…in addition to lists of the shortest.
The thing is, I have met too many geniuses who are genuinely nice people (Kate Bush, for instance) to accept that “genius” and “jerk” are necessarily connected.
Anyway, to get this back on track, I have seen Prince in concert, and the little twerp does put on a hell of a show.
I used to work with a woman whose son lived in the Twin Cities, and not long after he moved there, he was at the grocery store and saw a short, skinny light-skinned black man in the produce aisle and wondered if it was Prince. He asked an employee if it was, and the employee said, “Yes. He lives in the neighborhood and comes in here all the time.”
BTW, he was dressed in a t-shirt and blue jeans, and doing absolutely nothing to draw attention to himself.
I read Ian Copeland’s autobiography, mainly because of his role in the discovery and ascent of R.E.M., and he told about having to do business with Donny Osmond, and being nervous about it because he was afraid he’d be preached to or something.
He said that Osmond was literally the nicest person he has ever had the privilege to know, and that the respect the Osmond family has in the music industry is almost unequaled. I found that quite interesting.
Conversely, when I was in college, Metallica performed there, and ALL the crazy stories were about Lars, as one might imagine. The one I heard more than once was that he went to this really scummy strip club, and brought back several of the ugliest, skankiest, most diseased looking dancers back to the hotel with him! :eek: People were thinking, “Dude, you’re Lars from Metallica. At least choose PRETTY ones!” Meanwhile, the other band members were spotted in places like bookstores and a local movie theater at a matinee, without any security and doing nothing to draw attention to themselves.
I see a ton of shows, many are bad in generic ways. This smaller band Best Coast played the Fox in Boulder last year. The lead singer’s vocal track started when she wasn’t ready and yelled “What the fuck!!” at the sound guy. The audience instantly hated her.
Most miserable concert experience was MGMT at Red Rocks. They have zero energy live, and then it monsooned. I was front row and it started flooding and we were basically standing in the entire venue’s trash. Left halfway through.
Tim Curry, Schubert Theatre in Philadelphia, around 1979. He wasn’t very good, and his mic stand kept coming apart. He also wasn’t very good at engaging with his audience.
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I’ve had the exact opposite experience.
A friend of the family has worked in radio locally for longer than I’ve been alive, almost. When I was in high school, I was working at my high school radio station as a DJ, with the thought of maybe pursuing it as a career. My friend called me, as Donnie Osmond was in town on tour, and had an interview scheduled at Lisa’s station. She asked if I wanted to sit in, purely as an observer. I jumped at the chance, even though I’m not an Osmond fan (this was during his Soldier of Love period).
I arrived at the station ahead of time, said my hellos to Lisa, and took my spot in the corner. When Donnie arrived, he saw me, and asked who I was. Lisa told him what was going on, that I was just an observer, and that she had assurances from his “people” that my presence wouldn’t be an issue.
He looked at me again, and told me to get out of the studio. He actually went so far as to tell Lisa that I didn’t leave the company property right then, then he would.
So I left.
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He probably had issues performing the interview with an unexpected observer due to social anxiety. Maybe he was just a big jerk, but I probably would’ve had the same issues and perhaps come off rude due to bluntness.
That’s entirely possible. And something I have never considered. God, now I have to rethink my Donnie Osmond hatred.
I haven’t read through the whole thread but I’d be surprised if I’m the first one to answer Yes. Admittedly I wasn’t a huge fan; really only heard them because my older brother played them a lot. It was around the time of whatever album has “Roundabout” on it. Good god, I wanted to harm myself or others. A close second was Steve (then Stevie) Winwood. That is one boring performer. Actually now that I think about it, the first concert I ever went to was Rush, and it was exciting just because it being my first but it was pretty yawn inducing.
Crafter_Man, DoctorJ, did either of you ever go to Sudsy Malone’s across the street from Bogarts?
A tiny music bar/laundromat. Seriously. It had the acoustics of… well, a tiny music bar in the same room as a laundromat. I went there an unfortunate number of times at the behest of my friends when I was going to UC. I think I can count on the fingers of one finger the number of bands I saw that didn’t suck rocks.
Henry Rollins did his spoken word thing at Bogarts a few times, and for one reason or another I had to miss every one. I still want to see him live.
Not the worst show but the worst venue. This was a couple of years ago - Mariana’s Trench, Ill Scarlet and The Stereos played the Direct Energy Centre in Toronto. My friend and I took her kids. It was General Admission. Well they had the area in front of the stage separated into two equal sections - all ages on the right and licensed (19+) on the left. So as you can imagine all the kids were packed into the right side while the left side was basically empty. Kids were getting crushed all over the place and it was a serious safety issue. After the first band finished a venue guy came out on stage and said that they’ve opened up the other side for all ages and that the show would not continue until the crowd thinned out. My friend and I took her kids to the other side and got a great spot. But still, I wonder how many injuries there were before the venue smartened up.
