Singers Past Their Prime: Bad Concerts

Cafe Society
1

Sometimes it is fun to go to a concert and see your favorite performers rock the room.
Other times, it is just sad.

A few months ago, I went to see the group America (remember: Horse With No Name) and it was obvious that they just weren’t cutting it today. Voices cracking, even with a new lower range for the songs - even with the subtle help of younger background singers.

On the other hand, I saw Jagger and Co. on HBO and although they certainly have a few miles on them, they were still able to rock their way through a long concert.

Any other hits, or misses, in live performance by big name starts?

2

I was a big Kansas mark long ago. Saw them 2-3 years ago, and they were dead. Steve Walsh’s voice was awful and they just weren’t inspired anymore.

Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson also had voice problems when I saw him, but I understand it was towards the end of his tour. At least there was more of an effort from the band than Kansas showed.

3

I saw Elvis Costello a few months ago: he was good. But it’s annoying to hear a performer who has played a song so many times that he is only interested in playing “themes and variations” on the music, i.e. he disrupted my singing along to the songs :mad:

Then again, of all the performers I have seen do this, he was the best. Most of the times it wasnt variation for variations sake, they were actually interesting. (The best one he’s ever done is his live cover of “alison” on the extended cd of “Armed Forces.” You can almost hear the double-fingered “clawing” motion around “friend” when he says "i heard you let that little ‘friend’ of mine, take off your party dress.)

4

I’d have to say James Brown.

kinda painful to watch

5

Well, this is hardly news, but Bob DYlan is horrible, and has been for a long time.

A few years back, he was touring with Paul Simon, and each night, they’d flip a coin to see who played first. Sometimes Dylan would play his set first, then Simon would join him for a few songs, then Simon would play his set. Other nights, Simon would play his full set, then Dylan would join him for a few songs, and afterward, Dylan would play a full set.

I was lucky- my wife and I got to see Paul Simon first. Now, Simon doesn’t sing nearly as well as he used to, but he still sounds decent on most of the songs he performs. Dylan, on the other hand, is incredibly bad. INCREDIBLY bad. If you haven’t heard him recently, you may be inclined to dismiss the following statement as a comical exaggeration, but I warn you, I’m not joking and I’m NOT exaggerating in the least:

Do you know anybody who’s ever held his nose and done a joke Dylan imitation? Well… THAT guy would have sounded 50 times better than the real thing.

6

My husband and I realized about 10 years ago it was time to stop expecting anything but pain and suffering from a Bob Dylan concert. We realized the man injects his jaw and tongue with novacaine before he goes on stage - how else could he sound so BAD!

7

Several years ago I had the worst case of laryngitis I’ve ever had in my life… People swore I sounded just like Dylan… I only wish the laryingitis had lasted until the karaoke competition the following weekend…

8

A couple weeks ago there was a Pat Benatar concert from, I believe, last summer on “We” cable channel. I don’t know if her voice problems were temp. or perm. but it was a long way off her prime. “We live for love” was particularly a downer. The hook has a big rise on “live” which she apparently can’t hit. So she dropped the “we” and moved the “live” up a note. “Live … for love”, ugh.

The Rolling Stones in concert and in videos have been awful for years, I am surprised by the positive review of the HBO concert. Have they finally decided to be musicians again?

9

The Beach Boys

Like twenty years ago, they were so drunk they had some kind of spat on stage one of them stormed off. Then they apologized but it was really sad.

David Bowie

It was the tour where he was playing them old songs for the last time. He was clearly glad to be done performing these songs, he was racing through the material. Also several years ago now.

God, what am I like a thousand years old or what?

10

Well I didn’t make it to any of the riot/concerts, but Axl Rose should have kept 'em hung up.

11

I saw Foreigner a few years back and Lou Graham’s voice was horrible. I know he had that brain tumor and I’m glad he’s better and back at work but his voice is just shot. You never realize how many high notes their songs had until you see someone singing them and not hitting them.

Brandy

12

Frank Sinatra, live in concert at the Miami Arena, and I use the term live loosely. He could barely talk, let alone sing. And as a side note, there was a riot in downtown Miami that night, yeah!, and we were stuck in the Arena until a few hundred cops showed up and formed a protective barrier.

13

Brian Wilson played over here not so long ago - it was billed as a kind of ‘rock legends’ kind of thing so we went along expecting something really great. In fact, it was appallingly awful. We left after half an hour but some friends who stayed to the bitter end said it was the worst performance they’d every seen.

On the other hand, we went to a small rock venue to see Dokken last year. I saw them play some huge venues around a decade ago and they were superb. Last year, the songs had been re-written a little so that Don could still sing them, some of the high notes had been replaced but the overall performance was excellent. We went home thinking it was one of the best nights of the year.

Let’s see what the Levellers can do next month!

14

Ozzy Osbourne – absolutely terrible. I saw him at Ozzfest, and instead of walking around the stage he sat in a lift chair, swear to god.

15

Pfah. Some people just don’t get Bob Dylan.

