For me, it was a concert by the Manhattan Transfer in 1972 or 73. They were way off, as though they hadn’t rehearsed, which is deadly for a group that depended on close harmonies and fancy vocal work.
Years later, I discovered the reason: the group had completely revamped its sound, adding three new singers. At the time I saw them, they probably hadn’t had much chance to rehearse and were just filling out a date that had probably been booked months before.
What live events turned out to be a big disappointment to you?
Bob Dylan at Stirling Castle. Just awful in every way, half-arsed uninterested mumbling rubbish. We left after about 40 minutes or so. It was like a pished great-uncle attempting Dylan tunes from memory - and having no actual memory. A disgrace.
Me? No contest here. Van Halen in 1982. It would have been OK if they had actually played some SONGS, but 90% of the show was Eddie Van Halen running back and forth across the stage, making noise on his guitar.
:rolleyes:
Several years later, my brother attended an R.E.M. show where they played nothing but Top 40 covers, and none of their own songs at all. He thinks they were all extremely wasted, too. Not long after that, he saw Public Enemy (and was one of maybe 20 white people in the audience) and they only performed for about a half hour.
I’ve probably mentioned this before but my vote goes to Flickerstick. They were in the middle of retooling their sound to hard rock from light pop punk plus were drunk and were messing up due to inexperience while drunk and it wasn’t the type of punk that sounds okay when sloppy.
I was disappointed in the latest Coheed and Cambria concert, too, and that was partially because they didn’t play anything from their first album and around half of their stuff was from their most recent double album. I was also disappointed because I would have thought they they had a deep playlist because they always seem to play a couple deep cuts that vary every time I see them (and occasionally play their entire discography in a several day concert,) so I got a ticket to see them again in Miami the next day, and they played the exact same set.
But technically they are still at the top of their game, and I was impressed with the setup of the Gleason in Miami: it’s set up like most other medium sized venues with a large standing room only place up front but the standing room is divided up by handrails. It does make you run the risk of running into them if you are jumping up and down but it also means that no one can rush toward the stage and force a mosh pit if everyone else isn’t in on it.
No doubt it was a campus concert featuring a band named Rotary Connection. Terrible acoustics, a sloppy performance, a crowd that was WAY more into throwing beach balls around and security guards desperately trying to stop all the dope smoking. If we had only known that the group’s female vocalist wasMinnie Ripertonwe might have paid more attention to what was happening on stage.
I am tempted to say it is a tie between Bob Dylan in the mid 2000s and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in 1970, but I’ll declare CSNY the worst because of how their incredible suckitude disillusioned my 16 year old self. I knew Dylan was going to suck.
I haven’t been to all that many major concerts, but the ones I’ve attended have all been pretty good. The lone exception was a performance by Christian hard rock band, Geoff Moore and the Distance, back in the late '80s.
I’d actually never heard of Geoff Moore until a friend and fellow musician (he was a pianist/vocalist) got asked to perform a couple of his original songs as sort of the opening act before the opening act. He asked me to back him on bass guitar. So that was the only reason I even attended the concert.
I’m not sure how much blame to give Geoff Moore and his band for the unenjoyable show. While I didn’t know any of the songs, I thought they played and performed well. The problem was that the concert took place in a small-town junior high school auditorium/cafeteria (not unusual for Christian rock artists back then, particularly if they weren’t “big” names), and the room wasn’t especially large. And again, I don’t know if I should blame the band or their sound man, but as the concert progressed somebody decided to keep turning it up, louder and louder and louder. Aside from the room’s poor acoustics, the space just wasn’t big enough for that kind of volume, and it was becoming almost painful. Yet it kept getting louder, to the point that, for the last quarter of the concert, they were pushing their PA system past what it was meant to handle. The sound became horribly distorted, I couldn’t understand a word Geoff was singing, and the music just became an indistinct wall of sound.
Hank Williams, Jr. I really liked him at the time and was looking forward to it, but his amps were turned up SO loud, the first notes gave me stabbing ear pain and then everything after that was so muffled, I couldn’t tell what song it was.
