Back in November 2009 we presented our list of the Greatest 50 Concerts from 1959-2009 with commentary by our staff and some special guest writers. Two weeks ago we posted numbers 50-31, last Thursday we posted 30-11 and the countdown concludes today…

10. Phish, Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation, Fla., December 31, 1999
We arrived in The Everglades on December 27 for the ultimate Phish show. Big Cypress was the greatest weekend of my life. Whenever I hear or see anything from that set, it still gives me goose bumps. As the first set closed with “After Midnight,” the anticipation for the midnight set began building. It was insane. The band compound was behind a wall on stage right, and beyond that wall you could feel the energy continue to grow as midnight got closer. It felt like what it must be like playing in the World Cup soccer final. We all felt that way. I remember having some doubts that the band could keep it interesting for eight straight hours – boy, was I wrong – and I learned never to doubt Trey [Anastasio] ever. For me, “Sand” at about 2:30am was so thick and heavy, then “Axilla” at around 4 a.m. took it to another level. “Drowned” > “After Midnight.” Are you serious? Mind you I was “working.” After “2001” > “Velvet Sea” > “Meatstick,” the band came offstage as the sun was coming up. After eight hours, they were utterly drained. “Are you gonna do an encore?” I asked. As soon as it came out of my mouth, I thought, “Did I really just say that?” Brad Sands, Phish road manager 1991 – 2004

9. Elvis Presley, NBC Studios, Burbank, Calif., December 3, 1968
Personally, my interest in Elvis peaked when I happily sat on the floor of a totally packed movie theater at an Air Force Base in Germany in 1958 – Elvis was not only King, but he was about to arrive in Germany to serve his Army hitch – to see Jailhouse Rock. Having set the world on fire in the mid-‘50s, he then surrendered to his manager’s sleazy wiles and made, after Jailhouse Rock, a string of mostly very bad movies. By December 1968, I was a college student interested in jazz and the incandescent rock of the day, and Elvis seemed entirely irrelevant – out of touch with his own roots, his body and music flabby, long since surpassed by the British Invasion. After all, he hadn’t performed live since 1961. So my friends and I sat down to watch his TV show with more than a pinch of skepticism. It began with the usual overblown production numbers, but then something remarkable happened. On a tiny stage surrounded by audience members, he and his band, including Scotty Moore and D. J. Fontana, began to play – for real. He went back to his beginnings at Sun Records for “That’s Alright, Mama.” He reprised his masterpieces “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Love Me Tender.” He sang the gospel that was his birthright. We were blown away. The talent and voice had endured; the guitar was of course merely a prop, but the singing – and the dance moves – stood up. F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong. Once in a while, there are great second acts in American music. Dennis McNally, author and former Grateful Dead publicist

8. Sex Pistols, Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco, Calif., January 14, 1978
“You’ll get one number and one number only,” Johnny Rotten spat just before the Sex Pistols launched into an encore that saw the most notorious original punk band – as Neil Young would later put it – burn out instead of fade away. It had been a horrible mess of a show at San Francisco’s storied hippie haven, Winterland. The Pistols sounded awful. They hated each other. They hated their fans. During “God Save the Queen,” the crowd could barely hear Steve Jones’ jagged guitar riffs over the clatter of Paul Cook’s drumming. And Sid Vicious? He was so smacked out he could barely see his bass strings, let alone play them. Rotten became increasingly disgusted as the band clamored through sloppy, out-of-tune versions of “Bodies,” “Problems,” “Pretty Vacant,” “Anarchy in the U.K.” By the encore – a cover of The Stooges’ “No Fun” – he was finished. For more than five minutes, he whined and groaned the words over and over, adding his own sentiments as the band roared away: “It’s no fun… no fun being alone… this is no fun at all.” When it finally, mercifully ended, he laughed blankly and asked, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” The Sex Pistols’ final show before imploding days later marked the death of punk’s first wave – but it was the birth of a movement that would culminate 13 years later in Nirvana, which took the Pistols’ anarchic spirit to the top of the pop charts. Mark Kemp

