I concur...I don't know if it was just bad luck, but I never did see a good gig of theirs, saw them twice on SWG (the album/period I thought was best), twice on Meds and once on BFTS. The first Meds gig I saw was the low point, Birmingham Academy early in the tour, I have some hazy recollection that Brian got hit with beer early in the set and then just zoned out. The first on SWG (Cambridge 03) and the second on Meds (Wembley Arena 06) were mired by Stef's amps being broken late in the show, both times by stage invaders. For the final time on BFTS, I shouldn't have been so naive, they played most of the then-unreleased album and it was boring as f**k.
I agree, there are some live performance almost PERFECT in terms of sound, tuning and inspiration, on the other hand there are some performance very very poor. it is not easy to get a great performance always i know. In my opinion the best tour were the BMM and SWG, 2001 and 2003 tours. Rock am ring 2003 is a WOOOOWWW! check it out guys!!!. I loved when they used to start their shows with HAEMOGLOBIN! Killer track in 2001, in the later tours they never played that song again! SAD!