20 Pete Doherty, Burns an' a' That Festival, Ayr Town Hall, 28 May 2005
19 Miles Davis, Green's, Glasgow, 18 November 1973
18 The Unusual Suspects, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 26 January 2003
17 Belle Sebastian, Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, 12 June 2004
16 Son House, Leith Town Hall, July 1970
15 Nirvana, Southern Bar, Edinburgh, 1 December 1991
14 Blur, Pulp and Manic Street Preachers, T in the Park, Strathclyde Country Park, 30 July 1994
13 Duke Ellington, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 27 November 1973
12 Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, Glasgow Empire, May 1957
11 The Big Day, Glasgow, 3 June 1990
10 The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Pink Floyd, the Nice, the Move, Amen Corner, Eire Apparent and the Outer Limits, Green's Playhouse, Glasgow, 5 December 1967
9 Grangemouth Rock Festival, Grangemouth Stadium, 29 September 1972
AS THE son of a jazz musician, Prince knows that the real music is made after-hours and in private, and so his "secret" gigs have always had a special allure. After two nights at the SECC, the Uptown Boy came uptown to Sauchiehall Street. This was a curious time in his life, not the happiest either commercially or creatively, but there was an urgency and hectic energy to his playing and his moves.

This was between Come, the belated official release of The Black Album and the frank disappointment of The Gold Experience, but this was also the time when the distance between live performance and "product" was most marked. He played his tiny ass off: Funky, Race, Boys and Girls and some other stuff, just one set that seemed to go by in five minutes flat. He was copping lines and licks from just about everyone you'd ever heard, Ike Turner comps, Charlie Parker blues contrefacts, T-Bone Burnett stuff, too.

And he smiled a lot, which went against the public image at the time.
DJ Gerry Lyons - the Lion King - claims he had to perform a "private show" for Prince and wife Mayté before he'd agree to go on stage, but has sensibly never divulged exactly what that performance may or may not have involved.
TO CALL the first Edinburgh People's Festival Ceilidh a landmark in the history of Scottish music is a bit like calling Ben Nevis a wee hill.

Instigated by a committee of labour-movement activists, the People's Festival set out to counter the perceived elitism of the "official" Edinburgh Festival, founded four years earlier, and to promote the inclusion of working-class culture. A week of theatre and music events - now seen as a key forerunner of today's Fringe - preceded the Friday-night ceilidh, organised by that redoubtable Scottish folk champion, Hamish Henderson. Earlier that summer, Henderson had spent several weeks collecting songs around Scotland with the seminal US ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, and the programme featured several of the singers he'd met on that trip.

Among the line-up were such now-legendary names as Jimmie MacBeath, John Strachan and Jessie Murray, with Barra's Flora MacNeill and Calum Johnston representing the Gaelic tradition. For many in the audience, this was their first encounter with authentic, indigenous traditional music - as opposed to quasi-classical travesties - and its revelatory impact still reverberates today.

6: THE SENSATIONAL ALEX HARVEY BAND, GLASGOW APOLLO, 18, 19 AND 20 DECEMBER 1975

Delilah was a top-ten hit, they completed three tours of the USA, and that year the band became Britain's largest-grossing live act. Their albums had become more diffuse, but few could match SAHB in concert, where Harvey's magnetism and projection welded disparate themes - street gangs, comic books, Jacques Brel, Nazi anthems - into a seamless theatre. Supported by musicians who played like demons, the effect was unlike anything contemporaries could offer.

SAHB aficionados rate these dates, the first time the Apollo was sold out for three consecutive nights, the group's best-ever. Centre-stage was a giant Christmas present which, when opened, contained the band. Their searing repertoire included classics such as Faith Healer and Framed, still fresh and innovative, while Attack of the Giant Stone Eater, perplexing on record, made sense in the context of a choreographed talent show, replete with dancing girls and Harvey's dynamic presence.

The audience knew this was a triumphant homecoming, and responded in kind to create an unforgettable atmosphere. Guitarist Zal Cleminson summed up the event: "Nothing was ever better than that."
THE ticket stub gave little clue as to what we were about to witness: The Clash plus Special Guests.

But this was a gig over which the audience had built up a head of steam for weeks, and which has since gone down as a defining moment in Scotland's music lore.
On a night of punk mayhem, The Clash and their "special guests" tore the Playhouse down with an "up-yours" attitude that was evident right from the start. It was the first time punk rock had been presented in the manner of 1960s package tours, but it had an Achilles heel: at least one of the bands had no ambitions to be punks.

They were punk's polar opposites: mods. Their name? The Jam.

They kicked off their set with a string of invective aimed at punk in general and Joe Strummer in particular. They'd soon leave the tour. Manchester's Buzzcocks bulleted through Boredom and other songs from their Spiral Scratch EP, Subway Sect somehow managed to complete their set despite a hail of phlegm, and The Slits' Ari Up, big on hair, short on temper, had an ongoing row with sexist yobs in the front stalls.

The Clash were raucous, ripping through White Riot and other tracks from their debut album. "We're the kings of punk from the Westway," barked Strummer. Nobody was about to argue.

Yes, this gig was part of a UK tour, but we've included it because, for those who were there, it sent reverberations through the Scottish music scene that would forever change the way music was discovered, made and distributed north of the Border. Punk would march on to encourage DIY music-making.
Edwyn Collins, James Kirk and Steven Daly all went to the White Riot tour, and were gobsmacked enough to form Orange Juice; Alan Horne was inspired to found Postcard records and Davey Henderson to put Edinburgh's The Fire Engines together.

It was the start of a Scottish music revolution.
Whatever you think of our choices, we'd love to hear your views, either by post or at , where, from Friday, the whole list will be available to view and dissect at your leisure.