I later learned that he was known for being really loud and I should have brought earplugs, but really I’d been to plenty of concerts before without hearing damage. It was the next day before I could hear again.
Of any band that anyone’s heard of, a Turtles reunion concert circa 1990. The opener was Richie Havens and he was great, but the Turtles were all sizzle and no steak - they clearly hadn’t prepared for the reunion, and it was Flo and Eddy with a cover band behind them, and they couldn’t sing, and they tried to be funny and weren’t, and…
I also saw a bunch of bands in college that were just horrible, but they never got anywhere because they were terrible.
The Mahavishnu Orchestra probably topped him for loudness; I was warned about it by a friend when I went in, but this was before earplugs were common. Painful.
You said live “event” so I’m going with comedian Steven Wright – bought expensive tickets for my siblings and although our seats were good the sound was worthless and we could not hear a single word. We got a good laugh out of it afterwards but it was a serious waste of money.
I went to this bar in Phoenix called The Emerald Lounge about 10 years ago. It was so thick with smoke that my lungs hurt for days afterwards despite being a smoker myself at the time. I stood in a long line to order a beer and the bartender said “bud light?” I said “what else do you have?” “Draft or can?” “Draft.” I said, expecting to hear a few selections and choose some non-bud light beer. He poured me a bud light. (That was all they had, it came in draft or cans.)
There was supposed to be a show that night. A “band” showed up and stood around in fitted black suits and wayfarers while some meth addicts began setting up amplifiers. The “band” stood around some more. The meth addicts made some noise, playing scales and tuning and laying down some 80’s metal riffs while saying “check? Check check? One two one two. Check check check?” For about half an hour. Everything went silent for about 10 minutes and the “band” came in a side door incredibly stoned and made some noise for a few minutes similar to what the meth addicts had made earlier. Then the “band” said “alright, we’re going to take a short break, give us 30 minutes and we’ll GET - THIS - THING - STARTED!!!”
I didn’t give them 30 minutes. I took a cab somewhere else that had a jukebox and I don’t know if they ever got - that - thing - started.
I had the misfortune of seeing a band called Dr. Know warm up at a concert in State College PA while I was at Penn State. The lead singer, Brandon Cruz, had been on the show "Courtship of Eddie’s Father’ but was now lead singer in a neo-punk band warming up a crowd that was wearing Madonna-like clothing and bracelets. The Low-Light was them singing a song called “Fist F*ck” and the High-Light was Brandon Cruz attempting to stage dive, but not being caught… he hit the ground, separate his shoulder, and the show was over.
Neglecting the many shows ruined by poor sound systems, the worst were The Prodigy. It was little more than a pre-recorded track with two of the guys shoe-gazing behind equipment racks and the front man running back and forth on the stage giving an occasional “yeah!” into the mic. For 90 minutes.
I wonder if it was the same tour I saw. I saw Van Halen about that time in Detroit. David Lee Roth was swigging on a bottle of Jack Black the whole time and reached down to the front row to take a couple hits off a doob. He was so wasted he often forgot to sing, even though he seemed physically spry leaping around the stage.
EASILY it was Pee Shy in 1996. Absolute garbage, with screechy singing, screechy instruments, and an accordion. I wasn’t the only one booing them towards the end. Luckily they were just opening for the Village People, who were surprisingly excellent.
Bob Dylan, a few years back. At Cooperstown. Great opening acts – Jimmie Vaughn, Lou Ann Barton, Junior Brown. Then Bob came on. We listened to him yowl his way through a song or two, and left.
He’s pathetic. It’s just plain insulting to his audience to perform like that.
The last time I saw Jimi Hendrix, when the Band of Gypsies played Madison Square Garden in January 1970. Jimi was so strung out that in the middle of the second number he just sat down on the stage and started nodding out. After a few minutes they took him off the stage and came back a few minutes later to say Jimi couldn’t continue because he “wasn’t feeling well.”