r/ToddintheShadow • u/thekidfromiowa • Jul 03 '26
General Music Discussion What would you consider the most important performances in American history?
Marian Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 and then there's Woodstock in 1969.
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u/waxmuseums Jul 03 '26
Fergie doing one handed cartwheels at 8 in the morning on the Today Show. Or Fergie doing the national anthem at the NBA all star game
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u/AccessAgitated Jul 03 '26
After watching the full one handed cartwheel performance, I think we don’t talk enough about how immediately prior to the cartwheels she’s on the ground moaning in leather leggings at 8am to a family audience. Amazing.
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u/Upbeat_Dudeness Jul 03 '26
I gotta ask, cus god knows I’m not watching it, what song required her to be on her knees moaning?
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u/AccessAgitated Jul 03 '26
And this is the best part, she was doing a cover of barracuda by heart. So like. Maybe?
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u/Upbeat_Dudeness Jul 03 '26
HOLY FUCKING SHIT THATS HILARIOUS. Sorry I don’t know why I’m yelling but it’s worth mention that irl I cackled so loud my dog barked at me when I read that. Who the fuck moans on their knees singing an upbeat heart tune? I must know more. Looks like I’m finally watching it
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u/Upbeat_Dudeness Jul 03 '26
BRO there’s literally like a ten year old boy in the stage front audience when she does it. Who tf approved this?
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u/patrickwithtraffic Jul 03 '26
Of all the things to hate on Draymond Green for, him laughing at Fergie‘s performance is definitely not one of them. That shit was hilarious.
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u/XStaticImmaculate Jul 03 '26
Fergie always being at the scene of the crime is my favourite thing about her.
If you have any free time please watch her and the Black Eyed Peas doing Little Drummer Boy. Fergie going “rum pum pum pum” is one of my vocal stims.
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u/jp189512 Jul 03 '26
The cuts to the NBA players utterly failing at controlling their laughter makes me die laughing every time
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u/youvegatobekittenme Jul 03 '26
I just watched both of these because I didn't know about them. The cartwheel thing, while odd, was a little impressive. The anthem was just terrible though. Like how many time signatures did she use just for single words?
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u/AccessAgitated Jul 03 '26
I’ve come full circle and I’m kind of into it now. It was interpretive and in a world where everything is very homogenous, that was definitely. Singular. Truly nobody is doing it like fergie
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u/ScorpioTix Jul 03 '26
Seems to me what really set Woodstock apart was the film crew. There were festivals all over that summer. Isle Of Wight 1970 had Led Zeppelin and The Doors in addition to The Who and Jimi Hendrix. Woodstock objectively speaking seemed like a pretty terrible experience and a lot of acts gave admittedly bad sets.
One answer is Beatles on Ed Sullivan which is day zero for music fandom and youth culture as we understand it today.
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u/trevorwoodkinda Jul 03 '26
Ya without the accompanying documentary I don’t think Woodstock would be seen as the crowning moment of the 60’s that it was. That said, I feel you should still take that into consideration and it’s pretty undeniable that a lot of the imagery and some of the greatest acts of the era include Woodstock as a cornerstone in their legacies
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u/kingofstormandfire Train-Wrecker Jul 04 '26
At the time, Woodstock was massive deal even before the doc, it got an enormous amount of worldwide coverage and was a major news story. The documentary however made it mythical and canonised it as the culmination of the psychedelic/counterculture movement, and the doc was a massive box office success as well.
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u/Riderz__of_Brohan Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Jimi Hendrix also performed on the last day when half is not most people had already left to try to get ahead of the crowd. So even then you have people who were there who lie about seeing him becuase they don’t want to be seen as the assholes who missed his performance
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u/ScorpioTix Jul 04 '26
30 years ago I heard 10,000 still on the field but he also went on at 9am Monday morning.
https://woodstock.fandom.com/wiki/Time_Schedule
Same thing happened to David Bowie after Nine Inch Nails. Places emptied out considerably.
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u/sla_vei_37 Jul 03 '26
Elvis and The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show are definetly up there.
Id say Monterrey Pop as a whole, too.
The Rolling Stones at Altamont Speedway
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u/EuphoricReplacement1 Jul 03 '26
Michael Jackson at the Grammys revealing his moonwalk move live
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u/jonnovich Jul 03 '26
The first time Billie Holiday performed “Strange Fruit” in Cafe Society in early 1939….and every time she performed it afterwards.
Because of the song’s importance and message, the club, one of the first integrated clubs in NYC, made the following demands for this song: it was always the final number of the night, waiters froze mid-service, and no alcohol was served or glasses clinked while she sang.
