I remember The Doors’ Ray Manzarek (with special guest) playing a show at the on-campus pizza parlor at UCLA in 1987. I was working that night and told all my friends from the dorms to come check it out. “Dude - the Doors!”
The show turned out to be the special guest (Phast Phreddie) alternating between honking a saxophone and spewing poetry for 90 minutes while Ray sat off to the side noodling psychedelically on his keyboard. My mates lasted about 20 minutes before checking out while rolling their eyes at me. Unfortunately I was working so I had to endure the entire thing. At least I got paid for being there.
I also saw George Carlin one time too many. First times were funny cynical 80s and early 90s Carlin. The last time was bitter, angry, not-funny-at-all late 90s Carlin.
Yeah, I’ve seen the Moodies multiple times in the last thirty years and every time they’ve been great.
I’ve been going to concerts since 1985 and the only negative experiences I’ve had are from the fans. At every concert, a certain percentage of people in the audience are more concerned with getting drunk. This causes them to keep getting up for more beer, sometimes during great musical moments. WTF? And there are always a large number of concert goers who think it’s a party and therefore okay to talk through the entire show. Oh my fucking god, I paid a lot of money to see one of my favorite artists and I get to listen to a bunch of drunk idiots. Once Peter Gabriel was singing a stripped-down version of Here Comes The Flood, just him at the piano. Some drunk asshole in back of me was talking about Aerosmith through the entire song. And a drunk woman and the Genesis reunion concert in 2007 talked all the way through The Carpet Crawlers, which happened to be the last song of the night.
I saw Natalie Merchant in Grand Rapids, MI in 2010. She stopped the show and yelled at me, personally, for drinking a Coke right next to my 12 year old child. I was being a bad influence, you see. She also stopped the show several times to complain that it wasn’t dark enough (This was an outdoor show; the techs were not in control of the sun’s position in the sky.) and that people were eating popcorn that wasn’t organic. Seriously. She stopped the show to complain about the popcorn that people were eating.
Although I feel for you, this actually cheers me up a little. I’m a huge Van Morrison fan and have always regretted the fact that I’ve never seen him live. One the other hand, I’ve heard enough stories like yours to make me think I’m better off just enjoying the albums at home.
I agree with everyone about Dylan. I saw him do a great show in El Paso around 1978, then a very mediocre one at Red Rocks here in Denver in the 80s. Luckily Tom Petty opened for him at Red Rocks, and he was great, so that made up for a lot.
I saw him a few times back in the 70s and he was just incredible. At one gig it was just him with a trio, a guy on standup bass and Van played some sax. A pretty jazzy gig. It was the only time I’ve ever heard What’s Up Crazy Pup.. Also saw him outdoors at Lenox, Mass. on the It’s Too Late To Stop Now tour… sublime.
I think in those days, he either nailed it, or walked offstage in a snit…but never just mailed it in…
Long ago, I took my niece to see Barney Live. We had crappy seats (her mom’s fault, not mine). I could sense my niece becoming more and more disillusioned as she looked across an audience of ten thousand kids to see the dot that was Barney.
I think that she had always thought of Barney as her personal purple dinosaur. She never really like him after the concert.
The absolute worst concert I have ever been to was Jefferson Starship at Six Flags in Texas when I lived in Fort Worth in the mid to late 1980’s. They were awful, soulless corporate pop pablum, with that “Built This City” song and all the other dreck they were playing at the time, and not a single Jefferson Airplane tune to be had.
They were probably contractually prohibited from playing Airplane songs, due to all the legal rigmarole regarding the rights to the name “Jefferson Airplane”.
“We Built this City” shows up on many of those “Worst song ever” lists, and I just don’t see it. The record isn’t great, but it’s a disposable, lightweight, and catchy pop song. People should take it for what it’s aiming for, not what they want it to be.
My daughter’s first concert was Raffi. It was crazy. Seats were expensive! We saw a dude strumming a guitar and singing “Baa Baa Blacksheep”. Yet the kids loved it. There was a five year old in front of us, standing on her seat and screaming, “DO BABY BELUGA!!”
Several thousand years ago, Jefferson airplane and iron butterfly. Innagadadaveda went really well but the airplane were so wasted they could barely pick up their instruments.