‘Every song was crisp and fully formed’Changing music … Jerry Harrison and David Byrne of Talking Heads perform at the Rock Garden on 13 May 1977. Photograph: Gus Stewart/RedfernsTalking Heads, the Rock Garden, London, 13 May 1977Talking Heads broke off from a European tour supporting Ramones in 1977 to play two shows at the Rock Garden, a small basement club on the Covent Garden Piazza, now the site of an Apple Store. After an apprenticeship as a three-piece (David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz), the band had recently added a fourth member, Jerry Harrison, and were close to completing work on their debut album.In London, every song was crisp and fully formed, with Psycho Killer as the set’s devastating climax. The audience included Brian Eno, who invited them to his flat the next day for a meeting that would lead to collaborations on More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music, Remain in Light and (as a Byrne/Eno project) My Life in the Bush of Ghosts: a series of albums that changed music. Richard WilliamsThe sun shone out of their behindsThe Smiths, The Refectory, University of Leeds, 29 February 1984I remember what I wore: a 1950s charity shop raincoat, traditional black slacks and a “grandad” shirt from a vintage shop, dyed brown in a pan in our kitchen. This was topped off with an atrocious attempt at a quiff. So many of us scrambled to adopt the Smiths’s restyled retro chic because we wanted to be in their gang.In the nine months since their first single, Hand in Glove, they’d swept through John Peel/NME culture and into the Top 20. That night, stage right, Johnny Marr resembled a prettier Keith Richards as cascading riffs tumbled out of him. Morrissey, wearing a big girl’s blouse, whipped the stage with the microphone lead to emphasise every “crack on the head!” during the then-unreleased Barbarism Begins at Home. They were progressing so fast that even while touring the debut album, they played a song intended for the follow-up. Dave SimpsonShambolically appealingAbout to change the face of rock … Nirvana at the London Astoria on 3 December 1989. Photograph: Steve Double/Camera PressNirvana, London Astoria, 3 December 1989In later years, I liked to tell people that I was one of the first people in Britain to buy Nirvana’s debut album, Bleach. True enough – my copy was on white vinyl, part of the initial batch of 300 copies – but I tactfully left out the fact that I thought it was … all right. I didn’t dislike it: I recognised that About a Girl was fantastic. But I didn’t love it the way I loved their labelmates Mudhoney’s debut, Superfuzz Bigmuff.Likewise their show at London’s Astoria, supporting Mudhoney and Tad. Nirvana were good, noisy and shambolically appealing. Broken guitar strings forced them to temporarily abandon their set and jam a version of I Wanna Be Your Dog. People stage-dived and they smashed their equipment up at the end: all splendid chaotic fun.But if you’d told me that night I’d just witnessed a show that would be deemed historically important – about which articles would be written and which would be cherrypicked for tracks on a posthumous live album, because Nirvana were 18 months away from literally changing the face of rock music – I’d have been genuinely baffled. Then, if you looked over 18, I’d have asked you to go to the bar for me. Alexis PetridisEggsactly maybe‘Pproperly loud, occasionally ponderous’ … Oasis at the 100 Club on 24 March 1994. Photograph: Paul Slattery/Camera PressOasis, 100 Club, London, 24 March 1994“At the end of the day, there isn’t another band worth frying an egg on!” This unlikely observation came from Liam Gallagher, leaving his brother Noel so bewildered he exhorted me to turn my dictaphone back on. “Frying an egg on?” he said in a “What is he like?” voice.We were wrapping up an interview and, time being tight, I took up the offer of a ride in their van with lots of scouse mates. As we entered the 100 Club by the tradesman’s entrance, a harassed security guard, seeing the tiny basement venue suddenly half full, said: “Where have you lot come from?”I’d love to say Oasis were incendiary but, really, it was like most of their gigs: properly loud, occasionally ponderous, with Liam always compelling. Afterwards, I knocked over a table of drinks backstage and lived to tell the tale. My most memorable gig or the most messy? Both – and definitely worth frying an egg on. Martin HorsfieldKevin was met with bottles and boosCourage and vulnerability … Kevin Rowland at Leeds festival on 28 August 1999. Photograph: Piers Allardyce/Rex/ShutterstockKevin Rowland, Leeds festival, 28 August 1999When Kevin Rowland took the stage, he was met with a barrage of bottles and boos. It wasn’t the music people were protesting, but the fact he was wearing a dress and white stockings. It was an eye-opening moment for me, as an avid reader of the music press (anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobia). Naively, I’d assumed most indie fans to be similarly open-minded. This was my introduction to a more dispiriting reality.And yet this short performance – three songs in 15 minutes – has endured. Not because of the music (Rowland performed his stunning cover of The Greatest Love of All), which was largely drowned out by the jeering. But because of the courage and vulnerability shown that day, an artist unafraid to be anything other than himself. Tim JonzeAn unknown New York quintetThe Strokes, The Paradise, Boston, 26 February 2001I’m habitually late everywhere except for concerts, because I always