the Spectrum and his all-time best--a December 9, 1980 performance (the day after John Lennon's murder) by Bruce Springsteen--seems to be gaining consensus among many of his readers as perhaps the all-time great musical night at the Spectrum.

I missed that show and, in fact, never saw Springsteen at the Spectrum (though he keeps popping up at U2 concerts that I see). However, I have seen many shows there and I'm going to list the Top 10 for you in just a moment. First, a couple of notes:

--The top four in my Spectrum Top 10 come from a list of my 20 favorite concerts ever that I posted here on 6/30/07. It seemed to make sense that the Spectrum shows on that list would be my top shows on this list.

--The person I saw most at the Spectrum, Elton John, does not make my Top Ten list. I saw at least eight Elton John shows at the Spectrum from 1984 through 1988 or '89, and they all had good moments, but the '80s can clearly be seen as Elton John's creative low point, so the shows were inevitably dragged down by the artistic slump he was on during that time. Fortunately, I saw him one time prior to all those Spectrum shows--at the Mann Music Center in 1982--and that show was a classic (#19 on my Top 20 list!).

--It would have been nice to spread the love a little bit and not repeat artists in my Top Ten list, but that can't be helped. These are pretty conclusively my ten favorite Spectrum shows.

--In addition to having seen concerts at the Spectrum, that's also where I graduated from college! Plus, I saw at least one '76s game there and went to the circus, which was probably the first time I was in the Spectrum.

--Finally, we have a long history in my family of posing for pictures at the Kate Smith statue outside the Spectrum. Kate, for those of you unfamiliar with this curious bit of Philadelphia sports history, became a Stanley Cup-inducing "good luck charm" for the Philadelphia Flyers by singing "God Bless America" before games.

Jimmy and I went with my mom and sister last Saturday to see the Philadelphia Soul, our arena football team, in the final playoff game. They won, earning the right to play in the Arena Bowl in a few weeks. It was very cool, since I've never seen a sports team "clinch" anything in person (few people who grow up around Philadelphia have that experience, come to think of it). After the game we walked over to the Spectrum and took these photos of us and Kate:


A Soul helmet for Kate


Lisa and Kate, with a Soul helmet in each of Kate's hands


Kate, Rich and Jimmy

I think Philadelphians should give some very serious thought to what will become of Kate once the Spectrum comes crashing down.

And now, on to the list. Let's rock, Spectrum style!

10. Aerosmith/Guns’n’Roses, 1987/88. It was practically a toss-up between this and the Beastie Boys/Public Enemy show, but Aerosmith and G’n’R both rocked hard this night and of course, like everyone else, we “saw” the parking lot scuffle that Axl Rose had with police prior to the show. No, really, we did.

9. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with Bob Dylan. This was during the “True Confessions” tour in the mid-1980s (Jimmy currently wears the t-shirt I bought that night on a regular basis). I’ve seen Petty at the Spectrum at least three times and I’m not even sure if this was the best of those shows (the shows around the time of Full Moon Fever may have been better; I’m not sure this was particularly the best period for either Petty or Dylan), but it was a good, rockin’ show that Dad and I saw together, along with my friend Joe.

8. One of the Willie Nelson shows, early ‘80s. Nelson filled the Spectrum at least twice at the height of his commercial success and my family was there both times, along with the entire population of southern Delaware. I have seen enjoyable Willie Nelson shows in recent years, but back in those days, he was a live force to be reckoned with. Also, I believe it was at one of these Willie Nelson shows that opening act Juice Newton waved at me, though my dad often countered that she was actually waving at him. But I was the one who had just screamed “JUICE!” at the top of my lungs. Or maybe that was Dad, as well.

7. David Bowie, 1983. While the creative direction Bowie took in the mid-‘80s turned out to be a dead end (unless you’re into glass spiders), at this particular moment (the “Serious Moonlight” tour), it was working out pretty well for him and he did look pretty good in those suits. We actually had tickets behind the stage, which wasn’t great, but they were, on the other hand, close to the stage. Plus, when Bowie did “Space Oddity”/”Ashes to Ashes,” he climbed into this big clear plastic prop and looked right back at us. Of course, he was looking directly at me and peered straight into my soul. You’d think for that moment alone, this concert would rank higher on this list for me.
Just a few days later, I saw Conway Twitty at King’s Dominion, thus completing my “Bowie & Conway—Two Legends in Four Days” tour. That rocked.

6. R.E.M., 1986. To me, this show, in support of the Lifes Rich Pageant album, is the missing link between the murky and mysterious 1985 R.E.M. concert for Fables of the Reconstruction that I saw at the Tower Theater and the wild abandon of the 1987 supporting Document. The elements of the band’s more extroverted side were in place, but the murkiness remained as well. Plus, they shambled through a version of Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” which is as close as I ever got to one of Springsteen’s own marathon Spectrum shows.

