I love going to concerts. There's something about seeing your favourite band perform live and feeling the energy of the crowd. Not all concerts are created equally and not all concerts come together like you hoped it would, but the best ones leave a mark on your memory forever.
I've put together a list of the best concerts I've been to.
This was hands down the best concert I've ever been to. The Cure has been one of my favourite bands since I was 3 or 4 years old and this concert lived up to everything I could have hoped for. The best part was that they were on stage for about 3 1/2 hours, which is unheard of. They played all of their hits and then some, which is exactly what I want from a band that has been around for as long as the Cure has been.
Coldplay is one of my favourite bands to see live. So much so that I've been to five of their concerts. The best one was the first show I went to back in 2003 at Budweiser Stage (formerly the Molson Amphitheatre) during the A Rush of Blood to the Head tour. It was during the SARS outbreak and instead of cancelling the concert, Coldplay went on with the show and it was amazing.
Like the Cure, U2 has been one of my favourite bands since I was little. I've seen them in concert twice, but the best one was during the Joshua Tree 30th Anniversary Tour in 2017, which I went to with my sister Katherine. What made this particular concert memorable was that the band played all the songs from the Joshua Tree, the album most fans consider to be their best.
Lilith Fair
Lilith Fair, the all female music festival started by Canadian Sarah McLachlan, was the first concert I ever went to when I was 15. I went with my brother Donovan while he lived in Houston, Texas. This is when he taught me two key things when you go to any concert: the encore is ALWAYS the best part and you NEED to buy a t-shirt at every concert. Years later, the encore is my favourite part of a concert and I buy a t-shirt at every show.
In 2016, when the Tragically Hip announced Gord Downie's terminal brain cancer diagnosis and subsequent farewell tour, I knew I needed to go. Not because I'm a huge Tragically Hip fan, but because I knew the experience would be unlike any other concert experience I've had. Was it sad? Of course, but it was also beautiful to watch a whole country come together the way we did to see the Hip perform one last time.