like checking out opening acts. Back in 2001, my strategy totally paid off: the openers for Doves – a band I adored who were then promoting their first album, Lost Souls – was a practically unknown New York quintet called the Strokes. During a musical epoch dominated by deeply misogynistic nu metal, the band was a revelation: nonchalant, scruffy and totally cool.I was blown away by their energetic set, which served as a preview for the band’s eventual debut album Is This It? Their songs were taut and gritty, pairing defiantly ragtag Velvet Underground posturing with Television-esque strumming. I distinctly remember leaving the concert and raving about the Strokes to friends. In fact, I bought The Modern Age EP just a few weeks later. Annie Zaleski‘Tonight God’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt!’Nailed it … Brian Wilson at the Royal Festival Hall in January 2002. Photograph: Yui Mok/PABrian Wilson, Royal Festival Hall, London, 28 January 2002The impossible had happened: Brian Wilson had come back from the dead. It seems ridiculous now but we didn’t get tickets, scared that – after all we’d heard about his health, mental and physical – he would sully all those fantastic songs.When the time came, we had a change of heart and my pal Russell went down to the Royal Festival Hall to see what touts were charging. One hour later, he called. “There is a God,” he said, “and tonight he’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt!” A woman had given him two tickets at face value, despite being offered huge sums by a tout.What a night ensued. Exuberantly backed by the Wondermints, Brian nailed it like he’d never been away, from California Girls to I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times. The crowd, dancing right from the start, were clearly in awe – and often in tears. Good Vibrations closed the main set, leaving everyone in ecstasy. Then an encore of five more bangers ended with Fun, Fun, Fun. The second encore was just one song: Love and Mercy. Perfect. Andrew GilchristJittery but danceableLCD Soundsystem, Great Eastern Hotel, London, 23 November 2002It’s pretty postmodern to say “I was there” about a band whose signature song features an ageing hipster making exactly that boast. But I genuinely was there at LCD Soundsystem’s first London show, and the review that I wrote for NME is still online. The gig took place on a Saturday night in the ballroom of a newly reopened boutique hotel clearly gunning for the early 00s hipster market. It was part of a club night called Return to New York.LCD Soundsystem were jittery, awkward and obviously inexperienced live – a million miles from their current incarnation as an expansive, hit-stacked, festival-slaying roadshow. But the six songs they played showed their quality, and most of them remain in their setlist to this day. They kicked off with Daft Punk Is Playing at My House – somehow I managed to miss the fact that it was about Daft Punk, which suggests that either the sound was bad or I was drunk (probably both) – and finished with Losing My Edge.Every song was intriguing, danceable, charged with excitement and seemed to up the ante from the one before, and the extremely dressed-up audience went increasingly bananas. It was fabulous. I’m so happy I was there. Alex Needham‘Hardly room for her hairdo’Amy Winehouse, North Sea jazz festival, The Hague, 10 July 2004The first time I saw Amy Winehouse was in my lounge: a cheesy item on the lunchtime news about a young singer from north London who sang like a jazz virtuoso and wrote her own songs. She strummed a guitar, chirped a little and then they cut to the weather.The next time was at the North Sea jazz festival in The Hague. Off the back of her debut album, she had been given her chance at the world famous event, one graced by Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan et al, but she was a newbie so they allocated to her Paulus Potter Hall. She was 5ft 3in, but in that small, dark hall there was hardly any room between her hairdo and the flat roof.And then, with an amazing, dynamic, gritty, already knowing performance, she did her set, the jazz stuff, the funk, the ballads, and off came that roof. Word got round, the place filled up, the temperature soared, and soon it was hard to see her through the bodies, but that didn’t matter because in all regards, her concert had morphed into a sweaty club night. We left thrilled, exhausted, and when she became a megastar, no one was surprised. Hugh MuirLast days as a little bandArctic Monkeys, Plug, Sheffield, 22 October 2005Their pre-fame sets at Sheffield’s Boardwalk are arguably even more legendary – but this gig gets maximum points for poignancy. Arctic Monkeys had gone from local heroes to international pop cultural event in a matter of months, and this home-town nightclub gig was the day before the band reached No 1 with their debut single I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor.Alex Turner, who still looked like the kid outside an offy who asks you to slip him four fruit ciders, changed a lyric of closing song A Certain Romance to make wistful mention of their chart battle: amused yet disbelieving. That song’s other lyrics profess that “there in’t no romance around here” but the gig was suffused with the same glorious feeling as a giantkilling FA Cup match. Of course, they were never a little Sheffield band again after that night. Ben Beaumont-Thomas‘Gerard Way was now a kind of deity’My Chemical Romance, Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom, 14 November 2006