5. Bob Dylan, 11/17/01. This one probably should have made my all-time Top 20. It is a special concert memory for me as it is the last of the handful of shows that my dad and I saw together. Dad was not a huge fan of the concert-goer, but he always seemed to enjoy the ones we saw together. Dylan was “on” that night, performing a transcendent “Tangled Up In Blue,” as well as “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You,” from his classic (at least to Dad and me) Nashville Skyline album.

4 (20). Prince, Thanksgiving week, 1984 I saw this show with Lisa and some others, in total “nosebleed section” seats. It was a mighty impressive show, of course, but this was during the height of the hugely-hyped Purple Rain tour, so the Prince mystique was what was on display that night as much as the music. From a musical standpoint, I think Prince got even better than this live (hint, hint!).

Interestingly, earlier that week I had seen Culture Club rock thousands of fans at the Spectrum as well. Boy George really didn’t want to hurt us—he wanted to entertain us. Sadly, even at that point, the days of Culture Club rocking thousands of fans were numbered.

3 (15). David Bowie, 1990/91. Went with Greg and Kim. I had already seen Bowie twice before: during the aforementioned "Serious Moonlight" concert and at the Vet, touring behind his worst album, Never Let Me Down (the infamous "Glass Spider" tour). However, on a purely musical level, this early 90s show, which happened around the time the Sound + Vision box set was released, is by far my favorite of the three shows. Everything about this concert was stripped down, with the focus being on the strength of Bowie’s catalog, but it was no mere nostalgia trip. There was a brief intermission and my favorite part of the show occurred as it was ending, when Bowie and his small band (including guitarist Adrian Belew) sauntered casually onstage and began playing “Sound and Vision,” (one of my Bowie favorites) with the house lights still up.

2 (2). Prince, 1988. As mentioned earlier, what I remember most about the Purple Rain tour is the mythological hype that surrounded it. What I remember about this concert, which I attended with Rick and his friend Steve, is the music. Prince was touring behind his album, Lovesexy, but he had also recorded a notorious record, The Black Album, that had been shelved before its release. This in-the-round concert was divided into two sections: during the first, Prince played Black Album material and many of his other “nasty” songs. Then he and his audience (as well as Sheila E. and Patti LaBelle, both of him performed with Prince that night) got all redeemed in the second half of the show, which focused on Lovesexy and his other more “spiritual” songs.

1 (1). R.E.M., 1987. Several incidents conspired on this Friday night in 1987 to earn this show the top spot in both my Spectrum Top Ten and my all-time Top Twenty concert list. R.E.M. had recently released their most rocking and politically-charged album to date, Document. The world situation at that moment was quite turbulent and Reagan’s second term was unraveling. We were two days away from a stock market meltdown. I was attending the concert with my two best friends at the time, Rick and Greg, along with what seemed to be half the college student population of Philadelphia.

Most important though was R.E.M.’s performance that night, which quite simply felt unhinged, like the concert could go flying off the rails at any given moment. Lead singer Michael Stipe had dialed up the most extroverted version of himself for the show and the collision of the band’s political leanings with the global situation at that moment made from some explosive music.

The show had everything: Stipe told wacky stories and R.E.M. played right-on-the-money versions of the new songs (including an amazing “It’s The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”). They reached all the way back to the debut EP, Chronic Town, for a song or two. They even played “Radio Free Europe,” after rocking their way through a cover of Lou Gramm’s “Midnight Blue” and a line or two or Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love.”

Of course, these things are subjective. As it happens, this show that I hold above every other concert I’ve ever seen, at the Spectrum or elsewhere, received a thoroughly mediocre review in the next day’s Philadelphia Inquirer. (In addition to the R.E.M. shows on this list, I also saw them at the Spectrum on two other occasions, in 1989 and in 1995. Those shows were fine, just not Top Ten material.)

Other Spectrum shows (as best as I can remember):

Rush/Blue Oyster Cult
Duran Duran (twice?)
Billy Idol (twice)
Sting
Alabama
Tom Petty/Del Fuegos/Georgia Satellites
Billy Joel
John Cougar Mellencamp
Elton John (eight or nine times)
Tina Turner (twice, including once with Wang Chung as the openers!)
Roger Waters (twice, once with Eric Clapton on lead guitar)
Deep Purple
Van Halen (first Sammy tour)
David Lee Roth
Beastie Boys/Public Enemy
Morris Day
Barenaked Ladies