Summertime and the listening is busy. The temperature's up and the concert season is even hotter. It's a big summer — Aretha Franklin, 'NSync, Destiny's Child, Jimmy Buffett, Tim McGraw, the Warped Tour, Lucinda Williams, B.B. King. If you can't find something you like, you must hate music. As good as it is, it's not the best ever.

        Here's a look back at Greater Cincinnati's greatest concert summers of all time, or at least the past 25 years or so.

1. 1984 — Best of Show
               The Good — The 1979 Who tragedy left Cincinnati's concert scene in ruins. No one wanted to play here and those who did were often cited for various infractions (open-flames, inciting to riot, etc.). In 1984, Riverbend Music Center opened and revolutionized our summer concert scene.

        On July 4, jazz goddess Ella Fitzgerald sang with the Cincinnati Pops in the new outdoor amphitheater. The next night, the Everly Brothers started their first American reunion tour. Linda Ronstadt was backstage, waiting to play July 6 with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra.

        They were just part of what may well have been the most musical week in Cincinnati history. July 5-6 Bruce Springtseen and his E Street Band played Riverfront Coliseum (now Cinergy Field), the second stop of the “Born in the USA Tour.” By the summer of '85 that tour was filling stadiums, but local fans got two intimate nights with the Boss (bizarrely, the shows weren't sell-outs). July 6, Huey Lewis & the News played a sold-out TimberWolf.

        The hits kept coming at Riverbend: MTV's first generation of stars. The Go Gos, INXS, Eurythmics, the Cars, Elvis Costello, the Pretenders and Billy Idol.

        Folkies got a Riverbend show, with Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie holding an Aug. 13 hootenanny. Country lovers had individual shows by Willie and Waylon.

        Jimmy Buffett was here of course, but very early in the cult, which still had no name (see 1985). Mr. Margaritaville sold out TimberWolf on June 22. It was part of a stellar season at the Kings Island facility that included the singer/songwriter's dream team of James Taylor and Randy Newman (Aug. 1).

        The Bad — In its hurry to fill dates, Riverbend booked too many middle-of-the-road acts. Mitzi Gaynor? Steve & Eydie? LIBERACE!!??

        The Night to Remember, Sept. 23 — As Rod Stewart closed Riverbend's first season, the unknown band Red, Hot & Blue was booked for Bogart's. It was a hit-and-run show by Prince, then at his Purple Rain, peak.

        Word spread fast and a crowd of more than 1,000 saw the preview of the show — including full production — that would soon be the hottest arena ticket of the fall and winter.

2. 1985
               The Good — A clean and sober Eric Clapton made magic in his July 7 Riverbend debut, a vastly different concert from his unclean and inebriated TimberWolf show of 1983.

        On June 24, the Grateful Dead came back to town for their first show in almost a decade. Dead Heads came out in force, from all over the galaxy.

        The Bad — New wave poseur Adam Ant played TimberWolf on Aug. 8. But Riverbend also had its share, from sleepy balladeer Roger Whittaker to bland Barry Manilow.

        But for sheer awfulness, the clear winner was the overweight, short-of-breath Liza Minnelli, who came out of rehab long enough to play a disastrous two-night stand at Riverbend.

        The Night to Remember. History was made at TimberWolf on June 28, when Timothy B. Schmit, former Eagle and Coral Reefer Band bassist, turned to Jimmy Buffett and said, “Those aren't Dead Heads out there, those are Parrotheads.” A cult was born.

        Nostalgia aside, for Buffett fans, those really were the days. The 1985 Buffett show featured a strong version of the Coral Reefer Band that also included Little Feat conga player Sam Clayton. There was also real spontaneity in the crowd, as those original Parrotheads made things up as they went along.

3. 1986
               The Good — Riverbend shows by two very different American music icons: Frank Sinatra and the Grateful Dead. Bonnie Raitt, still in her pre-Nick of Time career slump, rocked like crazy in the opening slot for John Fogerty, who was going strong with his post-Creedence Clearwater Revival comeback. Up-and-coming guitar god Stevie Ray Vaughan also came to play, with his older brother Jimmie's band, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, opening.

