Your WORST concert experiences?

[tunaman]

I was on Facebook just now, doing one of those "5 Things" dealies, when I started thinking about the worst concert experiences of my life:

- I walked out of U2's "Joshua Tree" show in Atlanta when they did this halfass rendition of "New Year's Day". It wasn't meant to be an "acoustic" or "unplugged" version of the song... the band was just like "meh - we're so damn sick of this song". I could actually see the band not putting any effort into it. I felt robbed, especially since I was a fan of earlier U2 stuff. It honestly seemed like Bono and Company had this "well, we're gonna play this old crap to satisfy you lontime fans, but we don't have to like it" attitude. I felt vindicated a couple of days later when a friend of mine, who had tickets to both Atlanta shows, told me that Bono had pulled the same "stranger" out of the audience both nights (to sing with him onstage or something).

- I almost walked out of David Bowie's "Glass Spider" show, because I found the whole thing pretentious and overly orchestrated. I went out on the concourse to have a smoke and decide what to do, when I met this chick. We went back to her seats and started making out, so I stayed.

- Went to see Nine Inch Nails at The Masquerade (a smallish venue in Atlanta). Since it was general admission, my then-GF and I decided to get there early so we could get close to the stage. When we arrived, there were like... 20 people there, total. But the place soon filled up, and I got a bit worried as more and more people walked in the door. Just before NIN started, I looked back and saw (what looked like) 5,000 people jammed into a place meant for 2,000. Then NIN came out, and there was an almighty push towards the stage, and my GF was crushed against the stage. She cried out in pain, thinking she'd broken a rib. To make matters worse, the crowd at the front was "dancing aggressively" (not quite slam dancing or mosh-pitting, but you get the idea). I managed to pull her out, and we forced our way out the door. Her glasses were broken, her lipstick (which had been perfect) now looked like Robert Smith's, I was bleeding from a cut to the forehead and my shirt was ripped in two places. Needless to say, we left. We both had bruises aplenty the next day.

But the worst concert experience of all time was:

- Natalie Merchant at Chastain Park. Chastain is an outdoor ampitheatre on the north side of Atlanta. The concert took place in late September, and (as luck would have it), that night just happened to be first "chilly" night of the season. But Natalie came out and did a bunch of her "fast" songs (well, as "fast" as a Natalie Merchant song gets). It was all good, right? But then... it started to rain. Not a fierce rain, mind you... just a "long, wet soak" kind of rain. And, just at that moment, Natalie went into a 10 song long set of her slowest songs. She sat there... on her nice covered stage, surrounded by candles... singing songs that were so slow they didn't even have percussion instruments... apparently oblivious to the fact that everyone in the crowd was sitting under umbrellas or tablecloths looking cold, wet and miserable. There are a lot of musicians I would sit in a cold rain for, but listening to Natalie Merchant drone on and on about her mommy issues ain't it. We got up and walked to the car, jacked up the heat, and hit the Landmark Diner just to warm up. The show itself wasn't that bad, I was just... gobsmacked that Merchant would be so clueless about the crowd. It wasn't like she had lasers, inflatable pigs, video screens, or other things that would tie her to a particular playlist. You'd think she'd tell the band "hey, it's cold and raining, let's do some fast numbers so the crowd won't think about how cold and wet they are"... But no.

So... how about you? What are some of your awful concert experiences? Feel free to post anything you'd like, but I hope you guys stay away from the generic "it was a decent show, but they only played for 30 minutes!" type of experience. Don't let me down!

[OneCentStamp]

Not horrible, but memorable: in 1991, I saw Sonic Youth at the University of Maryland. It was the Goo tour, and they had Holy Rollers and Redd Kross (two bands I also liked) opening.

I got front and center and stayed there, in spite of the 2000-person-plus wave of death trying to smush me into the barricades. Sonic Youth took the stage and played for 55 intense minutes. In the middle of what would be their last song, Kim Gordon suddenly and without warning threw her bass onto the stage, where it fed back like a dying ox, and walked off.

Thurston and Lee looked at each other with alarm for a second, but the band never missed a beat. At the end of the song, Thurston said, "Well, I guess that was our last song. Good night!"

[Cluricaun]

I say Days of the New (famous for the acoustic Alice in Chains-esqe "Touch, Peel and Stand) in DeKalb Illinois well after their hey day and Travis Meeks, the lead singer and guitar player was so fucked up that they barely made it through half of the first song before he was out cold on stage.

