best supporting bands you saw

Long-View supporting Embrace in Minneapolis, 2003.

GAME OVVVVVER SOOOOOOOOOOON! ;D

Justice before CSS
Super Furry Animals before Doves

If festivals count, Nick Cave before Blur

Would love to see that.

Some young up-and-coming band called "arctic monkeys" (what a shit name) for oasis in toronto back in 2006. They were alright. Whatever became of them?

Other standouts:

Foo fighters (acoustic) before dylan a couple of times
wilco before neil young
arcade fire before U2
ryan adams & the cardinals before oasis

Libertines before Supergrass. The Supergrass drummer was stood behind me watching them as well ;D

Festivals don't really count.

I'm not counting bands that were already established as support acts as usually they were only added to sell tickets anyway. Most mine will be from when I started going to gigs soon as I tend to just stay in the pub & miss the support acts these days.

The Music supporting Oasis 2001 Noise & Confusion tour.
I think me & Balldog were the only two people that didn't think they were shit.

The Libertines supporting Supergrass 2002, Life on Other Planets Tour
They were fucking shit tbh But still, I saw them before Sam had even heard of them!

The Datsuns, The Polyphonic Spree & The Raveonettes all supporting Supergrass at Wembley Arena. Datsuns had a few big singles at the time. Quality lineup for a gig though the sound for Raveonettes was just pure noise. I couldn't distinguish between any of the songs.

Went to see The Stands support every band on earth. Supporting Stephen Fretwell, Alfie, Jet, The Burn, Haven, The Coral, Weller & Shack

Trap2, Rifles & Go! Team I've seen support a ton of bands. BJM supporting BRMC at the Scala though they wasn't that memorable.

Dustins Bar Mitzvah supporting LUDES

Alfa 9 supporting Edgar Jones was real special. Blew me away the first time I saw them. Really thought they'd go on to be a top band. Record was kind of bland though.

Lea shores & the people's revolutionary choir supporting the tamborines. Was really into my psychedelic/jonestown type bands in '07. Saw those bands play tons of times.

Evan Dando & the horrors supporting J&MC

Cribs supporting the sex pistols. Cribs shit 'em. Ryan also pointed out me and sam being the biggest dons by chucking his pint at us. Cribs supporting Malkmus, they did a b-sides set was sweet.

king khan & bbq show supporting black lips, both bands were amazing that night.

The past couple of years I reckon i see the support once in every 5 or 6 gigs.

I saw Bloc party supporting Tramp Attack in a room with 5 people once.

Glasvegas, Kasabian and Prodigy supporting Oasis at Slane Castle 2009

Does the Japan Benefit gig count?

ive seen some brilliant support acts over the years but not counting festivals as thats RIDICULOUS, here are some of the best...

british sea power supporting pulp in 2002

the hokum clones supporting the coral in 2002

the raveonettes and kasabian supporting the cooper temple clause in 2003

the research supporting the go team in 2005

jeffrey lewis supporting quasi in 2006

micachu and the shapes supporting graham coxon in 2009

adam green supporting the cribs in 2009

islet supporting los campesinos in 2010

yuck supporting times new viking in 2010

crocodiles supporting a place to bury strangers in 2010


overall though i think the magic of a good support band is rarer these days than when i first started going to gigs. firstly because im probably a bit more cynical these days and it takes more to impress me but also because of the internet. i think we find out about bands earlier in their careers these days and also when you find out who the support is its easy to just youtube 30 seconds of them and decide whether or not theyre worth leaving the pub early for. when i first started gigging id be there the second the doors opened and watching every second of every band all full of enthusiasm.

Alright, just turned the external hard drive, gonna trawl through my GIGOGRAPHY and see what gems i've witnessed.

Yep. great point JP. Definitely the enthusiasm starts to die off. My early gigs I'd always be in there well before the first support.
Sitting through a shit support act these days is often too much to take. Unless their tunes sound real good chances are I'd rather have another pint or two in the pub.

Support/headliner

Oasis/U2
The Music/Coldplay
The Love Language/Camera Obscura
Young Buffalo/Chief
Shit Robot/LCD Soundsystem
The Antlers/The National

Theres more, but those scream out.

Agree with jp and karl, definitely times have changed and we go to gigs with already a solid idea of who's worth watching and who's not. When I started going to gigs there was a strong interest in support bands cause you never knew, they could have easily turned out to be the evening's highlight.

Some of the best support bands I've ever seen were people who could easy headline in England but did international tours with bigger bands. I remember seeing The Coral supporting Coldplay and The Zutons supporting Muse, both in Rome. TSOOL were very good aswell.

Another artist I liked was american songwriter Adem opening for Vetiver. He played a nice, intimate set. The Stands have always been my favourite though, seen them opening for Shack and Jet.

One funny thing about when I saw The Stands opening for Shack in Oxford was that there was another band playing before The Stands, and it was (by that time, still unknown) Keane. I watched one song by them and said to myself "That's the worst band ever and there's no chance they'll ever do anything". Couple years later they were headlining in international festivals. Sigh!

Kate Nash supporting Ben Kweller

That bird supporting Thurston Moore was pretty memorable.

Fuck yeah! What was her name again, Leah something?

Heather Leigh Murray

YEAH!!

What a talent!