From the Fabulous Forum

Read re­views by The Times of some of the greatest mo­ments in con­cer­t­go­ing at the For­um. Read Times read­ers’ memor­ies by click­ing here.

On Jan. 1, 1994, The Times pop mu­sic crit­ic Robert Hil­burn re­por­ted that Nir­vana’s Kurt Co­bain sang at times Thursday night at the For­um with an in­tens­ity so prim­al that he seemed fully cap­able of fright­en­ing phys­ic­al acts.
On Feb. 20, 1985, The Times re­por­ted that Monday’s con­cert (the first of six sold-out shows at the For­um) star­ted straight­for­ward enough, open­ing with “Purple Rain’s” hyped-up be­ne­dic­tion “Let’s Go Crazy” and mov­ing in­to a series of songs from “1999,” the 1982 al­bum that set him up for his move in­to the stra­to­sphere.
On March 3, 1980, The Times pop mu­sic crit­ic Robert Hil­burn re­por­ted that after more than three years the Los Angeles based-Eagles made their first loc­al ap­pear­ance at the Ingle­wood For­um.
On Oct. 25, 1978, The Times pop mu­sic crit­ic Robert Hil­burn wrote that Young is one of the most re­spec­ted, but also er­rat­ic, fig­ures in rock, and his first con­cert here in two years did little to threaten either as­pect of his repu­ta­tion—es­pe­cially the er­rat­ic part.
On Ju­ly 7, 1978, The Times pop mu­sic crit­ic Robert Hil­burn wrote that when Bruce Spring­steen called his band to the front of the stage Wed­nes­day night after a dazzling, emo­tion­ally drain­ing hour-and-10-minute per­form­ance, the guy across the aisle from me at the Ingle­wood For­um figured the con­cert was over.
On Dec. 9, 1977, The Times re­por­ted that the mem­bers of Earth, Wind & Fire, the flashy rhythm and blues group entered the Ingle­wood For­um from the ceil­ing in huge, dark, glass cap­sules.
On Aug. 30, 1977, The Times pop mu­sic crit­ic Robert Hil­burn wrote that des­pite its some­what omin­ous over­tones, KISS is no more dan­ger­ous or per­verse than a walk through the haunted house at Dis­ney­land.
On June 25, 1977, The Times pop mu­sic crit­ic Robert Hil­burn wrote that Page’s gui­tar work, al­ways the band’s hall­mark, is at its most stir­ring and con­trolled on “Achilles Last Stand,” and Plant’s singing has a grip­ping, prim­al-scream qual­ity. The mes­sage is im­me­di­ate and con­vin­cing: Zep­pelin is still a vi­tal, con­fid­ent force.
On Feb. 16, 1974, The Times pop mu­sic crit­ic Robert Hil­burn wrote that the emo­tion in the arena built stead­ily through the even­ing, reach­ing the first of sev­er­al peaks dur­ing Dylan’s acous­tic set. But the frenzy of “Like a Rolling Stone”—with 18,600 per­sons on their feet scream­ing the chor­us of the song with Dylan—was once again the su­preme mo­ment.
On Jan. 20, 1973, The Times pop mu­sic crit­ic Robert Hil­burn re­por­ted that after a 45-minute delay com­poun­ded by prob­lems in the pi­ano sound hook­up, the Stones, led by Jag­ger who wore a vari­ety of glit­tery ef­fects (from a sil­ver tiara to sil­ver sash around his waist), were on stage from 11:10 p.m. to 12:50 a.m., of­fer­ing 19 songs.
On Apr. 25, 1872, The Time pop mu­sic crit­ic Robert Hil­burn wrote that Joe Cock­er’s re­turn to the Ingle­wood For­um Sunday night for his first loc­al con­cert in two years had a lot of the feel of a one­time cham­pi­on’s re­turn to the ring.
On Nov. 16, 1970, The Times pop mu­sic crit­ic Robert Hil­burn re­por­ted that in his first loc­al per­form­ances in 13 years, Elvis Pres­ley’s two Sat­urday con­certs at the For­um in Ingle­wood shattered the one-day box of­fice re­cord at the arena and demon­strated one again the dy­nam­ic qual­it­ies that have made him the na­tion’s top con­cert at­trac­tion.
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