what is your all time favorite music “scene” — by which i mean your favorite specific time & place, musically speaking.
with the news of Mani from Stone Roses & Primal Scream passing, it got me thinking: mine is easily Manchester England during the late 70s/80’s/early 90’s. So many incredibly important bands:
Joy Division, New Order, Stone Roses, The Smiths, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, A Certain Ratio, Chemical Brothers, … such an incredible time and place for music i care about.
In my previous life, the Mississippi River Festival in Edwardsville, Il produced by SIU Edwardsville. Yes a couple of times, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return To Forever (hung out with Al Di Meola before he went on stage since he roomed at Berkeley with our guitar player). Keil Auditorium, St. Louis, Mo for Procol Harum, ELP first USA tour. Denver Mammoth Gardens Joe Cocker/Leon Russell “Mad Dogs & Englishmen Tour” 1970. After the concert, which Leon extended an additional night, the then in place mayor became infamous for saying he wanted “the lice infested hippies’ out of Denver. 
mid-‘80s to early ‘90s underground electronic music scene, in particular electro-industrial
Metal in the 80s. I saw most of those bands that came to East Tennessee in the day. I was standing front row, directly in front of Randy Rhoads, at his last concert in Knoxville. I also enjoyed the jazz scene in southern Florida in the late 80s, and was just as into Grunge too. Hard for me to pick a favorite genre/period.
My first couple of years in London after I moved there from a coal mining village in Nottinghamshire (England!) aged 17 in 1973. After growing up listening to the top 20 on the radio and watching Top of the Pops, I got to see bands at small venues, big venues, festivals and pubs. This included Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Van Morrison, Paul McCartney, Deep Purple, Queen (a free concert in Hyde Park) and even one of AC/DC’s first UK gigs at the Marquee among many others. Really formative music years for me.
Simple, it was the early 80s:
Duran Duran - the first album and Rio
Tears for Fears - The Hurting
ABC - Lexicon of Love
The Cult - Love
Then while at university (mid to late 80s), I added:
More Duran2 - Notorious & Big Thing
More Cult - Electric & Sonic Temple
G ‘n’ R - Appetite for Destruction & Lies
Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet
That kind of mix has then been a constant throughout my adult life…
I was little for it, but I sure do love the music and vibe of the late 70s and the punk explosion. So much all at once too. Heck, I have Slaughter and the Dogs stuck in my head right now lol.
I gotta say it was Rochester in the late 80s through 90s. Although not where bands came from, the bands I got to see in that town over those years were incredible. For a small town city the music Selene was off the charts.
white Stripes at the highland bowl before they were a thing
Westley Willis at the Bug Jar
Money, Thrill Kill Kult, KMFDM, Lords of Acid
Reverend Horton Heat, Ani Defranco, RHCP, Rusted Root
…all in very very small venues.
Chuck Mangione with an entire Orchestra at Eastman
An endless list of more I can’t think of. Still a scene but not like then
Portland was kind of the same way at the time (though bigger). It had one stadium, two common medium sized venues, and many small ones that were up close and personal with the band. This was pretty damn great and made for a pretty killer cross section of live shows for me. From age 12 to 22 I saw:
Stadium: lots of stadium rock and power metal, probably a dozen shows
Medium venues: New Order, Throwing Muses, Depeche Mode, Love and Rockets and Tones on Tail (on separate tours), Nitzer Ebb, OMD, Thompson Twins, Debbie Harry, Ramones, Tom Tom Club, some others
Small: Most of the PNW grunge and punk bands, Hüsker Dü, Skinny Puppy (for TDP - their best tour!), Social Distortion, Front Line Assembly, Oingo Boingo, Severed Heads, MC 900ft Jesus, Consolidated, Moev, other Nettwork bands - more or less most weekends something was on
Having Sub Pop be based in Seattle and Nettwork in Vancouver definitely helped.
Oh yeah, forgot - at the local arena I saw Milli Vanilli. So there’s that.