I last saw the Dead in something like 1974. Maybe 1976.
I was 17 then, and they were older than I, but not all that much.
(This kinda goes back to my boycotting aging Boomers.)
In terms of live performance, I have a feeling that perhaps the Dead were never technically ideal.
The many times I saw them they missed a few lyrics and tempo changes here and there. But they always were personable. They had a sense of humor.
And they were just perfect in Boulder in September '72. Just perfect. They played a long time. They played well. Baggies of stuff were thrown into the audience.
Everybody has their off nights. I think if you tour too much or have a substance abuse situation you have a lot of off nights.
Not excusing this. Just explaining it. Don’t blame anyone for not wanting to take another chance on experiencing it.
BTW
Another guy I do not boycott:
Mark Knopfler
Huh? Those four are all quite different from each other. I can’t believe you mentioned ASP with the other three: they are indeed, like you mentioned, wannabes compared to the first 3 (who aren’t all that themselves, but are at least fun and talented.)
Speaking of bands-that-sound-similar-to-that-but-are-totally-different, I boycott Flickerstick. They had a decent album, but when I saw them in concert, they were
A) drunk off their ass
B) played stuff totally different from the album, and
C) were in the middle of trying to change their style.
A does not mix well with B and C. Worst. Concert. Ever. Although I still listen to the first 4 tracks off of the original mix of Welcoming Home the Astronauts occasionally, I’m never giving them a dollar of mine again.
And in a broader musical sense, I boycott the whole idea of even liking any song by Madonna. Most artists, even if incredibly lame, I won’t be predisposed to hate their music simply because of who they are, but Madonna takes every innovative and edgy musical trend and grinds and pummels it into Mediocrity Sausage. She’s the only artist whom I will actually change my mind negatively about a song because of who it is.
The ones I would have defended from zebra’s list are Bright Eyes and Cursive. But the band that I protest is The Used. Because their lead singer is a prick and was mean to Billy Corgan.
Ah, Les Pouges: still the best band to ever come out of France. I saw him with The Pouges a couple of times - pissed out of his mind, and he drank an entire bottle of vodka during one show, but he was still more-or-less together in those days, and their shows were some of the best I’ve ever seen {Jane’s Addiction in '91 was the best}.
Rage Against the Machine and Chumbawumba along a few others. I could like a lot of their stuff but I simply cannot abide the idea of supporting a band that supports the cop-killing Mumia.
Last year, VH1 had a special on the “greatest” one hit wonders. “Tubthumping” was on the list. There was an interview with the band. They mentioned the time when they sold the rights to a song to a car company for advertising purposes. They then took the money thay’d made to protest the car company.
I saw Flickerstick right after “Welcoming Home the Astronauts” came out and it was one of the best shows I’ve ever been to.
The opening act had their tour bus break down, so they never made it, so Flickerstick plays a double set. All of “Welcoming Home the Astronauts” and a few random covers. They were funny, fun, and the audience was really into it.
Bwahahahah! My local college radio station KGLT has a Greatful Dead show this is everything you described. When I donate my pledge money to one of the punk rock shows it’s on the condition that they have to tell the Dead show people that the Dead suck and are a bunch of drug-addled wankers. They always heartily agree.
Maybe I’ll double my pledge on the condition they paste a copy of your story to the front of every Dead CD in the station.
I guess it was an off day, but a boycott’s a boycott
Actually, I would have rather heard a bunch of drunken covers than their opening act: something like “Green Pony”, which was a total U2 knockoff (although admittedly better than U2.) And I decided this before I heard their Irish accents over the poorly mixed music.
Speaking of which, U2 is one of the bands I effectively boycott, in that I like several of their songs but they have so many popular crappy songs that there is no chance for me to hear just the good ones. In addition, and this is where the boycott comes in, I refuse to give them money to make more mediocre music.
The bands that are generally lame but have put out so much stuff that they randomly got it right a couple of times include:
Ah, sorry about the vague post. To clarify, I boycott categorically among three types of teenage bands - those that they or their fans declare emo, those that they or their fans declare to be punk (but aren’t), and those that are “trendy.” Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not someone who is against everything trendy for the sake of it, but there is a definite class of music that many, many teenagers cultishly follow for sheer name recognition. These bands, in essence, become a buzz-word for teenagers like “sea change” is for pundits. Rarely do these “trend” bands ever escape the wave of their hype. I boycott modern emo bands (not, say, Husker Du) for their pretentiousness and I boycott modern punk bands since a third wave is improbable, unlikely, and so far unrecognized. Since the music produced by these supposed punk bands are so obviously not punk, and they are eerily manufactured replicas of themselves, I feel safe in boycotting them.
