The first time I saw R.E.M., it was in 1985, and while the show was OK, it was the most wasted crowd I’ve ever seen at a concert. Other people who were there told me the same thing.
10,000 Maniacs, whom I’d never previously heard of, opened. A co-worker who was at that show always referred to them as “10,000 Fuckups” and we predicted (incorrectly) that the band would never go anywhere.
However, the worst concert I ever attended was Van Halen in 1982. It would have been OK if they’d played more songs, but 90% of the show was EVH (RIP) running back and forth across the stage, shredding.
I was (just yesterday) watching an Aerosmith concert and noticed that Stephen had teleprompters along the edge of the stage. Granted, it could have been because the concert was being filmed and they wanted it to be perfect. But, on the other hand, he’s also 70 years old, dancing around on stage and remembering lyrics to songs he wrote (or recorded) nearly 50 years ago.
Might help the rest of the band as well, help them keep tabs on where they are in the song.
I’ve seen a few others (Billy Joel maybe) keep the lyrics in front of them. There’s only so much you can do if your memory is started to slip. That’s not to say that some people aren’t just ‘phoning it in’, but I’m sure some just genuinely can’t remember every lyric to every song.
A few years ago I saw Kelly Clarkson, I think, giving American Idol contests advice. She told them that if they forget a line, that’s when you hold the microphone out and let the audience sing. If you do it like it’s part of the show, they’ll never know…and now that’s what I think about every time I see a singer do that. I mean, I think it’s safe to assume the Stephen Tyler didn’t forget the line “Janie got a gun” or that Tom Petty didn’t forget “Baby breakdown, go ahead and give it to me”, but I still think about it every time it happens.
I remember Michael Stipe unapologetically using printed lyrics for “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” during their MTV Unplugged show (so he was several decades younger at the time) because it’s just such a fast-paced tongue tripper of a song. I’d guess Billy Joel would want the same for We Didn’t Start the Fire at the very least and then, hey, might as well include the rest.
(Not to discount the age thing, etc. I just read that and it reminded me of the REM show and Stipe being like “Yeah, right, like I’m going to try to do that from memory…”)
I saw the Ramones three times (1991, 1992, 1994) and while I love them to death, I have to admit that by that point everything did sound like one long song interspersed with C.J. counting off. At the first show, I didn’t even recognize they were playing “I Wanna Be Sedated” until the third verse, that’s how much of a blur it was. If you listen to their first concert record “It’s Alive,” the songs all sound fantastic, just even higher-energy versions of the album cuts. There came a point when da bruddahs were just treating it like a job: punch in, do the set, punch out, on to the next city. No soul at all…maybe that was due to Dee Dee’s departure.
Not the same. Kenny was in a state of dementia during that concert. Wasn’t the only one where people observed he was out of it.
I was watching that Aerosmith show too, btw. My wife came in and changed the channel saying they sounded like shit. I didn’t agree but I didn’t completely disagree either. I believe that show was tapped in 2013.
Several years ago during one of my city’s three day festival in the park type things, Marshall Crenshaw (or was it Little Feat?) were the opening act for The Guess Who. My pal and I were so excited to see TGW, even though Burton Cummings wasn’t going to be there. Our “man about town, gosh I’m just a regular guy” mayor somehow ended up on stage with the first band and played his guitar and goofed around for so long that it cut TGW’s time in half (concerts have to be over by 10PM). Grrrrrrrrrrr.
I don’t recall ever being disappointed by a performance itself, but Tori Amos and Alanis Morissette did not sound good in a giant sports arena.
88/89-ish. I saw Nirvana right about when Bleach was coming out. They were the buzz of the garage-and-basement-party crowd and were playing a “5 bands for 5 dollars” show at UW. They were terrible and I walked out after 20 minutes or so. They apparently got better later
For about a year, Smashing Pumpkins seemed like they were opening for every band coming into Chicago. God, they were just awful, every single time I saw them including them headlining a Festival on Cricket Hill just before they signed their record deal. Just horrible, horrible music.
Speaking of openers, I was pissed when we arrived to the Aragon Brawlroom late enough to miss the opener. Just making a name for themselves, Jane’s Addiction was supposed be the opener but it turned out the Dickies opened, which just angered me more. Then the Ramones came out. Now I’m irritated that the Ramones weren’t headlining. The Ramones were straight up bad, Joey slurring, band out of tune and sync. Finally, Iggy Pop’s band came out and in a five minute instrumental warm-up, they "out-Ramoned’ the Ramones. Iggy came out and put on a hell of a show to save the night.