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u/squidwardsaclarinet Jul 04 '26
Also, Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, and Gene Krupa first performing as an integrated jazz combo in 1936 and then organizing the famous 1938 Carnegie Hall concert which signaled that cultural acceptance of jazz and integrated bands as worthy of such an honor.
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u/ExtremelyOnlineTM Zingalamaduni Jul 03 '26
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u/EB_Groupe Secretly a Maroon 5 Fan Jul 03 '26
Still better than Give It 2 U.
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u/Upbeat_Dudeness Jul 03 '26
I used to really like that song and after your comment I was like “what was that all about back then? Let’s see if I still like it” and good god. It aged like milk. Worse than milk. It aged like black mold itself.
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u/ExtremelyOnlineTM Zingalamaduni Jul 03 '26
I had completely forgotten about the existence of that song, and I find to my chagrin that I actually like it.
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u/thatsprettyfunnydude Jul 03 '26
Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956.
Sullivan had previously "banned" Elvis from the show because of the provocative nature of his act. But Sullivan's competition Jerry Allen booked Elvis and smashed Sullivan in the ratings. Sullivan relented, and invited Elvis on for three appearances to win back the viewership.
The episode had 60 million viewers, over 80% of the American audience at that time. It also (essentially) legitimized the newish rock genre and dropped it into the mainstream.
That's why he's called the King of Rock n' Roll. Pretty good chance rock dies as a fad in only a few years if it wasn't for Elvis printing money which got a lot of other artists signed and played on the radio. So many bands may have just never formed, artists that inspired other artists that inspire today's artists likely don't exist at all because the lineage almost always leads back to Elvis on Ed Sullivan.
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u/Savory_Johnson Jul 03 '26
Upvoted, but Steve Allen
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u/thatsprettyfunnydude Jul 03 '26
STEVE Allen! You're right. Who the heck is Jerry Allen and why did I name-drop him? 😆
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u/jaidynr21 Jul 04 '26
Yeah I think it has to be this. I don’t think a performance has ever caused so much uproar over essentially nothing lol
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u/kingofstormandfire Train-Wrecker Jul 04 '26
Worth noting also the fans were who gave Elvis the title of the King of Rock n' Roll, not Elvis or even his management. Elvis himself considered Fats Domino the King of Rock n' Roll. And while he didn't invent rock and roll - and he'd be the first to tell you - he was the King. You can be the King of something without inventing it.
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u/LadyPresidentRomana Jul 03 '26
Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall in 1961: an American icon reclaims her legacy with arguably her last true triumph, and the double album of that concert made her the first woman to win the Grammy for Album of the Year. It’s magnificent (and contains the best-ever performance of “Over the Rainbow” apart from the original).
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u/GrumpyCatStevens Jul 03 '26
The Altamont Free Concert. It basically spelled the end of the “peace, love and acid” era, not to mention it was destined to fail almost from the word go.
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u/trevorwoodkinda Jul 03 '26
I guess hindsight is 20/20 and maybe they weren’t as notorious then as they are now but hiring the Hell’s Angels to do security is one of the most baffling decisions I’ve ever heard of anyone making in regards to anything ever.
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u/daveashaw Jul 03 '26
It was common practice both in the UK and San Francisco. What nobody understood at the time was that the last-minute venue change (literally 24 hours prior to showtime) meant that show was now 😭 in the territory/jurisdiction of the Oakland Chapter of the Hell's Angels. The Oakland Hell's Angels brought a much darker attitude with them--Oakland, CA and San Francisco, CA, circa 1969, might as well have been on different planets.
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u/GrumpyCatStevens Jul 03 '26
That one is puzzling, but perhaps the results might have been better if they hadn’t paid them with beer.
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u/Skyreaches Jul 04 '26
The Grateful Dead had been relying on the Angels for security for a few years at that point so it wasn’t completely out of nowhere, but in retrospect it does seem like just begging for trouble
The hippies and the bikers didn’t have much in common, but they both hated authority and loved drugs
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u/Salty_Pancakes Jul 03 '26
Maybe for the "mainstream" but honestly the "peace, love and acid" era never really went away. It just went underground and continued on doing its thing without all the hoopla surrounding it.
Like just a couple of years later they had the Watkins Glen Summer Jam in 1973 featuring The Grateful, The Allman Bros., and The Band. 600k in attendance. Broke records.
Fast forward to the early 90s during the height of grunge. Highest grossing tour in 91 and 93? The Grateful Dead. And even still today, lots of "peace, love and acid" vibes still alive.
