Artist with best stage banter

This is the best stage banter ever recorded, starts at 6:00.

 

Friggin’ Had me in stitches! My first ever concert was Kiss during the “Dynasty” tour. I was 8 years old back then. I’m sure Paul was doing the same (“Helllooo San Francisco!”....) during that show, not that I would recall because I was too preoccupied with the lasers and smoke emitting from Ace Frehley’s Les Paul! Magic for an 8 year old.

 

Colin Hay, the song about the goats

 

John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats is great. He has a weird mix of self-aware goofiness and funny dadliness about him towards the audience that's an excellent experience. Basically every show is tiny, so he's extremely involved with the crowd and will just tell stories and jokes between songs, or even in the middle of some.

 

+1

Robert Earl Keen spins a good yarn, too.

 

Tom Waits introducing "Jitterbug Boy" at the Wiltern Theatre in LA, November 9, 1987: "I saw a place just outside of Western. A place that sells 'Used Erotica'. Think about it! Will they clean it? WHO cleans it? Are they licensed? All these questions came to my head. HOW used is it? WHO used it? You follow me? There's a place... there's a theatre right outside Western with seven X's... I mean double X, okay. Triple X, eeheh. But SEVEN X's? Girls without skin?! That's all I could think. You know? THAT I want to see. 'Come here, baby! You're a doll. I love you...' Okay..."

https://www.tomwaitsfan.com/tom waits library/www.tomwaitslibrary.com/monologues.html

 

Ray Wylie Hubbard's a bit of a character too...
from his intro to Redneck Mother...
" I went to see Bob Dylan once 'cause I wanted to hear him do Masters Of War,
and he didn't do it,or he did it and I didn't recognise it."

 

I also like artists who do exactly the opposite—no banter, no talking, no introduction of the songs, just bust right out of the gate and play like crazy.

Bernard Allison inspired me to play fast and hard; he starts the first song, and outside of introducing the band toward the end of the set, there’s little or no stage banter—he lets the songs do the talking.

I used to introduce songs and tell little jokes between the songs, but I realized it ruined all momentum we had built up...so instead, I just play the songs.
I’ll still throw in a one-liner or goofy smart-aleck comment here and there, but no stories, no introductions—and it works better for our stage show.

 

Yeah, but... this post is like the guy that drops into a the Stomp Box forum to say the best tone is "guitar to cable to amp."

 

+2

 

Frampton. Dougie Thompson from Supertramp is good as well.

 

Ringo Starr, every time I’ve seen the All Starr Band - he has a great personality for a superstar!
On another spectrum, Carlos Santana, every show included a meditative prayer for peace!

 

Rock and Rollllllllll....do you want some Rock and Rolllllllllll!!!!

 

Josh Homme. Similar incident when I saw them at the 9:30 more than a decade back, used some of the same lines.

Future note: Don't throw things at QotSA shows, Norway or Washington DC.

http://exclaim.ca/music/article/qotsas_josh_homme_bottled_on_stage_bottles_humiliates

 

Tab Benoit, Buddy Guy, BB King.

 

Saw them live in 85 and hated it for the sole reason of Paul not shutting up. Even to a 14 year old, even by the standards of arena rock lameness, it was embarrassing. They felt too old for their time even then, so while they tried to be hair metal OGs, they also had to rip on new wave and pop like all the other bro-rock idiots of that time.

The "banter" was empty and canned to boot. Someone had thrown a Michael Jackson doll on stage, so there was a set piece about MJ being gay/'Beat It'/one glove. It was so long, you'd be forgiven for wondering if the doll might've been a plant (those of us in the first row saw the roadie plant it). Then there was ten minutes of "baby, that ain't no pistol that's my LOVE GUN," and another treatise before R&R All Night (spoiler alert: They also party every day). Every song was like Springsteen, but instead of some poignant story it was a grown man in leotards and ten tons of hair spray making fun of pop's greatest star at the time. For being effeminate.

Queensryche were on their very first tour, played most of the EP and the first album, Geoff Tate said maybe ten words, and seven of them were 'Thank you Dallas. We're Queensryche from Seattle.' Blew KISS off stage and it wasn't even close.

 

When I read the thread title, Todd was the first thing that popped into my head.

 

Johnny Thunders. He was good at dishing it out, but I think he respected you more if you gave it right back to him. At least that's the way it went down around the NYC metro area.

 

Bruce.