[Time Travel Fantasy] Who would you see?

[BCam]

Cole Porter - 1933.

[Uncle Wig]

BCam wrote:
Cole Porter - 1933.

Good one.

Also, Django Reinhart and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France.

[PeterB]

Freddie Mercury, Live Aid at Wembley, 1985.

Edit: close seconds would be either John Lennon (as already mentioned), or the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.

[Racer X]

I'm with Peter B. Some classic Queen performance.

I get goosebumps when I watch that 10th anniversary concert DVD, which was also a tribute to Freddie.

[ka jowct]

The person I would choose is eliminated by one of your rules, since I saw him live a handful of times in the 80s. I'd have gone with some concert of his from the late 50s or early 60s.

So I think I'd pick a concert at Carnegie Hall from around 1943, a recording of which I have. Toscanini conducting Wagner, with Lauritz Melchior and Helen Traubel. Even with the limitations of a mono 1943 ish recording, it's an exciting performance, and I'd love to go back in time and hear it properly.

[blooz]

anonymouse1 wrote:
Beethoven. Premiere of the Ninth Symphony.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read...-premiered

This one.


Or else Coltrane and Monk playing together at the Jazz workshop 1964

[A-Polly]

Mozart! or Beethoven, as Anonymouse1 chose — but definitely someone who was never recorded and has not been heard in living memory. Perhaps Turlough O'Carolan, or some unknown Irish harper.

[Lemon Drop]

I would love to have a seat back in 1740-something when Handel first performed the Messiah, in Dublin.

He's not my favorite composer but that particular moment, for that piece, would've been spectacular.

[Black]

The Queen/Wembley concert is a contender, but I'm leaning towards one of the first performances of Beethoven's Eroica symphony (the work that started the Romantic movement.)
http://www.beethovenseroica.com/Pg2_hist/history.html
I once read that when it debuted the audience demanded that the first movement be repeated before going on, but I'm not finding support for that anywhere.

[Dennis S]

Otis Redding.