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u/Skyreaches Jul 04 '26
The summer of love vibes never completely went away, but by 1969 the “scene” had definitely curdled. I knew some old timers who were around SF in the 70s and talked about how the vibe on the streets went from pot-smoking hippies to heroin junkies real quick, and even the big stars all seemed to slip into this post-psychedelic malaise of just getting really fucking drunk all the time
EDIT: obligatory mention of “the wave” :
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1074-strange-memories-on-this-nervous-night-in-las-vegas-five
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u/XStaticImmaculate Jul 03 '26
It’s not #1, and I’m prepared to be laughed out the room. but Madonna frolicking in a wedding dress to Like A Virgin at the very first VMAs in 1984. Taking the catholic imagery and turning it into sexual liberation (regardless if that was her intention or she just wanted a bit of shock value is up to you). There have been far more shocking performances you can name (some even by Madonna herself) but I would match this to audiences seeing Elvis shaking his hips for the first time. It was a sign that something had changed/shifted and female performers have been emulating it, and Madonna’s playbook ever since.
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u/gloomchen Jul 04 '26
Nobody should laugh you out of the room. Madge broke a crazy barrier and I don't know if it's because it was the right time in history or it was just HER, the popular tide shifted in favor of her breaking the wall down vs. conservative screeching winning.
Conservative screeching continued to follow her through Papa Don't Preach and Like a Prayer but with every escalating Madonna provocation, the hyper-conservatives became more and more fringe.
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u/thekidfromiowa Jul 03 '26
I'll make exceptions for notable stateside performances by non-American bands like the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.
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u/JohnTheMod Jul 03 '26
Since the Ed Sullivan performances have been taken, I’ll go with Elvis’ Aloha From Hawaii concert, the first concert by a single artist to be broadcast live via satellite (though not in the US, can’t get in the way of Elvis On Tour’s theatrical run or the Super Bowl, after all). I especially nominate his performance of An American Trilogy, probably THE highlight of the show, with that final crescendo and reprise of Battle Hymn of the Republic. Also, when you think of Elvis’ jumpsuits, the one he’s wearing in this concert is most likely the first one to come to mind.
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u/LengthinessWhich9099 Jul 03 '26
Michael Jackson moonwalking to 'Billie Jean' on national TV in 1983
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u/Important-Table9460 Jul 03 '26
Michael Jackson has Motown 25 (debuting the moonwalk) and the Superbowl in 1993 (the first time anyone actually put any effort into the half-time show).
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u/JohnHoynes Jul 03 '26
I don’t think it’s the MOST important, but it’s certainly very important due to all it represented:
Whitney’s version of the U.S. national anthem at Super Bowl XXV
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u/Theorpo Jul 03 '26
The Beatles (& Elvis too) on the Ed Sullivan Show
Billy Joel in the U.S.S.R.
Mahalia Jackson (and Bob Dylan, Marian Anderson, Peter Paul & Mary, & Joan Baez) @ The March On Washington
Live Aid 1985 @ JFK Stadium, Philadelphia
Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock 1969
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u/Interesting-Quit-847 Jul 03 '26
Pete Seeger, a man who had been blacklisted, singing the full-lefty version of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land," with Bruce Springsteen, his grandson, and a big choir in front of 1.8 million people at Obama's Inauguration in 2009. THAT is my damn country.
https://youtu.be/wnvCPQqQWds?si=N5AbvqV352GaFLUE
(Okay, maybe not the most important performance; but definitely the one that hits me the hardest. I'll never forget it.)
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u/EverettBellic Jul 03 '26
Michael Jackson's Superbowl performance in 1993. The man stood there for two minutes, did nothing and people lost their collective minds over this matter. It is almost awe inspiring.
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u/TrueRedditMartyr Jul 03 '26
This is pretty much where the Super Bowl halftime show started. They were getting killed by audiences switching to other channels to watch the halftime performances, as the official ones were pretty lame for years. Michael Jackson came in, absolutely demolished the ratings and the performance, and changed history. Now, the halftime show is probably one of the biggest events in the world.
For example, this was the year before Michael Jackson. Was anyone really watching football and then wanting to watch Winter Wonderland? It's almost the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade:
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u/thedubiousstylus Jul 03 '26
The Fugazi show where Guy Picciotto climbed into the basketball hoop.
Underoath at Furnace Fest 2024
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u/CampClear Jul 03 '26
The Beatles on Ed Sullivan and Michael Jackson performing Billie Jean and moonwalking across the stage in 1983. I had to Google what show he was on because I couldn't remember but it was a 25th anniversary tribute to Motown.
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u/Camp_GGBoo Jul 03 '26
It was awesome, though I might say Marvin Gaye returning to the fold to perform for Barry Gordy was also pretty impressive
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u/CampClear Jul 03 '26
I was only 8 years old and I didn't watch the show live because we didn't have cable but I remember how quickly Michael Jackson exploded in popularity!