I saw Deicide in a small, I mean tiny club in Aurora Illinois probably 8 or 9 years ago and Glenn Benton though he was in Ohio. The tour shirts even said "Aurora Ohio." next to the date on the back. I also had a 103 degree fever and the ambient temp inside of Riley's Rock House was probably 150 degrees anyway so it was like they were playing live in hell. Cool venue for Deicide of course, but really not that fun to go through. The opening bands were Marduk and Gorguts so it was worth it to me to suffer through the whole thing.

[OneCentStamp]

I saw Deicide in a small, I mean tiny club in Aurora Illinois probably 8 or 9 years ago and Glenn Benton though he was in Ohio. The tour shirts even said "Aurora Ohio." next to the date on the back. I also had a 103 degree fever and the ambient temp inside of Riley's Rock House was probably 150 degrees anyway so it was like they were playing live in hell. Cool venue for Deicide of course, but really not that fun to go through. The opening bands were Marduk and Gorguts so it was worth it to me to suffer through the whole thing.

[Wayne Campbell] How can you not know where Aurora, IL is? Shyuh! As if! [/Wayne Campbell]

I totally envy that you saw Marduk.

[Cluricaun]

Black metal is something best experianced when it's from the recording studio, trust me. Marduk sucked hard, but it was cool to see a real authentic black metal band in person.

Also, Glenn Benton is like 6'5 and was around 240 back then. I have good reason to be scared of this guy. Everyone in black metal bands looks like someone's 12 year old sister. I don't care how scary you think you are, you look like a fifth grader.

[OneCentStamp]

Holy shit, I saw Marduk! How did I forget that?!

They were opening for Nile. And yeah, not super good. It was just a big sloppy blur of sound.

[/extreme metal thread hijack]

[yawndave]

A friend and I took dates to see Steven Stills at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz. If you've seen Stills in concert, you know he's a really good guitarist. Well, Steve was cooking that night. Too bad my that friend's date turned out to be less than pleasant company. She was ready to leave after two songs--she started doing the "is it over yet?" whine about halfway through the set. We should have pitched in and got her a taxi.

[Rube E. Tewesday]

When my now wife and I hadn't been together very long, she told me she wanted to go to a concert for a band she really liked called Moxy Fruvous. Unfortunately she didn't say, "I really like them, even though they suck." (It took me a while to realize how different her and my tastes in music are. This was the start.) I suppose the concert wasn't bad, if you like Moxy Fruvous. If, like me, you hate them more and more every time they open their mouths, it was an ordeal.

[Myglaren]

I don't think I have been to a bad concert.

The first one I attended had all the makings of a complete disaster.
A friend and I went to see Leonard Cohen in Stockholm, 1972.
He was to appear in the Opera House but a fire a couple of days before put paid to that.
The venue it was removed to was the tennis hall. Not a good start as far as acoustics go.
There were TV cameras everywhere documenting the tour - I don't think anything ever came of that though. The cameras were quite intrusive and had the effect of putting Cohen off his game, the backup singers and musicians too.
It was difficult to see the people onstage as the floor was level and the TV cameras in everyone's way.
At the interval Cohen shooed the cameras away and continued after the interval without them and the quality improved noticably.

At the end of the concert, Cohen announced that they wouldn't be doing encores as was traditional, but to sit tight for ten minutes.
After the ten minute break they came back and did a 'third half' of the concert, with apologies for the poor performance in the first 'half'.

The final part was astounding, absolute perfection from all concerned and what ended up being possibly the best concert yet for me.

The worst was John Cale. Not for any particular reason other than I didn't like him very much.

[featherlou]

We bought tickets to see k-os at a huge local hockey pub (Flames Central, for any Albertans reading); unbeknownst to us, if you came to the pub early to have dinner, they'd let you stay to see the concert for free - in all the available seats. So we paid $90 or so to stand around for the show*, while all the people who know what assholes this bar's management is got to see the show for free in the good seats. We were NOT impressed. We complained to the management the next day, and they told us that everyone who came for dinner got kicked out before the show. Well, that was a bare-assed lie, because we were there and we saw them not get kicked out. No offer for refunds or even a freakin' gift certificate, either.

*After roaming the bar up and down for ages, we found lousy seats behind a pillar. Some better seats finally opened up, and some other jerks slammed into them before we could get at them. It was a sucky night all around - the concert wasn't even that good - I think k-os was drunk off his ass.

[Lord Mondegreen]

In the late '70s I saw Chuck Berry perform at an outdoor venue. I hadn't been to many concerts, and he was the biggest "name" I had ever seen, so it is really only hindsight that tells me how poor the concert was.

Very short set, no interaction with the audience, and no encore. He really was phoning it in. Apparently he didn't even meet the backing band (which was the local support act minus singer) until 20 minutes before the concert. They had previously been given the list of songs he would perform so that they could practise.

