Man, I’m sorry all you guys had such rotten times at Dylan shows. That 1993 Spain concert and one in Madison Square Garden in 2000 (Joni Mitchell was the opener) were two of the best concerts I’ve ever seen.
Maybe you should just put on the CD of the 1966 Royal Albert Hall show (with The Band), roll a doobie, close your eyes, and pretend you’re there.
Aerosmith sucked. Could have just watched videos and stayed home.
ZZ Top, however, have always been awesome. Seen them several times.
Completely disagree. I saw their shows in Japan in 1995 and 2011. It’s not like they danced around or moved much from their positions. However, they were very engaging with fans (Frey & Walsh), they smiled a lot (Walsh & Schmitt), cracked jokes (Henley), etc. Glenn even said some phrases in Japanese! 
This perfectly describes what happened when I saw Boston in the 1990s, and other people who said they saw them over the years said the same thing.
Brilliant studio band; not so great on the stage.
Heh - how about most miserable live audience?
My hometown Victoria apparently had a reputation for being a little on the, um, staid side. Lifeless. Downright unresponsive.
The Scorpions and the Nuge have complained about us.
In ‘81 Motorhead rolled through, with Blizzard of Ozz headlining. At one point, Lemmy, pissed off with how sedate we were, raised his arms and yelled, "Wot is this, a fockin’ tea party?" Somewhat chastened, we responded with smatterings of lame "woot"s.
James Brown was often timid, reticent, (almost cowering), as was GG Allin and Madonna.
Kratfwerk, though, could’ve toned it down a little. (Like, chillax, dudes!)
I’ve seen James Brown twice, and he rates as one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
Another vote for The Cars. Sounded great and tight, but zero stage presence. Other than Elliot Easton’s slightly extended guitar solo on “Candy-O”, I could have been staring at a poster while listening to the albums turned up really loud.
ZZ Top was a mixed bag. I saw them in 1986, and they seemed bored and just going through the motions on the then-current MTV hits (“Sleeping Bag”, “Velcro Fly”) but woke up and seemed to be having fun when they would dip into the back catalog and just start jamming (“Jesus Just Left Chicago”, “Arrested For Driving While Blind”, “Cheap Sunglasses”)
I never, ever thought I would see the words “timid” and “GG Allin” in the same sentence. You guys must be one hell of an energy sink.
Bauhaus, unquestionably.
But then, that’s exactly what you’d expect. The only reason I mention it is the thought of Pete Murphy going “Whooooo, yeahhhhh, Hammersmith, c’mon, clap your hands” is faintly hysterical.
I have seen the Cars and can vouch for their “lack of excitement” on stage. I am surprised to read about Boston, I have seen them 6 times and I never thought they were boring.
I saw Jeff Lynne’s ELO a few years ago. Music was great but it could have been a cardboard cutout of Jeff up there, no words except “thank you” and little movement.
I love ELO, I love Jeff, but yeah, he isn’t a ball of fire on stage. I think that he, and his late friend, Roy Orbison, who was even more motionless on stage, are both extremely shy and introverted, and that gets reflected in their lack of stage presence.
BTW, here’s a video clip of ELO performing their first single, “10538 Overture,” on a TV show (I’m guessing Top of the Pops), in the very early '70s. Jeff is pretty animated (I’d almost guess that he was advised to ham it up for the camera), but it just looks awkward as heck.
Are you sure you aren’t talking about the Replacements?
That’s quite a combination of artists.
Victoria where? Canada? Australia? Somewhere else?
The first time I experienced this was an INTERPOL concert. Hey, not surprising, but I got so bored that I left, walked down the street to a Walgreen’s where I’d seen cheap snapback baseball caps with no logos. Bought a dozen, and a set of colorful Sharpies. Back in the club (The Rave in Mke where I could stand on a balcony looking down on a dance floor), I made INTERPOL hats and frisbee’d them into the crowd.
Some looked like legit merch, some had scruffy unicorns and cigarette-smoking clouds, some had the venue and date.
Wish there was a way to find out if someone hung onto their DIY Interpol hat…
Canada
I was hoping by the time I mentioned Kraftwerk that there might have been some silly-goosery involved. (Totally true, though, about us being quiet 80’s rockers.)
Where’s MKE?
Sorry, an abbrev (& airport code) for Milwaukee.
And abbrev is an abbrev for abbreviation.
That’s too bad, as their last two albums were pretty great. I love Brill Bruisers to death, and “Dancehall Domine” may well just be my favorite song by them.
That said, I last saw them on the Brill Bruisers tour, right after drummer Kurt Dahle left. I was saddened when I heard the news and, after seeing them with the new drummer, who was absolutely competent and did a good job filling in, it just wasn’t the same for me. I loved Kurt’s swing and his sense of fun behind the set, and I felt he brought a lot of great playful energy to the band, with some of my favorite drumming in a modern rock band. Even the shows without Neko I enjoyed to death just to hear and watch him play. Since his departure, though, I felt the band lost a bit of fun and rhythmic swing, and I’ve had little interest to see them again.
I saw Oasis once at an outdoor festival in Hungary c. 2000. It was probably the most boring rock performance I had ever seen. Now this was maybe a couple years after the heart of their heyday, and this was just an outdoor rock festival, but, man, it just looked like everyone was going through the motions onstage and thinking about what they were going to do after the concert was over. The music was competent, but just completely devoid of soul and energy.
Two massive 90’s bands I’ve seen live that had the most boring stage presence I’d eveer seen:
Smashing Pumpkins. Their Lollapalooza headlining gig in '94 - the big homecoming show in Chicago (actually Tinley Park) and they were just awful. Music sounded ok, but they all just stood there and barely spoke. I know there were tensions in the band back then and it obviously showed while on stage. The truest definition of ‘meh’.
Pearl Jam. Eddie Vedder showed a little emotion, but for the most part just stood there leaning on the mic stand. Rest of the band pretty much stood in place; played the songs and split. Again, music was good, but boring to watch.
I actually thought so.
Wouldn’t it be wild if someone who caught one of those hats sees this, and says (and later posts), “Wow! I wondered where that came from.”