Best Live Rock Moments We Saw In 2014

Figured we should try goin' out with 1 more (hastily thrown together) rock list before the year's all over and finished. Much like our guilty pleasure lists (which we no longer post every year, although '80 guilt, '90s guilt, and 2000s guilt lists have shown up in the blogspot version of TMK) or our "vomit" lists, it's a personal one that doesn't really matter to anyone more than the writers of this website, since few people experienced the exact same shows as us.

We saw A LOT of shows this year. Probably too many. Way more than we wanted to. It's probably been the #1 coolest benefit of travelling around in a rock band for more than half of the year. As a result, we were fortunate enough to catch some of the best live sets we've ever seen. From those sets, here are what we thought were the best moments.

Honorable mention: Earl Sweatshirt reciting almost every word while backstage during Schoolboy Q (Chicago)


Honorable mention: Nick Cave doing the thing where he spontaneously jumps into this weird dance move thing where he points while lunging forward cuing the band to nail the intro of the song without a count off (Louisville)


#10 The Jicks covering "Outdoor Miner" (Pioneertown & Seattle)
(not on Youtube but "Stereo" is so yeah)


#9 TIE between Sloan closing their 1st set (of 2) with "Pen Pals" and starting their 1st set with a 17-minute song that many initially thought was a medley of 4 or 5 different songs (Hamden)


#8 Ex-Breathers at Office Lounge (Tallahassee)
(nothing on Youtube unfortunately, but there's a set from the following day so close enough)


#7 Lil B's grand entrance when our picture ended up on 50 people's instagrams (SUNY Purchase)


#6 The sporadic remnants of Grass Is Green's Halloween '13 set as Chavez throughout January 2014 (Jacksonville, New Brunswick, and a few other spots)


#5 Mystikal's unannounced surprise 2AM 15-minute set at Bonnaroo (Manchester, TN)
("Bumpin' Me Against the Wall," "Shake Ya Ass" and "Danger")


#4 Kris Kuss's drumstick acrobatics during Pile's "Special Snowflakes" (every show)


#3 Palberta at Palisades (Brooklyn)
(not on Youtube n stuff)


#2 Mark E Smith stumbling while screaming into kick drum mics, turning up amps to 11 and unplugging stuff (Nîmes)


#1 Slint "Good Morning Captain" at Primavera (Barcelona)