[vison]

I took my youngest son and my nephew to see The Jackson Five back when Michael was still a black guy. I was in pain from the loudness, went to the bathroom and stuffed toilet paper in my ears, and yet the reviewers said, "It's not a loud band, so take the kiddies." Jeezuz.

I hated the Jackson Five then, and I still do. I hated Michael Jackson then, and I still do.

The best one was the first time we saw Loreena McKennit, so you can guess I wouldn't be going to no heavy metal concerts. . .

[featherlou]

I think my best concert was Duran Duran a couple of years ago. It was an absolute hoot, and the guys don't seem to take themselves very seriously (and are better musicians than they are ever given credit for).

We're going to see The Fixx in a bar in Edmonton in June.

[tunaman]

We're going to see The Fixx in a bar in Edmonton in June.

Now that's just sad. They went from opening for The Police on the Synchronicity Tour to playing bars. Is is the actual band, or is it just "Cy Curnin and three replacement guys you've never heard of"?

I can (possibly) top that, though. ABC came to town a couple of years back. They played a decently large venue (Amos' Southend - holds around 1200). Sadly, only around 30 people showed up. Martin Fry was gracious about it - they put on a great show and hung around signing autographs and hanging out with fans. It's just sad that he could have invited the entire audience back to his tour bus... and had room to spare.

Contrast this with Echo & The Bunnymen, who played the same venue a couple of weeks later, and were total dicks about everything. Well, Ian McCulloch was a big dick, the rest of the band was OK.

[Scumpup]

Back around 1982 I saw the New Riders of the Purple Sage perform live. It was absolutely the worst show I've ever seen. All of the band members were drunk or high or both. Every single song had lengthy, boring jams so that band members could take turns going backstage to get drunker and/or higher. The portion of the audience that was drunk and/or high as the band seemed to be enjoying the show, but I suspect they'd have been just as entertained by a groundhog dry humping a throw pillow.

[OneCentStamp]

In the late '70s I saw Chuck Berry perform at an outdoor venue. I hadn't been to many concerts, and he was the biggest "name" I had ever seen, so it is really only hindsight that tells me how poor the concert was.

Very short set, no interaction with the audience, and no encore. He really was phoning it in. Apparently he didn't even meet the backing band (which was the local support act minus singer) until 20 minutes before the concert. They had previously been given the list of songs he would perform so that they could practise.

By all accounts, he wasted about 25 years of his touring career this way. Too cheap to travel with a band, let alone rehearse with one, and banking on the fact that everybody who plays rock and roll knows his songs, he toured with no band, no crew and no equipment except for two guitars, which were chronically out of tune*.

The promoter was expected to provide him a backing band (usually the opening act minus its singer and guitarist), an amp and a sound engineer and PA. His performance contract included an extra deposit which he would refund at the end of the evening if the backing band and sound were to his liking.

I remember reading an article about him where famous musicians from Bruce Springsteen to Cheap Trick shared their recollections of being his ad hoc backing band during the 70s. They made him sound about as nice as you'd think he'd be - and they were trying to be affectionate!



* This, at least, was faithful to the records. Chuck was always horribly out of tune.

[vison]

The Chuck Berry stories are accurate. He was, in person, an absolute tool. Arrogant and unpleasant, and even if he, personally, was to give us tickets and backstage passes, we'd give it a pass. I know a guy who was in a backing band twice, and he wouldn't have done it a third time for ten times the (not that great anyway) money.

[Nawth Chucka]

Hands down (even setting aside the Neo-Nazi stylings of Warrior Soul) it has to be Einstuerzende Neubaten. Not that they were bad, but since we're talking about experiences overall - my date was a crazy-ass mo-foin' crazy guy who I only went with because I was so scared of him and he knew where I lived. He kept tabs on my every move and glance at the concert (reworked bowling alley but not the Ritz, my Detroit-area friends) and all but dragged me to the men's room so he could pee and know where I was. And he spent the whole day of the concert telling me about the band and their gestalt, etc, then spent the whole drive home berating me for not sharing his opinion of them. The album they were touring for at the time was Perpetuum Mobile and was great to listen to, but the the venue and the date ruined it. Kevin, if you're out there, I hope to God you got some help, man. Or at least more EST.

[dread pirate jimbo]

We're going to see The Fixx in a bar in Edmonton in June.

Now that's just sad. They went from opening for The Police on the Synchronicity Tour to playing bars. Is is the actual band, or is it just "Cy Curnin and three replacement guys you've never heard of"?

I had a peek at The Fixx's website shortly after we got the tix and it looks like the same group of guys from their glory years back in the 80s, so we will actually be seeing The Fixx and not just a couple guys calling themselves The Fixx. Should be good -- they were damn fine musicians back in the day!