        All the big shows went to Riverbend, but TimberWolf held on to its two perennial favorites, Jimmy Buffett and James Taylor. In 1986, the Maharajah of Margaritaville graduated to a two-night stand.

        The Bad — The unchallenged champ for worst act of the summer of '86 was “singer/actress” Pia Zadora. Her show went into the history books for being the emptiest sell-out in Riverbend history. Local financier Carl Lindner, a buddy of Ms. Zadora's then-husband, billionaire Meshulam Riklis, bought every ticket so his friend's wife could have a sell-out. The catch was, even though he gave them out to employees, almost no one came.

        The Night to Remember. For hard-rock fans, the summer of '86 has near-religious significance. June 24, Ozzy Osbourne played one of his more lackluster Riverbend shows. But opening for him was a genuine legend in the making, the classic lineup of Metallica, including bassist Cliff Burton (who was to die three months later in a van wreck on tour in Sweden).

4. 1988
               The Good — Jimmy Buffett made the move from TimberWolf to Riverbend and made the place his own, giving Parrotheads a whole lawn on which to party. Roy Orbison's golden voice was untarnished as he played his final show in Cincinnati, a one-of-a-kind pairing with Ray Charles. It was a summer of music veterans at Riverbend — Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach, CS&N, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Andy Williams, Stevie Ray Vaughan and the hard-country dream bill of Merle Haggard and Tammy Wynette.

        But the standout of the summer could be found at Riverfront Stadium. The annual soul fest boasted one of its all-time great performances that year with Stevie Wonder.

        The Bad — Neil Young, who has turned in some of the best Riverbend shows, stunk up the place in 1988 with his “This Note's For You” blues tour. Never a competent blues/R&B singer or guitarist, his was a vanity project in the very worst way.

        The Night to Remember — The rock show of the summer paired a newly sober Aerosmith (no booze or drugs were allowed backstage) with an up-and-coming band that sorely tested that prohibition, Guns 'N Roses. Yes, the future stadium headliner was an opening act at Riverbend, as Axl and the boys tried to show what they could do in a short, front-of-the-curtain set.

5. 1966
               The Good — It was the Jurassic age of summer concerts, but 1966 makes the cut simply for one show — Aug. 20, when what would be the final Beatles tour was booked to play Crosley Field.

        The Bad — It was so early in the evolution of summer concerts that the show's promoter failed to cover the stage with a tarp. It rained before the show, soaking the electric equipment so badly that John, Paul, George and Ringo couldn't play.

        The Night to Remember — Aug. 21. It turned out that the rained-out Fab Four had the next night (a Sunday) free, so — believe it or not — the Beatles hung out in Cincinnati and played the next night. Try to imagine anybody doing that in 2001.
       

6. 1997
               The Good — It was the summer of the festival tour and about all of them came to Riverbend in less than five weeks, including the first Lilith Fair and the last Lollapalooza.

        The Bad — The hip-hop/R&B/funk/reggae fest Smokin' Grooves (July 15) had a solid lineup that included the Roots, Outkast, Erykah Badu, Cypress Hill and George Clinton's P-Funk. But it never clicked. Maybe it was the recent murders of Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur, but the backstage mood was so tense that metal detectors were used on musicians and stage crews to prevent gunplay.

        Lollapalooza '97 was even worse, killing the alt-fest for good. Terrible sets by Prodigy, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Tricky helped bury it.

        Alt-rock wasn't the only thing that died that summer. Aug. 12, Barry Manilow personally proved MOR DOA.

        The Night to Remember — That first Lilith Fair was everything a festival should be: a celebratory, communal atmosphere and great performances by Sarah McLachlan, the Indigo Girls and Jewel, plus an incendiary set by Emmylou Harris and her Afro-ppalachian band Spyboy.