The bands mentioned in my prior post seem to overlap from the categories I listed above. For instance, all of them are teenage “trend” bands, and roughly half of them are self-declared punk rawk. I have no idea what you mean by “ASP” - A Simple Plan?
wolf in second hand clothing I’ll admit that I have listened to both Bright Eyes and Cursive but their lyrics, paired with a certain I’m-Better-Than-You quality that radiates from Conor and to a lesser degree from Tim, turns me off to the whole Saddle Creek bandwagon. I do, however, listen to and enjoy some other bands on the label, such as Rilo Kiley, The Faint, and Tilly and the Wall. To each his own I suppose.
I’m a long-time Deadhead, and I’ve gotta tell you, these guys just weren’t for everyone. Either you connected with their music, or you didn’t. Being stoned might have helped some, but the vast majority of the times I saw them, I was stone cold sober, and they just clicked with me. I think Garcia said someting along the lines of “We’re a lot like black licorice. People who don’t like it can’t stand it, but people who like it can’t get enough.”
I never got into Phish much, never saw them live. But yeah, the Dead never had a lot to say from the stage when I saw them. I’ve heard tapes of shows from the early 70’s and prior when they’d engage the audience a bit more, but that kind of went by the wayside when they got bigger. I don’t think they ever did the “Hey, does <insert name of your city> want to rock?” shtick, but that always struck me as lame anyway. I read once that the band members became somewhat nervous about saying anything on stage because they were aware that a lot of the audience was drugged out (and seriously idolized the band), and they were afraid of the unintended consequences of an off-hand comment.
Sorry that you feel that way. I hope that in another 15-20 years, after much therapy, you can finally let go of the horrible psychic pain caused by an evening of mild disappointment.
I’ve seen Rickie Lee Jones twice, and both times she walked off the stage in a snit, which struck me as unprofessional as hell, so I won’t be spending money to see her again. Same goes for the Kinks. I dunno if they still tour, but they could play across the street and I’d skip it.
I don’t think I’ll ever see Green Day live in concert again, after the pitiable performance they gave three years ago in Pittsburgh when they only played fifteen or so songs and spent most of the time yelling at the audience. They were pretty drunk or high or both, and it was the last date of their American tour which might explain things, but that doesn’t excuse that concert.
I won’t buy any of Modest Mouse’s albums because of the singer’s alleged rape of a female fan, but I have listened to them, which makes me feel a little guilty but I do really like their music. I think it’s okay so long as I don’t give them any of my money.
This doesn’t count bands that I “boycott” just because I think they suck, which would be most of the stuff on the radio today.
ahhhh, okay, I can see how those bands could, theoretically, all fall into one of those categories, not that I agree with you on that.
I wouldn’t know what’s trendy, I don’t listen to popular radio.
I’ve never seen the bands, for that matter, declare themselves to be anything in particular one way or the other (not saying they never did, I just don’t go out of my way to see interviews with bands.) If on the other hand the bands did declare themselves to be emo or punk, that would change my view of them: DC, for instance, is pretentious but in a funny and thus fun way, and anyway how could someone having obviously such a good time as Carrabba not be subtly self-parodying himself for my entertainment?
Then again, perhaps the rest of the bands other than the first four fall into all three of those categories: I can’t say I’ve heard anything from them except perhaps Thursday.
Say it ain’t so! I was gearing up to buy their latest record! I have just discovered them with their latest single, “Float On”. Nothing like liberal/Catholic guilt…
I will buy no more of REM’s stuff, though mostly cause they just suck now and it’s rather pathetic. And sad. But mostly they just suck now (IMO after New Adventures in Hi-Fi I guess Bill berry had a lot of influence on the songwriting. Or maybe he was the one charged with controlling Stipe ).
Those four are all quite different from each other. I can’t believe you mentioned ASP with the other three: they are indeed, like you mentioned, wannabes compared to the first 3 (who aren’t all that themselves, but are at least fun and talented.)
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