Well…I’d add that Benjamin Orr was hot as hell…and him up there on stage sweaty and in leather?
I’m just saying.
I saw ZZ Top twice in about a twenty-year span; they were pretty much unlistenable both times.
Back in, oh I guess the late '70s, Todd Rundgren played a gig at a university near my hometown. The room was an horribly echoey gymnasium and the sound ended up being an undifferentiated muddy blare. To top it off, the band appeared in faux-Egyptian costumes and with a stage set that could have been the inspiration for the Stonehenge stage décor in This is Spinal Tap. An unfortunate mess all the way around.
The one time I got a chance to see the Replacements, Paul Westerberg was so drunk he was literally unable to stand up, much less sing his own songs, and they had the plug pulled on them about 15 minutes in, at which point a minor riot broke out.
Lastly, there was a Prince concert I attended in Paris, where the formerly-known artist apparently was pissed off at the promoters for some reason and took it out on them (and the paying audience) by playing a perfunctory 25-minute set, then disappearing. I understand he generally tended to put on a monster show, so I’ll assume I just caught him on a bad night.
I wasn’t surprised to see a thread about this, except that it was started before Ric Ocasek’s passing was announced. Never saw them live, but lots of people here have said they just weren’t that good a live band.
Never saw the 'Mats or Gn’R live either, but I do understand that lots of people did, just so they could tell their friends what kind of stunts the band members did, or didn’t do, that night. My sister saw Gn’R at the height of their fame in the early 1990s, and that was her main motivation for going.
I saw Boston in 1995. Let’s just say that “More Than a Feeling” didn’t have any.
I see about 20 concerts a year. So I’ve met some dogs.
I wouldn’t call them “great” in the studio, but I saw the Spin Doctors in concert and they were so bad I wanted to jump up on the stage and beat them up.
I last saw them back in 2011. They sounded horrible the first 3 songs, off key, no tempo, etc… After that they sounded good.
In 2013 I saw Vince Neil solo. He was running his fat ass back and forth on the stage, turning red, huffing and puffing. I thought for sure he was going to vapor lock. His gasping and wheezing made him sing for shit.
Back in the late 90’s I went to an 80’s flashback concert. Culture Club, human League, and such. Howard Jones came out by himself. No other musicians, zero back up singers, nothing. Just him and a keyboard. It was bland, dull, and boring as hell.
Saw Isaac Hayes a few years before he died. He was obviously sick. Singing and playing were weak, then he cut the show short. Probably should have just cancelled it altogether.
Then there was the Kenny Rogers fiasco.
My brother and I went to see Molly Hatchet once at Zivkos. They sounded great but took a break after 35 minutes and never returned. I went around back the building and saw that their tour bus was gone. Some roadie told me they needed to catch a plane for the coast and “this was only a mini concert, man”. :mad: We didn’t fuggin pay mini concert ticket prices, man!
Saw Patti LaBelle back in the 90’s. The venue held 15K+ and she only sold 600 tickets. She was pissed about it and was a friggin bitch up on the stage. Instead of being appreciative of those who did show up she carped at us about not enough people being there.
David Cassidy had sound problems with his own equipment. He was frustrated with it and berated the audience over it. Then he cut the show short and drove off drunk back stage, alerting the interest of the police.
Saw Better than Ezera a couple of years ago. Awful.
I’m sure I’ll think of more.
To be fair, wasn’t “no mid range” part of their sound for their early career? I seem to remember it all being about scooped-mids for them back before, say, the Black Album.
I can’t believe I am the first to mention Milli Vanilli!
I saw the same tour and had the same experience. Billy stopped the show a handful of times to lecture people in the front row and to threaten to end the set early. This just riled up the people in the pit and they stated throwing shoes on stage. I guess you gotta work with what you have, but seeing the rest of the show barefoot seems rough.
I’ve seen Dylan four times and he can be either great or lousy. I don’t think he cares one way or the other. Studio version- you can understand the words. Live performances are like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates.
Loved the David Lee Roth stuff with Van Halen, but when he went on tour with Sammy several years ago, Diamond Dave sucked something terrible. It was just an embarrassing mess from start to finish.
Sammy, otoh, was dynamite.
They weren’t great in the studio, either, but last weekend my wife and I saw Canadian 80’s band Platinum Blonde and holy shit their were terrible. (It was $5 and literally across the street so what the hell.) Their 80s studio work was typically 80s hair rock but it was perfectly good for what it was. Live they just sucked balls. Despite having more than enough songs to fill the 90 minute set they covered Queen, the Stones, the Beatles and Beastie Boys in between their own music to try to be better and it didn’t work.
This was part of an annual festival in this town that always brings in old Canadian acts, and most years, honestly, they’re pretty good. Last year Kim Mitchell just killed, and the year before Honeymoon Suite was perfectly good, but jesus Platinum Blonde blew goats.