Buddy Miles was famous for doing this. I saw him on a bill with Ten Years After, Zappa, and someone else I’m forgetting. Buddy stayed onstage for so long that Zappa only got to play for 20 minutes or so before curfew was called.
Can’t remember if I mentioned this one in a previous thread. I was greatly looking forward to seeing Ed Sanders, ex- of the Fugs, at Sanders Theater in Cambridge, Mass. Sadly, Ed brought along his buddy Allen Ginsberg, and after one or two songs, they spent the rest of the evening chanting. At least, they were still chanting when we walked out.
This was the Aerosmith concert I went to. It was like watching MTV, but you couldn’t turn it down or change the channel. Zero energy or excitement whatsoever.
Personal anecdote: After “Nevermind” was released, I asked my brother, who was a late 80s college DJ, if he ever played songs from “Bleach”, and he told me that he did, and if a time traveler had told him that this band would, in the fall of 1991, release an album that would hit #1 in most nations that keep a chart and basically turn popular music on its ear, he’d have said they were nuts.
I had a similar “wall o’noise” experience when I saw the Scorpions in 1994, and left early. I actually wasn’t there to see them; I was there to see the opening band, King’s X, who were okay that night.
The Smashing Pumpkins was my first concert (and I won the tickets). This would have, IIRC, been their tour for Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. I absolutely loved that album, still do. However, the concert was awful. I tell myself it’s because the (free) seats were terrible. Way, way up in the nosebleed section and so far to the side that we could see backstage, but, in reality it’s because he screamed every lyric for every song for the entire concert.
I don’t know if he still does that, I don’t know if it he was doing it on purpose, but it was awful and not remotely like his voice that I had been listening too for so long on the radio/CDs.
I don’t know about 10,000 Maniacs as a band, but I’ve heard Natalie Merchant, on her own, is awful. Great singer, difficult to work with though. Someone here said they went to one of her concerts and she spent the first half singing lullabies or something along those lines.
Richard Betts (Allman Brothers Band) was touring own in pretty small venue nearby. It was unbelievably loud and he was off or drunk or both and my friends and I left before it was half over. Too bad. He can really play a guitar.
BTW, who decides on the volume? The sound guy or does the band have the final say?
Mark-Almond was a big disappointment. The concert was scheduled for 8 pm, so people were lining up at 7:30 (it was open seating). Eight pm passed, then nine and everyone was still outdoors waiting for the doors to open. Finally, at ten, they opened the doors.* People filed in and the band came out.
A proceeded to do a sound check. When the audience expressed their displeasure, they got all snarky. There was no apology or explanation why they had shown up two hours late. They left the stage, and a few minutes later began to play.
Their music wasn’t good enough to overcome the terrible impression they made.
I’d imagine the band members, the people bringing in the money, have the final say, but you’d think they’d trust the sound guys out in the audience. So long as it isn’t distorted, I would think the band would be more concerned with the mix rather than the volume of the music as a whole.
I remember watching the opening act for Tom Petty when my friend leaned over and mentioned how loud the keyboard was. Well, yeah, I’m not sure what she expected, it was Steve Winwood (with whom we were both very familiar).
We were so excited to see Joan Armatrading. This was very early in her career and it was just her and her guitar. And she was… painfully shy. She hunched over her guitar, singing into a (purposely?) too-short microphone while staring at her feet.
We’d never heard of her opening act, but Pat Metheney was the high point of the night.
Oh, we tried a Joan concert again, a decade later. She’d gotten much more bold, her amazing Secret Secrets album had just come out, she was leading a world-class band (including some members of Little Feat… the drummer was intense!), and it was a wonderful evening.
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I’m SO glad I got to see Bob on a sober night… very engaged. No politics, just a soupçon of Jesus, and the altered arrangements were really clever (see Live at Budokon for his third-person version of “Tangled Up In Blue”).
I’ve seen Alice in Chains three times in Montreal at the Metropolis; the first time they were on the cusp of being too loud and the two successive times they were, IMO, way too loud, to the extent that they were almost unintelligible. I love their music but I don’t know if I would see them again live.