7. The Band, Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco, Calif., November 25, 1976
After a lifetime on the road, The Band staged a grand farewell and got promoter Bill Graham to throw the show and Martin Scorcese to make the movie. Graham had transformed the dirty old ice rink called Winterland for the occasion. He rented hedges and potted plants. He hired a string orchestra to play waltzes. He laid out a Thanksgiving turkey dinner with all the trimmings (backstage, producers painted a room white, hung noses cut off dime store masks on the walls and ran a tape loop of someone sniffing). Pieces of scenery from the local opera company’s “La Traviata” hovered over the stage, scrupulously illuminated for the filming of the evening’s events. Following a routine set by The Band, the first guest was Canadian rock and roll wildman Ronnie Hawkins, where it all started for The Hawks. Dr. John, Paul Butterfield, Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton warmed up the crowd for Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. Neil Diamond, not yet camp enough to be ironic who had recently finished recording an album produced by Robbie Robertson, got a shot. Van Morrison blew the place apart with “Tura Lura Lura,” done as a duet with keyboardist Richard Manuel and a “Caravan” for the ages. The Dylan finale gave the evening its cathartic emotional release – Bob Dylan and The Band reunited one last time – leading to the inevitable all-cast “I Shall Be Released,” including – where’d they come from? – Ronnie Wood and Ringo Starr. Dylan and Morrison shared one microphone with Robertson; Mitchell and Young another with Rick Danko; Dr. John and Neil Diamond flanking one side of another mic, Clapton and Butterfield on the other. The old ice rink never had a finer moment. Joel Selvin

6. The Beatles, Shea Stadium, Flushing, N.Y., August 8, 1965
Why the Beatles at Shea? Because, until then, a “big show” was a movie theatre with 15 different acts. Because Elvis was playing rodeos. Because nobody could even conceive of a band filling a 50,000 seat stadium. How did it happen? Sid Bernstein, the mad genius, pulled-off this crazy idea. He had booked The Beatles (sight unseen!) into Carnegie Hall, just because he was stationed in London during the War and loved the English sensibility, so he followed the London newspapers and read about this crazy band from Liverpool that was filling the halls of the UK with screaming teenagers.
Long story short, the box office manager at Carnegie Hall calls Sid over one day when he came to drop off a check for the deposit and says, “Hey, Bernstein – how many shows is your act playing?” “Two,” Sid says. “Shoulda booked ‘em for a month – phone has been ringing off the hook.” So Sid asks if he can have more nights. Nope: classical concerts as far as the eye can see. So Sid, a Mets fan, too green to know you don’t just do this out of the blue, calls the Mets and says: “Excuse me, but how much would it be to book Shea Stadium for a musical act” ? And they’re crazy enough to give him a price, knowing it will never happen. And he says “DONE!” Remember, so much about The Beatles – psychedelic mainstream pop, Sgt. Pepper, stadium concerts, the Concert for Bangladesh – The Beatles blazed the trail, and created the roadmap for all to follow. Ken Dashow, New York radio personality

5. James Brown, Apollo Theater, New York, N.Y., October 24, 1962
It all began one fall night in Harlem. “All aboard?!” ( “Yeah!” ) “All aboard?!” ( “Yeah!” ) “All aboard?!” ( “Yeah!” ). With that sizzling call-and-response intro to the final track of Live at the Apollo, James Brown had some 1,500 fans suited up and ready to go. Where he would take them, they had no clue. In retrospect, of course, we know that Brown went on to chart the course of post-‘50s popular music – first from R&B to soul, then from soul to funk. The album, released in early 1963, almost didn’t happen. King Records owner Syd Nathan was wary of putting out an LP with little chance of generating singles. His reluctance was understandable. While Brown’s first single, “Please Please Please,” reached the R&B Top 5 in 1956, he followed it with nine consecutive duds. He scored other hits, but even by 1962 Brown still didn’t have the clout to demand a live album. He recorded one anyway, using his own money. Looking back, it seems a no-brainer. Brown’s raw onstage energy and charisma always trumped his studio performances, and Live at the Apollo makes that abundantly clear as he transforms earlier songs – the pleading soul ballads “Try Me” and “I Don’t Mind,” the proto-funk of “Night Train” – into magic. With a razor-precise rhythm section, seven horn players and backup singers The Flames, Brown coos, cries, begs, shouts – and defies all odds. The album peaked at No. 2 and spent 66 weeks on the pop chart, long before black artists regularly crossed over to white fans. Mark Kemp

