#2 Best Concert in Boston Ever I am not sure that I have ever been to a concert in Boston.  It's possible that I never will.  However, if I had a time machine (or similar device, potion, etc) I would definitely head to Boston for September 23, 1991.  Specifically, I would (upon exiting the time machine or similar device) take a cab (or the T, I tend to favor mass transit where practical) to the Axis rock club.  Why, you ask?  For a little rock n roll concert of couse.  Who might be headlining that night?  Well, none other than Bullet LaVolta.  Bullet LaVolta?  Oh yes, apparently they were once a great band.  Oh, but I would actually be more interested in the two opening bands, you might be more familiar with them: Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins.

Yes, it's true.  According to the Boston Phoenix, which lists the top 40 concerts in Boston history, the very night BEFORE the release of Nirvana's Nevermind (oft-cited Best Rock Album of All Time) those two historic bands opened for Bullet. (Watch a few minutes of Nirvana's set from that night here).  The Phoenix says:

People were flying through the air. Every 15 or 20 seconds another body would be propelled over the crowd's heads as if squeezed from a tube, be caught, and then slip back safely into the masses. There were too many people for anyone to fall straight to the floor. And it wasn't only the audience. From the first chord Cobain was like a super ball — he seemed to ricochet off the floor into the air, off the audience back to the stage, off his amp to the front, and back again. His feet hardly touched the ground. Yet somehow every song came through with teeth-gritting perfection.

Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan was also a commanding presence. The Pumpkins played so loud their set had a hurricane-like force. But there was a deep emotional resonance embedded in that wall of sound — an annex of what Jimi Hendrix called "the electric church."

  ¶ 2:17 PM