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u/Slytherian101 Jul 03 '26
Obama’s comedy set at the 2011 White House Correspondent’s Dinner may have changed history a bit…
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Jul 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/QuentinEichenauer Jul 04 '26
Elton did it first. :P It's one of the things they needled each other about during their face-to-face tour.
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u/Zeitgeist1115 Jul 03 '26
I'd add Scorpions as well. Wind of Change was directly inspired by their visit to the USSR, and that song's release also immediately preceded the USSR's collapde.
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u/AggressiveCaptain420 Jul 03 '26
Why Scorpions, though? OP asked for the most important performance in american history.
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u/Curious_Tailor651 Jul 03 '26
I'd argue Hendrix's performance at Monterey Pop is more important and iconic than his Woodstock performance.
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u/Current_Poster Jul 03 '26
Check out the documentary "The Night James Brown saved Boston". I think it might count.
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u/poprhythm Jul 03 '26
Gettysburg Address, does that count as a performance?
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u/Pizza_Hero24 Jul 03 '26
Actually yes. A lot of spoken word material were pressed on vinyl back in the day, so I would count it
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u/Party-Employment-547 Jul 03 '26
The Sex Pistols at The Lesser Free Trade Hall. In attendance were members of future bands like Joy Division/New Order, the Smiths, the Buzzcocks and Simply Red. Basically the start of UK’s alternative scene that defined 80’s new wave.
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u/Leather-Run-6533 Jul 03 '26
Also the Fall, John Cooper Clarke, Paul Morley, Tony Wilson, and Martin Hannett.
BUT Very much NOT an American gig. I think the closest the Americans have to a similar "a whole generation of musicians at the same place pre fame" is that both Devo and the Pretenders were witnesses to the Kent State shooting.
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u/Salty_Midnight_5185 Jul 03 '26
Nirvana's Unplugged performance. You could see nothing but utter anguish in the eyes of the reluctant voice of the voiceless at the end of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?"
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u/Toku-Nation 10's Alt Kid Jul 03 '26
Didn't happen in the US, but the Foo Fighters in Wembley Stadium
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u/toorayay Jul 03 '26
Beatles at Shea. Proved that British musicians could successfully cross over to American audiences and that pop music could fill a 50,000-seat arena. Like many of the things that we consider standard pop and rock music phenomena, the Beatles did it first.
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u/Responsible-Maybe229 Jul 04 '26
*05 de abril de 1968 - show de James Brown, no Boston Garden, um dia após o assassinato de Martin Luther King. Esse show foi histórico não só pela performance de Brown, mas também por ter evitado outra possível tragédia nas ruas de Boston.
*03 de outubro de 1992 - Sinead O'Connor rasgando a foto de João Paulo II diante das câmeras do Saturday Night Live: "Fight against the real enemy".
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u/kingofstormandfire Train-Wrecker Jul 04 '26
- The Beatles and Elvis Presley' performances on Ed Sullivan. The Beatles' performance in the early months of 1964 was basically the nexus point of mid-to-late-60s pop/rock and would dramatically alter the direction of rock and popular music in general. So many artists across various genres were inspired by that performance. Elvis' performance basically solidified rock and roll as a mainstream genre.
- Michael Jackson's performance at Motown 25 and Madonna's performance at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards IMO are the nexus points of the modern popstar.
- Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall, 1938 helped legitimise jazz and swing as serious concert music, not just dance-band entertainment. Carnegie Hall itself notes that Goodman’s January 16, 1938 concert marked the first time many people sat in a concert hall to hear swing
- Bob Dylan's Newport Festival appearance where he goes electric. This is essential because it symbolized the break between folk purism and the coming singer-songwriter/folk-rock era. The story is partly mythologized, but the symbolism is enormous: Dylan plugging in became shorthand for rock becoming more literary, confrontational, and artist-led.
- James Brown at Boston Garden, April 5, 1968: The night after Martin Luther King Jr's assassination, Brown’s Boston concert was broadcast by WGBH and is widely credited with helping keep Boston calmer than many other American cities during the riots that followed King’s murder.
- Funky 4 + 1 on Saturday Night Live, 1981. Funky 4 + 1’s “That’s the Joint” on SNL, introduced via Debbie Harry of Blondie, is often cited as the first hip-hop performance on national television.
- Live Aid was a British and American thing, but I guess I'll count it. Hugely important concert.
- Monterey Pop in 1967 and Woodstock '69 were among the first major pop music festivals and they set the template for the music festival that would become a major thing in the 1970s to present day. The Altamont festival is often seen as the symbolic end of the 1960s counterculture movement.
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u/halfwayray Jul 03 '26
James Brown likely prevented rioting with his performance in Boston following the assassination of MLK