4. Jim Hendrix, Woodstock Music and Art Fair, Bethel, N.Y., August 18, 1969
Pete Townshend, Jerry Garcia, Alvin Lee, Jorma Kaukonen, Barry Melton, Johnny Winter. There were a lot of pretty good guitarists at Woodstock but Jimi Hendrix outgunned them all, style for style, during his two-hour closing set on what was officially the morning after the festival was supposed to have ended. Fronting an under-rehearsed new sextet called Gypsy Sun and Rainbows (a.k.a. Band of Gypsies), Woodstock’s highest-paid performer ($18,000) played to a tired, bedraggled and greatly diminished audience from about 9 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. The Gypsies’ set consisted of familiar Jimi Hendrix Experience standards – including “Fire,” “Red House,” and “Hey Joe” – with jams that veered from tired to inspired. Despite having pulled an all-nighter, Hendrix still looked extremely cool in his white fringed vest, gold necklace, turquoise jeans and fuchsia tie-dye headband. Thanks mainly to the Woodstock movie, everything else Hendrix played that morning was eclipsed, at least in retrospect, by his four-minute expressionist freak-out take on an old English drinking song retrofitted as our national anthem. Segueing out of “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return),” the former paratrooper (and Vietnam fence sitter) employed wah-wah peddle, wammy bar, pickup toggle switching and liberal feedback to create a thrillingly literal reinterpretation of “The Star-Spangled Banner” (with a “Taps” tease) before launching into a by-the-numbers “Purple Haze.” It was as political as you wanted it to be – or not. It hinted at the jazzy new direction Hendrix was claiming he wanted to take his music. And a year later he would be gone. Richard Gehr

3. Bob Dylan, Newport Folk Festival, Newport, R.I., July 7, 1965
In John Ford’s 1962 western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, one of the characters utters the memorable line, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” The legend of Bob Dylan’s first appearance backed by electrified instruments almost immediately achieved legendary status – perhaps best represented in Todd Haynes’s 2007 Dylan fantasy biopic I’m Not There, in which the musicians unpack automatic weapons from their instrument cases and open fire on the outraged audience. As for the facts? Well, even those who were there on that summer evening in 1965 disagree. Were people booing because they were furious at seeing folk music’s golden boy “sell out” to rock and roll? Or because the sound mix was bad? Or because he walked off after playing only three songs? Or were they even booing at all? And why was anyone shocked by the band, anyway, when Dylan had already had a hit with the Chuck Berry-style boogie “Subterranean Homesick Blues?” But none of that mattered. The legend of Newport became fact almost instantly. On Dylan’s subsequent tour, people starting coming to the shows with the express purpose of booing. Things got so heated that drummer Levon Helm bailed after a few dates, afraid that things would turn violent. But after Newport, there could be no turning back. Dylan’s revolutionary fusion of mystic, heightened language and jukebox-blues amplification had turned pop music upside down; folk poetry and rock energy were now allies, not enemies, whether purists in either camp liked it or not. “The significance of many watershed events is apparent only in retrospect,” wrote producer Joe Boyd, who was the stage manager on that notorious, historic night in Newport. “This was clear at the time.” Alan Light

