When I was single, I would “impress” women by telling them about some of the cool mid-’90s concerts at which I spent generous portions of my college life. I managed to find a spouse in spite of this behavior, but since you asked, these were my surefire closers: Blur at the Academy in ’94, touring for Parklife, supported by Pulp, touring for His N Hers; Hole, also at the Academy, also in ’94 (five months after Kurt’s death), touring for Live Through This, supported by Weezer, touring for the Blue Album; and Radiohead at Irving Plaza 6/9/97, touring for OK Computer. That last one was a total shitshow — I remember standing upstairs, looking over the railing, and seeing a floor crawling with celebrities: Liam and Noel from Oasis; Courtney Love; Marilyn Manson … I saw them all. Anyway, looking at it now, it appears that I might have been the only non-celebrity in the place.

You can check the whole thing above, but even just running down the legit A-listers is exhausting: Brad Pitt? U2? Beastie Boys? Madonna? Why, if popular-models-of-the-moment Amber Valetta or Shalom Harlow had failed to properly extinguish a Marlboro Light (perfectly legal in pre-Bloomberg NYC) and that place had burned to the ground, popular culture would have been irreparably altered forevermore! I shudder to think. Fortunately we were all spared, but today, you can take it from maybe the only person there who was at the show to actually see the band: Radiohead FUCKING DESTROYED that night. I mean, “Bones,” “The Bends,” “Paranoid Android,” “Fake Plastic Trees,” “Karma Police” … look, I don’t even like “Creep,” but dude … they played the hell out of that song. Anyway, scan the list and tell me what’s more insane: U2 with a plus-18 or Jill Sobule, period? The night’s setlist is below.

“Lucky”
“My Iron Lung”
“Airbag”
“(Nice Dream)”
“Exit Music (for a Film)”
“Karma Police”
“Talk Show Host”
“Fake Plastic Trees”
“Paranoid Android”
“Bones”
“Climbing Up the Walls”
“No Surprises”
“The Bends”
“Creep”
“Just”
“Planet Telex”
“Street Spirit (Fade Out)”

Encore:
“The Tourist”

Encore 2:
“Black Star”