I don’t know. It could be my perception of what “mid range” is may not fit convention. What I’m referring to is the riffing rhythms that “drive” the song. Crunchy jagged distorted power chording that really, well, just swings. IMO, that was absolutely their signature sound. Top range would be the fast shredding during soloing, often on the higher notes , the bottom would be the bass.
Black Album would be the last album their original sound was still somewhat intact before the succession of plodding mid-tempo bore-fests that followed, until Death Magnetic.
I heard NOFX sucks live.
I saw Poison at the Country Club in Reseda just before they broke out.
I dunno…maybe they were drunk.
now they’re doing the “we’re still alive” county fair tours my relatives went and seen poison and one other mid 80s - 90s band… the other band was fun … joked with the audience about how old everyone was and they were glad to still be around ect played an hour in a half and wanted to play for an hour in a half more … even hung around and signed stuff and sold new stuff
Poison, however, said maybe 100 words throughout the whole concert (someone said it sounded scripted )and blew through their “greatest hits” the whole thing lasted 45minutes to hour and they were out of town an hour after that …i
I never saw them in their heyday (I didn’t really like them until about the middle of 1997; heck, I couldn’t stand them but something just flipped in my head one day), but I did get a chance to see them twice in the last few years – one on their semi-acoustic tour with Liz Phair, and one a year or two after that with 3/4 of the original band (no D’Arcy.) They were tight as hell live, well mixed, and Billy’s voice was surprisingly good (that second show I saw was at a medium-sized venue – the Aragon – abpout 5000 capacity). I never wanted that concert to end. I’ve seen videos of some of the 90s concerts, and some of the stuff did seem quite rough to me. I would never want to see them in a stadium or large venue. (Though, I just love this 1994 live video of them at the 1994 Pinkpop Festival in the Netherlands. Yes, part of it is because it’s a Jimmy Chamberlin camera angle, and I love watching that monster drum, but I also think the entire show has great energy.)
The only really disappointing concert I can remember is seeing Oasis live at a Hungarian music festival (Pepsi Sziget/Pepsi Island c. 2000). Band just looked absolutely bored onstage, but I do like their studio stuff.
I saw him on a night he was lousy. But everyone else on stage - the backup singers, the musicians, even the crew - were so good and so tight, it almost didn’t matter that the reason we were there was having an off night.
Regarding Smashing Pumpkins, I saw them (new Pumpkins with only original member Billy) about 12 years ago in a small ~1000 seat outdoor venue and thought Billy did a fine job. He talked and joked quite a bit and made to point to say they wouldn’t be playing the old songs but then preceded to play a lot of the old songs. Sounded great to me at least during that show.
Almost any band that I have seen live more than twice has been inconsistent in their live performances. We once went to a Grateful Dead concert at Red Rocks that was so awesome we scrounged tickets and went back the next night. And the next night’s show was…a real letdown. Much, much less energy. I don’t think it was just us.
I saw Led Zeppelin a few times, and one of the shows was pretty droopy. It was like all the band members were drugged except one (I don’t remember, Plant, I think) and that one was trying to rouse the rest, and failing.
The first time I saw the Moody Blues I was really, really disappointed, because they seemed to be making a lot of mistakes, which of course are covered up in the studio. And of course, the studio is about perfection and the live performance is about passion. But they didn’t have a lot of passion either. I was so disappointed I didn’t go to another live Moody Blues performance for 20 years, but then I got talked into it, and that one really worked.
Janis Joplin, great every time I saw her. Bob Dylan, same. Jethro Tull, up every time I saw them but in one case the acoustics were against them. Oddly enough their opening band (Steel-Eye Span) didn’t seem to have the acoustics problem.
I do understand that it’s hard to give a top performance, night after night. However, if you’re a touring band that is your job. It’s just another performance to you, it might be the most special night ever for some of the people in your audience. You would think they know that.
I saw Tull way back, when they were on their ‘Thick as a Brick’ tour. Acoustics were good and they were outstanding.
But your comment reminded me of one band I saw where acoustics didn’t even exist: The Beatles, August 1966.
Their lips were moving and they seemed to be playing their instruments but damned if I could hear anything. Well, anything other than the loud (and I mean LOUD) uninterrupted screaming of 20000 peripubescent ‘youngsters’.
That reminds me. I only saw the Dead once. It turned out to be their 2nd to last show ever. This was in Chicago maybe in 95’. My wife and I were hyped to see one of great touring bands of all time. We like the Dead just fine but OMG was it terrible. It just seemed like it was a bad night. Not much chemistry or energy between them. Of course I now know that Jerry was in horrific shape but the whole thing was an audio fiasco. It didn’t matter to the Deadheads but I knew it wasn’t good. That was the first and only concert that I walked out of before it ended. It was just sad.