2. The Beatles, Ed Sullivan Theater, New York, N.Y., February 2, 1964
The Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964 was one of those undeniable watershed events in our shared cultural history. The response was unprecedented with viewership that was the largest in American TV history up to that point. More importantly, it was the official beginning of the British Invasion and a real turning point in rock and roll history. Elvis had been away in the Army, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran and other pioneers had died tragically or gone silent. This led many to believe that this revolutionary format of music was a thing of the past. The Beatles’ performance turned the world and this state of mind upside down. Their sound, how they dressed, the length of their hair and their UK origins catalyzed the youth of America and catapulted us all into a sea change that reinvigorated rock and roll and helped ensure that this music would become the dominant art form of our lives. Terry Stewart, President of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

1. Various Artists, Washington Mall, Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963

When we step back and assess what our country’s greatest concerts of the last 50 years are, the March on Washington is not the first that comes to mind. Yet, when one assesses what makes a great concert – the performers, the venue, the crowd, the context – the March on Washington is our country’s greatest.

While it is a day most remembered for profound speeches – as it should be – music had a significant voice that day, too. If the solidarity of the Civil Rights Movement lies in profound convictions of equality, then music helped keep the ties bound tightly.

The anthem for the Civil Rights Movement came from an old hymn, “I’ll Overcome Some Day” from the turn of the century. Quickly shaped by history’s socio-economic tides, Pete Seeger tweaked the “We Will Overcome” version sung by striking tobacco workers with a few extra verses and a slight word change: “We Shall Overcome.”

When twenty-two-year-old Joan Baez, the day’s first performer, led the ever-growing crowd through “We Shall Overcome,” it was more than just a song – it was a declaration that would manifest itself that day – 200,000 strong. All of the artists’ songs that followed seemed to have been born for one of our country’s ultimate moments. Peter, Paul and Mary’s take of “If I Had a Hammer” took on a new urgency with every “wop” the group belted out.

Dylan performed the day’s most topical song – “Only a Pawn in Their Game” – a song he wrote that June following the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers whose death weighed on the crowd. He and Baez dueted on the poignant “When the Ship Comes In” in which the lyrics declared “Will remind you once again/ That the whole wide world is watchin’.”

Josh White performed, as did Odetta – the powerful singer whose “great, full-throated voice carried almost to Capitol Hill” according to the_ New York Times_ – who delivered her spiritual trilogy of “Oh, Freedom” / “Come and Go With Me” / “I’m on My Way.” “Before I’d be a slave, I’d be buried in my grave,” she sang in the latter, “And go home to my Lord and be free.” The crowd, as it responded for every performer, erupted.

Dylan, Baez, Odetta and White along with Peter, Paul and Mary joined together to sing Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” with ultimate conviction: “Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist/ Before they’re allowed to be free?/ Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head/ Pretending he just doesn’t see?”

Singer Marian Anderson, who had performed at the same location on Easter Sunday in 1939, led the benediction and offered the prescient “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” Several speeches and a choir performance followed. The crowd – the nation’s largest gathering ever – was fully assembled.

Shortly before Martin Luther King Jr.‘s speech, the event’s final musical performer took the stage. Mahalia Jackson was the world’s foremost gospel singer at the time – perhaps ever. When she sang, it was a revelation. First offering the song “I Been ‘Buked and I Been Scorned” – perhaps the clearest reason as to why 200,000 had assembled – she facilitated a crowd sing-along of “How I Got Over.”

King took the podium to deliver what would become his legendary “I Have a Dream” speech. As he wrapping up, Jackson who was nearby, assailed King to “Tell them about your dream, Martin. Tell them about the dream.” King stopped looking at what he’d prepared and began riffing on previous speeches, his fervor and adamancy swelling like torrents of water against a hapless dam until finally it burst with unbridled passion: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

As Shakespeare once wrote, “All the world’s a stage/ And all the men and women merely players.” King may been a temporal player, but his performance and others’ on August 28, 1963 were ones for the world. Josh Baron