Along with the likes of Levon Helm’s and Jerry Garcia’s, Bob’s voice still typifies what Griel Marcus called the “old, weird America.” Contemporary versions of Charley Patton, Dock Boggs, Blind Lemon Jefferson, the Carter Family, Charlie Poole, etc.

You want to hear pretty voices, go to the opera. Or an N’Sync concert.

16

Damn you World Eater, you beat me at humiliating Axle Rose. He did a stint for the MTV Movie Awards this past year. They sang “Welcome to the Jungle,” and it all started off pretty good, and he did his crazy “rundowntherunwayscreamingYEAH” routine…but once he hit the end of his run, man, that was it! Out of breadth, and he never recovered. Should have started excercising his body before working out his voice again.
Rob Zombie has the same problem. Sounds good to start with, but then gets winded and just isn’t as impressive.
I saw Dick Dale a while back, and that was pretty lame. He would say “I wrote this song back in blahblahblah,” play half the song, then stop and go on to the next one. It was like “Sampler Night” or something. A huge let down.

17

Gotta back up Ike on Bob Dylan. He sounded like that when I saw him in '81. Hell, he sounded like that on his first album…

18

I’ve seen Bob a few times in the last year, and I hope I’m half that cool when I’m 60. His band rocks, he keeps bringing new life to his songs, and his voice…no, it ain’t pretty, but I think Bob’s songs lose a lot when someone else sings them. He has more emotion in one nasal groan than in the entire N’Sync ouvre.

One that has to go in this category, though, as bad as it hurts to say it, is Ralph Stanley. He’s the Yoda of bluegrass and all, but his performing days should be left behind him.

He’s about 176 years old, but he doesn’t look a day over 150. His voice is still haunting, especially on a capella tracks like “O Death” (from the “O Brother Where Art Thou” soundtrack). That, however, is where the quality ends.

When I saw him a year or so ago, the show was run less by Ralph than by his son, Ralph Jr. Ralph Jr. has the look, sound, and talent of a frontman for a middle-tier pool hall house band. Where he really, shines, though, is songwriting–I do believe he is the worst songwriter in the history of song. Ralph Sr. spent about five minutes introducing one of Jr’s songs (Ralph Sr. tends to ramble; I kept expecting him to point out that he had been wearing an onion on his belt, which was the style at the time) and said it was the best song he had ever heard, and we just had to hear it. Then Jr. played it, and I was stunned. It was, if anything, the worst song I have ever heard. I can’t even remember anything about it, probably because I have since scrubbed my brain with a steel brush to get rid of any trace of it.

A seemingly eternal break in the music featured a 30-year-old comedy bit featuring Ralph’s morbidly obese fiddle player doing Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson impersonations, with Ralph as straight man. It made you beg for more of Ralph Jr and the sadly mediocre remains of the Clinch Mountain Boys.

(The sad part is that this was a double bill with the Del McCoury Band, who blew Ralph and crew off the stage. I was working at this show, and I’m sure I’ve told the story of meeting and being stiffed by Ralph. I won’t repeat it here, since this is too long anyway.)

I read a review of a more recent show just last week, and it said that fully half the show was led by Ralph Jr., with Ralph Sr. not even on the stage. During the time when he was on stage, Ralph never once picked up a banjo.

There comes a time when one might be best off to rest on one’s laurels, coming out of retirement for the occasional guest vocal appearance on someone else’s album. That time is now, Ralph.

Dr. J

19

Ike, I’m sorry, but you don’t have a freaking clue what you’re talking about.

I KNOW that, even when Dylan was at his best, there were ALWAYS people who laughed at his nasal twang, who mocked the way he sang. I think those people were dead wrong. While Dylan never had a great voice in any conventional sense, he was almost always the best interpreter of his own music. NOBODY could have sung “Tangled Up In Blue” or “Black Diamond Bay” any better than he did.

When I say Dylan sounds horrible, I’m not judging him against Luciano Pavarotti or even Justin Timberlake. I’m judging him against HIMSELF! He’s not just a horrible singer in conventional terms, he’s a horrible singer in BOB DYLAN terms.

When I saw Dylan that night with Paul Simon, Dylan’s band was absolutely first-rate. And his set list was delightfully eclectic, an intriguing mix of old and new. If Dylan could sing even a LITTLE, it would have been a wonderful show.

Unfortunately, Dylan can’t sing even a little. And this isn’t a recent development, either. His vocals are so horrible, even the best producers with the finest equipment can’t make him sound decent in the STUDIO! He’s infinitely worse live.

Am I saying he’s washed up? No- he’s STILL a very good songwriter. “Things Have Changed,” for instance, was a great song. Great enough that it deserved a MUCH better singer than Bob Dylan.

20

I must correct myself–I went looking for Ralph II’s horrid song, and I remembered what it was–it was entitled “Daddy’s Dinner Bucket”, featuring the lyric “Daddy took his dinner bucket through the gates of heaven.” (It got worse from there.) It appears, though, that Ralph II didn’t write it.

Given this fact, and in penance for the fact that I penned this piece of bilge on him, I will retract my “worst songwriter ever” comment for now. I still believe he has to be in the bottom 10 or so.