While the k-os concert ranks right up there for worst concert experience for me, far and away the worst one was Cher playing the Saddledome back in 1989 on her "Heart of Stone" tour. My aunt had a spare ticket to the show, so I went with her for free, which turned out to be a bit too expensive for that piece of crap show. The opening act was comedian Dom Irrera, who was hilarious, as always and did an outstanding job warming up the audience. Then, when the big show began, we got to watch stupid movie and TV highlights of Cher for about ten minutes before she and her dancers finally came out onstage. Most of the show was rather obviously lip-synched, with the worst case being a song where she sang a duet with herself (actually one of her dancers dressed up like her) and liberally sprinkled with plenty more lengthy video intermissions during costume changes and shit. It was my first experience with a performance, rather than a music concert -- all glitter and flash with absolutely no substance. It was garbage and I felt pretty thoroughly ripped off even though I didn't pay a cent for it. I would have been much happier if I just stood up and left after the opening act.

[featherlou]

Speaking of opening acts, I've seen some fantastic opening acts (Wide Mouth Mason and Macy Gray for examples), and I've seen some opening acts where I'd swear it was just the roadies screwing around with the instruments. Noteworthy in the crap opening acts department was Ron Sexsmith - he may be a superb song-writer, but he's as musical as Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen - he needs to stick to writing and leave the singing to people who can carry a tune.

[What Exit?]

My worst was a Dead concert at MSG. It was the 19th night of like a 23 show stand at the Garden and our seats were upper tier where the acoustics are terrible. Beyond that, they sounded tired and when they followed the 32 minute version of Space with another long free-form jazz style time consumer, I gave up and headed home. It was a miserable waste of time and money.

[featherlou]

My worst was a Dead concert at MSG. It was the 19th night of like a 23 show stand at the Garden and our seats were upper tier where the acoustics are terrible. Beyond that, they sounded tired and when they followed the 32 minute version of Space with another long free-form jazz style time consumer, I gave up and headed home. It was a miserable waste of time and money.

I'm not at all familiar with the Dead (beyond "Touch of Grey"), but what you've described sounds like something that would have made me desperately wish I'd brought a book.

[What Exit?]

My worst was a Dead concert at MSG. It was the 19th night of like a 23 show stand at the Garden and our seats were upper tier where the acoustics are terrible. Beyond that, they sounded tired and when they followed the 32 minute version of Space with another long free-form jazz style time consumer, I gave up and headed home. It was a miserable waste of time and money.

I'm not at all familiar with the Dead (beyond "Touch of Grey"), but what you've described sounds like something that would have made me desperately wish I'd brought a book.

My brother was a Dead Head, most of my friends liked them. I had never gone before and my Wife liked the Dead. She had been to a few shows. I was a casual fan and love some of their songs, but live, in those seats on that night was actually horrible. She agreed it the worst she had been to.

[Cluricaun]

(even setting aside the Neo-Nazi stylings of Warrior Soul)

Warrior Soul? The Warrior Soul that has Korey Clarke as the lead singer? The same Korey Clark that Tesco Vee wrote the song "The Korey Clarke Dude Ranch" about with the Meatmen?

I don't know there were too many homosexual neo Nazi's out there.

[Nawth Chucka]

(even setting aside the Neo-Nazi stylings of Warrior Soul)

Warrior Soul? The Warrior Soul that has Korey Clarke as the lead singer? The same Korey Clark that Tesco Vee wrote the song "The Korey Clarke Dude Ranch" about with the Meatmen?

I don't know there were too many homosexual neo Nazi's out there.

I may be wrong!! Let me wrack my aged brain here - it was 1991, I think, and we went to see Queensryche for 'Empire' & 'LiveCrime'; I wore a mini-dress that I'd made out of a RenFest costume and was short that most shirts I wear now. My hair was halfway down my back in a spiral perm, aw yeh. Or maybe it was 1995 and it was 'Promised Land', and Geoff Tate had put on so much weight I screamed for him to put his shirt back on during the second half of the show. Low part of the Upper bowl area of the Palace of Auburn Hills, looking down right and Warrior Soul had what looked like sheets behind them w/ the band name in regular paint. I guess it's possible they were singing something satirical about Nazis, but my understanding at the time (perhaps from my friends who'd come along) was it was Neo_nazi. I certainly wasn't getting any campy vibe from them, and they didn't sound very good. That's where I feel bad for 'little' bands who open for 'big' bands - the sound system's set up for the biggies and the little guys will not sound their best.

Unless you're Okkervil River opening up for Clem Snide, then you will rock that bastard Magic Bag and do it with an accordian whose strap is mostly duct tape and sound like the voices of the gods. Which you are, because you're Will Sheff and Jonathan Meiburg.

