Maybe their music or voice has given you an image that reality spoils. Maybe their onstage (or invideo) persona rubs you the wrong way. Maybe their choreography distracts you from appreciating the music.
My nominations:
The Rolling Stones - sorry, Mick’s gyrating does nothing for me. In fact, he’s bouncing around so much that a good chunk of his lyrics get lost because he’s too far off mike, or out of breath.
George Benson - a real virtuoso of voice and guitar, but a little too reminiscent of Bill Murray’s Lounge Lizard character.
Great White - they might kill me. Oh, wait, this is about music I LIKE. Scratch that.
I’m the old fashioned type, I guess. I want music, not a theatrical experience.
I would love to see Disturbed, but seeing as their a hard rock band it would be likely that I would be wearing hearing aid at the end of the night. Plus, theirs most likely going to be moshing and I don’t want to get crushed. Also, I wouldn’t want to pay exiorbant amounts of money. I believe that you aren’t getting the equivalant of $40+ dollars worth of music when you listen to 12 songs, unless they play thier best set ever or something. That would actually be the main problem with most of the bands that I like.
I second Disturbed. Actually, except for the jazz and classical music to which I listen, I don’t want to see any of the bands/acts I like in concert. They’d all be WAY too loud and I don’t think I’d fit in with the other attendees.
There’s a Belgian band called Gorki. Their music is great, but I’ve been told the lead singer (Luc de Vos, in case anyone knows him…) kinda makes a fool of himself when he’s on stage (for one thing, he occasionally wears a kilt and no underwear) :).
Also, I think Bruce Springsteen, despite being perhaps one of the greatest singers/musicians/songwriters alive, hams it up on stage.
Performers like Sting. I love his albums, but there is so much going on in the recordings, so many instrumental layers, and they are so well produced, I doubt he would be able to pull it off in a live setting. My wife asked if I wanted to see him when he came through town on his last tour, but I think seeing him trying to do the songs live could ruin them for me.
I would NOT want to see Weezer in concert again, despite the fact that I often enjoy listening to their music on CD.
Maybe it was the fact that the concert hall was an old airport hangar and the stage was only 10 feet off the ground, and the throbbing mass of people in the flat general admission concert hall mashed my 5’4 self up against bodies that stood 6 feet tall in front of me, leaving me unable to see the stage, and eventually causing a mild panic attack.
But I think for the most part, it was the fact that the band members did absolutely nothing to engage the audience. It was a flat performance. There was no banter. There was no recognition that there were hundreds of fans right in front of them. I think they maybe announced 2 of the songs they performed. Otherwise there was nothing else spoken.
I pay to see a the band, to get an experience that I cannot get from a CD. Weezer did not provide this experience for me.
Neil Young, because his wife makes a terrible back-up singer, I’m not interested in getting a contact high from the middle-aged bikers smoking out next to me, and acoustics in stadiums often suck, not to mention the nose-bleed experience and high ticket prices.
Also, Dave Matthews for the reasons Harli cited for Weezer.
The Pogues and the Popes. Shane MacGowan is a great songwriter, and his voice has a hell of a lot of “character,” but the guy has a face for radio. Actually, he looks like a really drunk Ferengi.
Which is the other part that I never want to see another Popes concert (I never saw the Pogues live, but went to one Popes concert in Atlanta). Yeah, I get that they’re drinking songs, but Shane was barely with us. I knew the lyrics better than he did.
Oh, wait, this is about music I LIKE. Scratch that.