Your Largest Artist Seen In The Smallest Venue?

Some of us have been lucky to have seen huge artists in tiny venues, either early in their career or in a special one off performance. What's the largest/most popular/etc. artist you've seen in the smallest venue?

Opeth @ L'amours in 2001
Faith No More @ The Paradise (Boston) in 1990

But the smallest 'venue' performance for me was seeing King's X at the Sirius studio in NYC. My wife and I got to sit in on an acoustic performance/interview. The only other people in the room besides the band and interviewer was Jerry's wife, Julie.

 

After the Alarm jumped off the opening spot for Pat Benatar, they played in a large bar in Delaware that held maybe 200 people. They were already playing 500+ seaters in Philadelphia. I was right in front of Dave Sharp the whole show, couldn't hear well the next day. John Eddie was there at the bar, plastered out of his mind.

 

Great topic... I just posted in another thread, saw Semisonic in Ames, IA in a club with about 40 people there right before "Closing Time" was released.

Saw My Morning Jacket at Grinnell College at a free campus show. Less than 100 in attendance. They were supposed to open for Guided By Voices but played a full set because Bob threw his back out the night before and had to cancel. I had heard a little of their early stuff, and my memory of them that night is they were just ok. If you would've told me then that they were going to become one of the top live acts in rock I would've thought you were smoking something. Their best work was ahead of them.

 

I went to college in NH while Phish was still playing the New England college circuit. They played on campus twice with ticket prices of $3 and $4. I still have some of the hand made tickets as well as my Junta cassette.

 

Bob Dylan in Vicar Street, Dublin. The capacity there is around 1,000 with standing and there was standing with Bob.

Oh and The Pogues in McGonagle's also in Dublin.
Saw The Might Wah! and The Teardrop Explodes there too.
Capacity would have been a few hundred. It's long gone now, but many happy memories left behind.
It was a great venue for local bands.

 

The Rolling Stones
Warner Theatre, Washington, D.C.
June 15, 1978
1,847 Seats

 

Frank Zappa at The Kiel Operahouse - Capacity 3100
Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush, along with Ronnie Montrose - Westport Playhouse - Capacity 240
Cake - at The Pageant - Capacity 1800

 

Arcade fire in a 200 person club
Radiohead opening for belly at a probably 500-600 person club.

Missed seeing white stripes at a 100 person show (Rudyards) but saw spoon and the decemberists there with maybe 30 people for both shows

 

The Police in the basement of the Hope and Anchor pub in Upper Street in Islington in July 1977.

 

Blue Oyster Cult in a small club on Staten Island. A few hundred or so people. They were preparing for their Fire Of Unknown Origin tour and playing under the moniker Soft White Underbelly. I was sipping a beer at the bar about 20ft from the band while they put on an amazing show.

 

Lenny Kravitz at the Graffiti club in Pittsburgh shortly after Let Love Rule release..maybe 200 people there.

Rusted Root at a local Battle of the Bands at the same Graffiti club. They came in third btw.

 

Three come to mind:

David Bowie in 1996 at the 2000 capacity Avalon Nightclub in Boston. Best live show I've ever seen, I was about 15 feet away from the stage the whole night.
Elvis Costello with Steve Nieve also in 1996 (it was a good year) at the 1000 capacity Paradise, also in Boston.
Garbage in 1994 at Cambridge's Middle East Downstairs (575 capacity)

 

Springsteen at the Moody Theater, Austin TX a few years back at SXSW. Won the tickets in a festival wide lottery, absolutely breathtaking performance.

It was right after Clarence passed and the Wrecking Ball album just came out. He had, easily, an 18 piece band, full horn section, and at different points Jimmy Cliff, Eric Burdon, Tom Morello and members of Arcade Fire came out to play their own material as well as help out the Boss.

Might be the greatest show I've ever seen!

 

Another one: For some bizarre reason, Rosanne Cash played a 100 seat club in Philadelphia around 1995 (right after Townes passed--she did a great Pancho and Lefty). I called the wife at home and said "I'm buying seats now in case this isn't a typo'
We were 3 feet from the stage. Thus began our journey with Rosanne. My wife was totally bowled over that night.

 

At the Terrastock Fest in Boston there were many cool underground psych bands all jammed into the Axis club which was right across from Fenway. Sonic Youth performed Murray Street in full with their gigantic sound system which pretty much dwarfed most of the smaller bands set-ups.Blew everyone's face off.

 

Sarah Vaughan in a small jazz club in Canoga Park (metro LA) called King Arthur's back in the 70s. Seating was maybe 50. I was at a front table.

 

Cat Stevens at the Troubadour in Los Angeles (a small folk club). This was after the release of Mona Bone Jakon, and I thought prior to Tea for the Tillerman. However, after checking Google, I found reference for a show at the Troubadour, December 8-13, 1970 in support of both albums, so my memory is probably faulty.



While I was never a big fan, I really enjoyed Mona Bone Jakon at the time and still do, despite my detachment from the man following that whole Salman Rushdie business.

 

U2 at San Jose State University Student Union in 1981, maybe 150 people there.

 

Unsure of the date (1974 maybe), but Queen at the Capital Theater in Passaic NJ (3200 seats). Of course, they weren't that big a deal yet, but you wouldn't know from the pyro/smoke bombs and volume!

 

Bob Dylan at Bogart's, Cincinnati, 1999. Capacity: 1,400
Tom Waits at House Of Blues, Cleveland, 2006. Capacity: 1,200
(And on a different note: I saw John Wesley Harding at a bar in Kingston, NY (1998?) and the audience consisted 14 people, two of which were John Sebastian & Graham Parker.)

 

In order of venue size:
--Coldplay in a local arena that held about 1200 people, right when Rush Of Blood came out. (Chris Martin even commented that they were playing "in a high school gymnasium.") I'd actually seen them in a sold-out venue that held 2500 for Parachutes.
--The Cure playing The Roxy in ATL (600 people?) to promote Bloodflowers.
--The Avett Brothers are local heroes, and played several acoustic "in stores" at Manifest Discs... The first one drew 200, the second more than 300, and the third (post Grammies) had to be limited by the fire Marshall, but about 350 or so. For that last one, the band played a full hour set and then signed autographs until midnight!
--Wilco... Well, really just Jeff and Jay... Doing an acoustic radio performance for about 8 of us, counting deejays. Later that night the whole band played the Music Farm in Charleston to about 200!

 

Vanilla Ice .... Baton Rouge, September 2003, maybe 20 seats in The Caterie (bar).

 

Although not really a large artist per se, I saw Michael Kiwanuka perform an acoustic set in a tiny bar on a boat. There were roughly six or seven people there initially, then a dozen or so came in later just as he was winding up. I think it was around the time of his Tell Me A Tale EP.

 

Wishbone Ash In a theater near the city of Brescia (Italy), June 2002..
capacity: 120 seats.

 

I saw James Brown in a bar in 1980. I am not sure where he was in his career at that point but it seemed/seems like a small venue for him. It was not that big of a room.

The bar I mentioned is the same bar that famously told U2 to take a hike when they refused to play if the bar were not emptied for their sound check.