Best 'front man/woman' or 'presence' on stage?

Roger De Courcey

 

PJ Harvey
Kurt Cobain
Ian Mackay
Leonard Cohen

 

lol, dropped in at a random point in that to see Nicky Crane doing his gay nazi skinhead thing.

 

don't remember that bit!

 

looks like a wild party either way.

 

I was at the Jubilee concert in 2012 . There were loads of big pop names there - Robbie Williams, Madness, Kylie, Cliff, McCartney and ..... Rolf Harris

The two who ruled the stage were Stevie Wonder and Ed Sheeran . He's not a flamboyant performer but he had a real presence. And that was before he'd become really big

 

Mark E Smith. Saw The Fall numerous times, rarely with the same line up (except towards the end), and when he was in the mood he could pin the audience up against the wall.

 

Bono must be up there.

 

Fuck no. I saw PJ blow him out of the water almost 25 years ago.

Bono ffs

 

Seun Kuti has been the most impressive in my recent memory....very tall, wearing a skin tight paisely suit, which he later stripped out of, gave a full workout 3 hr nonstop pure energy set, sang with conviction, danced hard, picked up a sax, played some keyboards, even found time to have a little rant about how shit Disney and Black Panther is...I never saw Fela but Seun is far from living in his dads shadow...charisma, talent and conviction by the bucket load

 

Pearl Jam? Yeah I like Eddie.

Anyway c'mon you can knock him here



He's so enigmatic

 

I really hope you're taking the piss

PJ as in Harvey. She did support for U2 during their Zooropa tour iirc.

 

Look mate here he is 20 years later he's still got it.


People just jump up on stage 'unplanned' and join him because he's so alluring. You can' knock his stage presence.

 

that sounds like one of those shreds youtube clips

 

Prince.

 

Ant and Dec?

 

whyaye its PJ (n Duncan)

 

Looking at that more closely it kind of looks like they're strangling someone hidden under that gold lamé

 

Skin
Ira Kaplan
Thom Yorke

 

Never seen Seun but Fela was incredible, hugely charismatic and powerful personality on stage. I can't think of anyone I've seen that came even close to him except maybe James Brown.

 

Off the top of my head, from those I can remember seeing;

Mike Patton
Dave Gahan
Dobet Gnahore
Morrissey (this is circa early 90s. Wouldn't go see him now)
Nigel (of HMHB)
George Clinton
Russell Mael
Mick Jones
Elvis Costello
Damon Albarn
Holly Johnson
Rokia Traore
Kevin Rowland
Lloyd Cole

Still haven't seen Waits, though. Or PJ.

 

I was not aware that this twee twin set of vaudevillian parochialism had such an illustrious past.

 

Trent Reznor

 

Trent Reznor
David Gahan
Kurt Cobain
Jim Morrison

 

Leonard Cohen. No theatrics or dancing, but an incredible presence, and it's the only gig I've shed a tear at.
Ian MacKaye. Saw Fugazi once and when they got on stage and started you felt like the whole crowd swayed back at the wall of energy they projected.
The main singer from Gogol Bordello. Not super keen on the music, but fucking hell he gives the performance 110%.

Honorable mention for The Ex, no one person, but the collective presence is incredible.

Not it, but this comes to closest to the Fugazi gig I saw...

 

Saw Starcrawler at a very small club last month and singer Arrow de Wilde was simply riveting, no one was going for a piss-break or another pint, compelling performance, like a young female Iggy, only better cos she looks so extraordinary, in a fantastic way.

 

Ian mackaye fuck yes

 

Only saw Fugazi once. Good (no, great) gig, but I don't remember Mackaye's presence particularly.