Crap, maybe I'm thinking of the outfit I wore to Rush, with Eric Johnson. (He opened for them, I didn't go to see Rush as a date of Eric Johnson's.) I'll have to look at my scrapbooks when I get home, I have all the stubs.

[Cluricaun]

Ah, it was most likely the band logo, which is all red black and white and if you were totally disinterested (as 99% of the world was) I could see how you might get some sort of Nazi vibe from the look. They weren't Nazi's, they just sucked.

[Nawth Chucka]

Ah, it was most likely the band logo, which is all red black and white and if you were totally disinterested (as 99% of the world was) I could see how you might get some sort of Nazi vibe from the look. They weren't Nazi's, they just sucked.

To be fair, the Nazis set the 'suck bar' pretty high.
I think my friend Earl might have interpreted all the George Bush stuff as Neo as well, that's the sort of person he was then. Still, I enjoyed every single concert I've ever gone to with Earl and I recommend taking Earl with you to heighten your own concert-going experience. Earl, YES! Kevin, no.

Ooh, I thought of another teeth-grinder concert! Amy Grant's Young Messiah concert, it was heavily Jesusified for even the evangelical me I was then and I went with a church group so couldn't leave without taking a cab.

[OneCentStamp]

Warrior Soul? The Warrior Soul that has Korey Clarke as the lead singer? The same Korey Clark that Tesco Vee wrote the song "The Korey Clarke Dude Ranch" about with the Meatmen?

I don't know there were too many homosexual neo Nazi's out there.

OMG The Meatmen.

I didn't think anyone outside of DC remembered them. Ah, The Meatmen: the band so offensive I hid their tape under my Black Flag and Dead Kennedys tapes when my dad raided my collection in 7th grade. Of course, he found it anyway. I can still hear him now...What is this? The Meatmen? "Pillar of Sodom?" "Tooling for Anus?" What are these, the names of the songs?!?

Thanks for that flashback, Cluricaun.

[Winston Smith]

I saw Green Jello (aka Green Jelly after being sued) at some long-since closed place on Lansdown Street in Boston (behind Fenway Park). They were so loud I had to tear the filters off two cigarettes and stick the cotton in my ears. My ears still haven't stopped ringing. Tinitus is no fucking joke, letmetellya.

I got in a crazy fight in the mosh pit at the BU Arena at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert (I 'won' the fight, but still got beat up pretty bad). No broken bones or knocked out teeth, but I was hurting for about a week afterwards, and had a huge whelt on my eye that didn't go away for about a month.

At another Red Hot Chili Peppers concert (a free one at UNH), Flea puked on my arm. That was pretty aweful.

I fled the Worcester Centrum in terror after a Public Enemy show when some guys decided I wasn't the right color to be there. I didn't get hurt, but it was the second-most afraid I've ever been in my life.

I had a gun pulled on me for similar reasons at a BDP (Boogie Down Productions) concert later that same summer.

I passed out from dehydration in the concession line at a Kiss concert. Some nice strangers helped me to my feet and got me some water. Who says Kiss fans are the worst people on earth?

Our van broke down on the way to a Stones concert, and we had to thumb a ride the rest of the way to Foxboro Stadium. This meant we had to ditch the grill and the food, since our host ride only had room for the beer and us. I only had $20, and spent it on a concert t-shirt and thumbed home. Turned out ok, I guess.

Got soaked with beer at a Beastie Boys concert and got arrested for drunk driving on the way home. I took a breathelyzer test which registered 0.0 and was let go, but still had to pay to get my car out of the tow yard and two of my friends were held overnight to sober up.

I scored tickets to see Warren Zevon at a very small venue in Boston, and invited this girl I was dating. Our seats sucked, and we ran into her sister there who had just decided to show up and buy tickets from a scalper when she heard we were going. She was in the front row of the first balcony, we were in the second-to-last nosebleed row. I felt like a tard.

I got 4 tickets to see Elton John and Billy Joel, and gave two to my buddy. I invited my girlfriend, he invited the girl I was banging on the side. He did it deliberately to mess with me.

There's more I'm just forgetting. Pretty much every time I went to a concert something aweful happened, so I stopped going to concerts.

[OneCentStamp]

Green Jello (aka Green Jelly after being sued)
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Public Enemy
BDP (Boogie Down Productions)
Kiss
Stones
Beastie Boys
Warren Zevon
Elton John and Billy Joel

Welcome to the Eclectic Music Listeners and Appreciators Club. Why don't you take a seat up in the front row?

