Rock shows only, so I'm leaving out some great folk stuff:
Dream Syndicate, 1986, Quasimodo, Berlin, Out of the Grey tour, just an amazing gig, went on forever
Neil Young, Salinas Civic, 1981, it was a warm-up for the Trans tour, anounced on the radio and we drove over from Santa Cruz and paid $5 to get in. None of the guitar-synth equipment worked right, so he just played an hour of acoustic stuff and then rocked with Crazy Horse for another couple of hours. Seemed like he played every song he ever wrote.
Elvis Costello, Santa Cruz Civic, 1981, Warm-up night for Imperial Bedroom tour. Plimsouls opened and nearly destroyed the place.
X, Mabuhay Gardens, SF, around 1982. Blistering set by my favorite band ever.
Tom Waits, Rain Dogs Tour, in a circus tent at Tempodrom in Berlin, 1986. There's a legendary bootleg of the show. The band was so good, after the second encore the audience clapped for about 20 minutes, even though they were striking the equipment. Finally Waits reappeared and played another couple of songs on piano while they set the amps up again and the band played another few songs. My gold standard against which all concerts are measured--great venue, great material, great crowd, it all clicked.