7. 1989
               The Good — The Rolling Stones sold out Riverfront Stadium on (55,000 seats) Sept. 14 with “Steel Wheels,” their final tour with original bassist Bill Wyman.

        The Bad — July 13, the Club MTV Live tour brought the infamous Milli Vanilli to Riverbend just after the faux duo's first hit, “Girl You Know It's True.” Within a year, the act would win the best new artist Grammy and then be revealed as pop music's most notorious hoax (they didn't even sing in the studio, let alone in concert).

        The Night to Remember — May 21, 1989, Bonnie Raitt, just a few months after her Nick of Time Grammy sweep, sold out Bogart's in a heartbeat. In what looks to have been her final local club date, she put on a great show that included another long-running cult fave in the opening slot, Richard Thompson.

8. 1999
               The Good — The final Lilith Fair came to Riverbend with a rocking lineup that included Sheryl Crow, the Pretenders, the Indigo Girls and founder Sarah McLachlan. And on the smallest stage, there was a two-song set by a spanking-new, teen pop singer named Christina Aguilera.

        May 15 saw a mini-Lilith at Bogart's, as Lucinda Williams and Patty Griffin rocked the house in a show people are still talking about.

        Lucinda fans had a great summer, as she returned to town for a Riverbend show in late July, opening for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers in the year's best straight-ahead rock show.

        Bonnie Raitt threw her own mini-fest on Sept. 7 at Riverbend, gathering some singing/songwriting pals (Jackson Browne, Shawn Colvin, Bruce Hornsby and David Lindley) in a laid-back evening of songswapping.

        Pepsi Jammin' on Main sold out downtown Cincinnati with a varied two-night show that included the Goo Goo Dolls, Bela Fleck & the Flecktones and '70s superstar Peter Frampton.

        The Bad — Sept. 2, 'NSync cheated young fans with an 'NTerminable 100-minute show equally split between 'NAne skits and 'NSipid music.

        The Night to Remember — Bob Dylan at Bogart's — loose and rocking, the most influential songwriter of the second half of the 20th century played the intimate Corryville club as if he still had something to prove.

9. 1998
               The Good — The year after Lollapalooza folded, the H.O.R.D.E. Tour fielded a seriously diverse package at Riverbend, with Smashing Pumpkins, Barenaked Ladies, Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals, Alana Davis and Gov't Mule.

        The Bad — Back-to-back bad at Riverbend. July 20, the Spice Girls displayed no musical ability whatsoever. July 21, it was time for awful hard-rock, as Van Halen returned for an only-in-it-for-the-money tour, fronted by the guy who replaced Sammy Hagar who replaced David Lee Roth. For future rock trivia game purposes, his name was Gary Cherone. Beyond a few Eddie Van Halen guitar solos, the show was memorable only for Noah Hunt and the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band's opening set.

        The Night to Remember — July 27, 1998, John Fogerty returned to Riverbend, playing his CCR songs for the first time since the band folded, in a night of classic rock that deserved the name.

10. 1992
               The Good — It was a fine summer for all-star fest/revue style concerts. Aug. 13, it was '70s heaven, with the New York Rock and Soul Revue at Riverbend with Steely Dan's Donald Becker and Walter Fagen along with Phoebe Snow, Boz Scaggs and Michael McDonald.

        Ricky Skaggs put his money where his heart was in the all-star bluegrass “Pickin' Party Tour” that brought bluegrass patriarch Bill Monroe to Riverbend.

        The Bad — Dancer Paula Abdul was booked for an Aug. 14 Riverbend date with the lame boy-band Color Me Badd. And, in the intentionally bad category, comic “mockumentary” metal band Spinal Tap came to Riverbend on June 16.

        The Night to Remember — July 18, Lollapalooza came to Riverbend in the festival tour's second year, when it still really was cutting edge. Grunge was coming into its own, and Lollapalooza featured Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, along with Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ice Cube and Ministry.

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