[Winston Smith]

Green Jello (aka Green Jelly after being sued)
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Public Enemy
BDP (Boogie Down Productions)
Kiss
Stones
Beastie Boys
Warren Zevon
Elton John and Billy Joel

Welcome to the Eclectic Music Listeners and Appreciators Club. Why don't you take a seat up in the front row?

You don't know the half of it.

Things went fine at Kansas, the Violent Femmes, Nora Jones, Allman Brothers, Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins, etc. And I've never had a problem at a Jazz Brunch. Not even once (except maybe being overcharged for a Bloody).

[BwanaBob]

Oh where to begin?

David Johanssen - played so loud at beyond the pain threshold. Even when he spoke it sounded like barking. I walked out.

Sonic Youth - another poster commented on them. I saw the same tour. The "Kim throwing the bass and leaving" was not spontaneous-she did it at my show too. Problem was they sucked the donkey dick from the start. Painfully awful music. They opened for Neil Young. She must have been blowing him to get the gig.

Louie, Louie. - SOme obscure band in the early 90s - opened for Erasure. Terrible. The singer tried to be cool during their "encore" by throwing his sweat soaked towel into the audience. He turned his back and someone threw it back at his head. Enough said.

[tunaman]

The best opening bands: The Fixx (opened for The Police) or Mazzy Star (opened for Cocteau Twins).

The worst? Some fatass, local, black stand-up comedian that opened for Frankie Goes To Hollywood. This was in early 1983, before FGTH had hit the mainstream here in the US, so the show was filled with punks and New Wavers and what have you. It seemed like 95% of the crowd had electric blue hair, liberty spikes, or electric blue liberty spikes. This poor guy came out and did about 8 minutes of his routine, and was heckled the whole time. People started throwing beer at him, and he was finally booed off the stage.

I only mention that he was black because the crowd was 99.999% white, and filled with jackass punk types that liked to draw attention to themselves. I've often wondered whose idea it was to have some lame Bernie Mac knockoff open for FGTH. The saddest thing of all was that the crowd was right - he really wasn't funny... at all. That's no reason to call him a "spearchucker" and throw a beer at him... but still.

At that same show, FGTH invited half the crowd onto the stage at the end of the show, and a small part of the Atlanta Civic Center stage collapsed. No one was hurt, that I recall.

BTW - The Meatmen rocked!:

They look for love
We look for meat
They think that's bad
We think that's neat!

[interface2x]

I say Days of the New (famous for the acoustic Alice in Chains-esqe "Touch, Peel and Stand) in DeKalb Illinois well after their hey day and Travis Meeks, the lead singer and guitar player was so fucked up that they barely made it through half of the first song before he was out cold on stage.

Let me guess - Otto's?

I saw that guy on "Intervention", so your story totally checks out

[Pork Rind]

OMG The Meatmen.

I hadn't thought of the Meatmen for years, but for some reason I put on War of the Superbikes earlier today. And now this thread!

[chacoguy]

Back in the 70's, I watched John Cougar Mellencamp get booed and driven from the stage under a hail of garbage when he opened for....(insert your guess here)[spoiler:13my3x2l]Wrong! It was KISS! Whoever booked those two acts together needed to find another job.[/spoiler:13my3x2l]

[Cluricaun]

I say Days of the New (famous for the acoustic Alice in Chains-esqe "Touch, Peel and Stand) in DeKalb Illinois well after their hey day and Travis Meeks, the lead singer and guitar player was so fucked up that they barely made it through half of the first song before he was out cold on stage.

Let me guess - Otto's?

I saw that guy on "Intervention", so your story totally checks out

No shit, it WAS Otto's. Where has beens go to die in the middle of fucking nowhere.

I'm a bit surprised to see all the people who know the Meatmen. I at one point ordered everything I could out of the Touch and Go catalog which is how I learned about them in the first place. And One Cent - They were Midwestern before they were DC. Detroit HC like a motherfucker. Meatmen, Negative Approach and the Necros for the win.

[Wheresgeorge04]

Speaking of opening acts, I've seen some fantastic opening acts (Wide Mouth Mason and Macy Gray for examples), and I've seen some opening acts where I'd swear it was just the roadies screwing around with the instruments. Noteworthy in the crap opening acts department was Ron Sexsmith - he may be a superb song-writer, but he's as musical as Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen - he needs to stick to writing and leave the singing to people who can carry a tune.

Worst opener I've seen was the Black Crowes. When their first single had just hit, they opened for Aerosmith. Saw them at the Spectrum in Philly. They truly sucked donkey balls - bad sound, lackluster performance. Crappy all-around.

Worst Main act was probably Guns N Roses. Not a bad show, but I've been lucky to never have seen a truly terrible show. MAYBE Catherine Wheel for free at Georgia Tech in about 1992. At the GNR show, Axl threw a mini-fit, but not too bad. Catherine Wheel just were boring, and sucked.

Joe

[Scumpup]

2nd worst concert experience would have been The Thompson Twins ca. 1985. They were sober and all, but they just didn't display much enthusiasm or animation. While not a total waste, it wasn't too much different from just listening to their then newest album played really loud at a club. Their actual presence had a minimal impact on the experience.

[Myglaren]

Worst opener was James Blunt, before he was famous.
Opened for Carina Round, who was incredible.
JB was tiresome in the extreme, had he gone on a minute longer we would have left.

[Laughing Lagomorph]

...

I got 4 tickets to see Elton John and Billy Joel, and gave two to my buddy. I invited my girlfriend, he invited the girl I was banging on the side. He did it deliberately to mess with me.

...

Your friend had quite the sense of humor.

[CherryBomb]

My worst concert experience was with the same band that I had the best concert experience with. Go figure....

Guns n Roses when they toured with Skid Row (1990-ish?) was the absolute best concert I've ever been too. Had seats about 13 rows back from the stage, front row of the first tier so I could actually see. I'm short, and it always seems like the 6'4" fucker that can't stand still has to stand right in front of me... The sound kicked ass, the bands were both spectacular, the beer and smoke was flowing - heaven.

GnR when they toured with Metallica a few years later... not so much. I'm happy Metallica played first, I would have been double pissed if I would have had to sit through GnR's crap to get to them. Metallica kicked much ass, as they do. GnR came on late, couldn't get their timing down, skipped lyrics or chunks of songs, disappeared backstage at random times (friend of mine that had a view from his seat claimed to see Axl mainlining just inside the ramps to the substage area), Slash was up on stage for about 15 minutes going through random crap as a cover... That's when I'd had enough and bailed. I've never left a concert before or since, but I was seriously disappointed. We weren't the only ones either, I'd estimate they had lost half of the stadium by the time I left.

[Raymond Onion]

I have seen the Grateful Dead many, many times, and usually it's a good show no matter what. However, once they played Denver two days in a row, at Red Rocks. The first night was wonderful. The second night, they must have been tired or something. They kept going into ten-minute guitar-noodling solos or ten-minute drum things that were just boring. If I hadn't been tripping I probably would have gone to sleep.

The not-to-be-repeated was Leon Russell playing in Tulsa. There were a couple of opening bands, one pretty good, the other not so good. They played four hours 'cause LR was late. He took the stage, did a couple of really dull songs, and then left. This soured me on LR for years and I would switch stations when his songs came on the radio.

A concert with Steel Eye Span and Jethro Tull. Both good bands, in one of those band-killer venues (normally a sports arena). Somehow SES got the sound system set up perfectly so they sounded great. When JT came on they changed something, and the sounds went ricocheting and echoing off the rafters, and then coming back again, and sounding really very muddy. How did they blow it so badly? I had seen JT before--in a better venue--and that didn't happen. Maybe they didn't tip their roadies?

[Cluricaun]

Ok, I didn’t mention this one before because it’s unfairly handicapped because of the genre, but I saw T.I. and Ludicris about two months ago at Northern Illinois University because my girlfriend loves, er, urban top 40 music? Anyway, Not only did it suck because I don’t care for the music, they had the sound system turned up as high as it would go so that the music was insanely distorted which then caused the rappers to have to yell all the lyrics to the songs as loud as they could. I’m a musician and a veteran of hundreds, if not thousands of concerts and this was the most sonically bad experience I’ve ever had, and that includes me with my first electric guitar. I like rap on record, but this was just silly. Add to that the fact that we were surrounded by the most pathetic Midwestern white frat boy collar popped meatheads I’ve ever seen and this one easily takes the cake.

[pepperlandgirl]

I got tickets to see Paul Simon in Vegan in June 2001--we were there anyway for our Honeymoon, so it worked out nicely. His opening act? Brian Wilson. I know what you're thinking...it sounds like a kickass show!

Except, Brian Wilson's performance was literally the worst thing I have ever seen anywhere, by any body, for any reason. It was just him and his keyboard. He only played new songs, so nobody knew anything that he was playing. I know he was there promoting his album everybody had been waiting for for twenty years or whatever, but I genuinely feel sorry for the people who waited for those lackluster, lifeless songs. They all basically sounded the same--that is, they all sounded like the most generic, cliche Beach Boys song you can imagine. Except, of course, without the fun of the Beach Boys (who I saw twice in concert and found them to be avery good time). Worse yet, he went on and on and on and on. It felt like I had grown old there and died before he finally left the stage.

[Scumpup]

Forgot a really bad one! The Pittsburgh Symphony, or a portion of it, did a riverfront outdoor concert in Rochester PA a few years back. The stage was actually a barge and the event was in a little public park. Sounds cool, right? Except that the barge was parked under a bridge, so the music was competing with traffic noise, to include 18 wheelers, from a highway. A lot of the time you couldn't hear the music at all. When you could hear the music, it wasn't worth it. It seemed like the music they chose was picked out because it was stuff that is technically difficult to play. It was as if they were trying to impress us with how adept the musicians were rather than trying to entertain us with music. None of the music was stuff that anybody in the audience seemed to like much. I don't think I've ever seen an audience at an orchestral concert that disinterested. People were getting up and leaving before we were half way through the program.
The only bright spot was watching a little Vietnamese girl who was there with her family entertain herself by dancing to some of the music.

[loach]

I was going to mention Chuck Berry also. He was about 2 hours late. He played for 45 minutes and left. The music itself was fine. Unlike what someone else said he did interact with the audience. He brought people up on stage to dance. He didn't have a set list, he had the audience ask for songs. Johnny B Goode was the second song. I wasn't too disappointed. I went mostly to check a block on my concert list.

I saw many bad opening acts but I flushed most from my memory.

[dragonwriter]

My worst concert experience was Huey Lewis and the News, back in the mid '80s. Not because of the band--they were fine. But it would have been nice if I could *see* them. Some dickweed a couple of rows ahead of us insisted on boosting his kid (who was about 4) up on his shoulders, effectively blocking the view of several people behind him. When asked to take the kid down, he got rather belligerent. Somebody got security, who asked him to take the kid down, which he did--until the security guy left, then he hoisted the kid right back up and left her there for the rest of the show. We were in the middle of a row, so moving wasn't really an option (the security guys were actually making an effort to keep the aisles clear). So we just had to sit and seethe for the rest of the show. We stood at the end of the guy's row and glared at him when it was over, but since he was bigger than we were (and had a kid with him), we didn't really want to get into anything beyond that. I think several people wanted to, though.

[Sarahfeena]

- Natalie Merchant at Chastain Park. Chastain is an outdoor ampitheatre on the north side of Atlanta. The concert took place in late September, and (as luck would have it), that night just happened to be first "chilly" night of the season. But Natalie came out and did a bunch of her "fast" songs (well, as "fast" as a Natalie Merchant song gets). It was all good, right? But then... it started to rain. Not a fierce rain, mind you... just a "long, wet soak" kind of rain. And, just at that moment, Natalie went into a 10 song long set of her slowest songs. She sat there... on her nice covered stage, surrounded by candles... singing songs that were so slow they didn't even have percussion instruments... apparently oblivious to the fact that everyone in the crowd was sitting under umbrellas or tablecloths looking cold, wet and miserable. There are a lot of musicians I would sit in a cold rain for, but listening to Natalie Merchant drone on and on about her mommy issues ain't it. We got up and walked to the car, jacked up the heat, and hit the Landmark Diner just to warm up. The show itself wasn't that bad, I was just... gobsmacked that Merchant would be so clueless about the crowd. It wasn't like she had lasers, inflatable pigs, video screens, or other things that would tie her to a particular playlist. You'd think she'd tell the band "hey, it's cold and raining, let's do some fast numbers so the crowd won't think about how cold and wet they are"... But no.

Natalie Merchant was one of my worst, too. She did a gig for my husband's company's summer get-together (he worked for a very large consulting firm at the time). A couple other rather lame bands opened, and then she came out, played for half an hour, and then made some excuse that her flight arrangments to get to her next gig were messed up, and she had to leave early. Of course, I'm sure she was hating herself for being such a sell-out, but still, I would think at least 45 minutes to an hour were in order.

Another one I hated was Phish. Not because there's anything wrong with them if that's what you're into, but I'm just not. I'm more into the-song's-over-in-2-minutes Ramones-style rock & roll than the song-drags-out-for-20-minutes improvosational style. And I'm more into booze than mind-expanding drugs, so that doesn't help.

[Control-Z]

Guns n Roses when they toured with Skid Row (1990-ish?) was the absolute best concert I've ever been too. Had seats about 13 rows back from the stage, front row of the first tier so I could actually see. I'm short, and it always seems like the 6'4" fucker that can't stand still has to stand right in front of me... The sound kicked ass, the bands were both spectacular, the beer and smoke was flowing - heaven.

I saw them on the tour with Skid Row too. Our seats were waay up and behind a pillar, and of course Axl got into a fight and didn't finish the show. It was still great to see them, but that's probably my worst concert experience.