Exactly when was this, and how long did you stay?
Saturday November 13, 2010 and we stayed for the whole show. Josh Ramsay threw his water bottle into the crowd and I caught it for my friend’s kid. 
1996 Styx in San Diego (with Kansas opening):
A bit of background for those who don’t know: Styx hit their stride in the mid- and late-1970s with a blend of synthesizers, power guitars, and vocal harmonies that filled arenas and dazzled attendees with light shows. [By the early 1980’s there was a standard line among comedians that Styx, REO Speedwagon, Journey, and Kansas were really just the same band with emphasis on different members or themes.] Different opinions on thematic direction and the seemingly common more ballads versus more power-anthems argument eventually split the band, but Dennis DeYoung needed to re-record his early ballad “Lady” because the original label wouldn’t let him release the original with the original line-up. So when Tommy Shaw stepped in to fill the Curulewski high notes, they said, “Gosh, that was fun! Let’s re-unite and go on tour.” So they did – except that the drummer had pickled his liver during the hiatus so they pulled in another former temporary member.
The result was the Return to Paradise tour. When they hit San Diego, they were booked at Humphrey’s by the Bay, an outdoor venue which was basically a big stage set up on the grass outside Humphrey’s Bar and Grill on San Diego’s bay peninsula. Imagine some bar owner in the 1960’s saying, “Hey, maybe we could get someone to sing out there on the patio…” and things just growing and growing over the decades until the grassy park-on-the-peninsula is overcome by a modular stage and a few hundred chairs on the lawn.
Me and my friends actually arrived a bit late and missed the beginning of the opening act – a reconfigured Kansas doing a reunion tour of a few small places. As we walked in, I noticed a clipboard stuck on the fence that seemed oddly familiar since I had done some event set-ups and managed concessions during my college years. The strange thing was that the paper on the clipboard listed two times, the bands’ names, and “Touring, Touring” next to Kansas but “House, House” next to Styx. My instinct said I should get outta there; my wallet said sit through it.
The problem was that Steve Walsh had broken his knee or leg at some point and was hobbling in an external spring-loaded hip-to-heel splint between the frontman’s mic and his synthesizers to introduce and then play songs. It was interesting to see him sustain chords on the keyboard while supporting his body and exoskeleton on hand-stands – until his hand slipped on his own sweat and he almost face-planted atop his keyboard. After that he kept his feet on the ground and the set seemed to be cut short as they skipped over several of their hits and closed out with what would otherwise be encore material (Wayward Son, Dust in the Wind, No Return).
Styx took the stage before the sun had even set, opening with AD1928 and segueing into Rockin’ the Paradise, a standard combination right off the album. Then they followed with three more medleys that didn’t really fit together and left the audience wondering why the concert was being rushed. We also noticed that there were points during the solo work and the transitions where a couple extra beats were thrown in for some kind of dramatic pause. Then, when darkness had finally settled, Dennis sat behind a keyboard at stage right, lit by a single overhead lamp. He twiddled the keys a bit and then stopped to apologize to the audience, noting, “If you want to see the full show, with all the lights and special effects, come up and see us in Los Angeles.” Then he gave us a narrative about how his attempt to re-cast *Lady *had brought the band back together. And when he mentioned Lady the whole band chimed in with the Chorus phrase – and then fell silent. And then Dennis noted how the re-recording session had been fun so they stuck around and played, Man in the Wilderness and Renegade and Crystal Ball and several others, each time with the whole band chiming in at just the right moment and then falling silent again. And that explained why they felt good enough with each other to do a reunion tour. And then Dennis apologized again for the crappy lighting and encouraged everyone to come up to LA and see the whole show with the full songs.
Really? You’re giving us a half-assed show in a venue that’s not even made to handle your lighting effects and you’re trying to sell more tickets to your next tour date? You didn’t even bring in your own lighting crew when your tours are famous for the amazing light show? You want us to spend even more money and drive up to Smog City to sit through this again? For Persephone’s sake, tell me Kansas isn’t opening for you as well!
Then they played a few more songs, introduced a tribute to John Panozzo, added a brief acoustic session in front of a closed stage curtain, reminded us yet again to see the better show in Los Angeles, and wrapped up. I really felt sorry for the Humphrey’s lighting crew who were neither equipped nor trained to run a spectacular light show in an open-air venue but were being blamed for the less-than-stellar performance by the band.
–G!
You might think that it’s hopeless
Beyond our Control
But that’s not necessarily so
…–Tommy Shaw (Styx)
…Longest Night
…Kilroy was Here
I read somewhere that VH-1 wanted to do a “Behind The Music” on Kansas, but scrapped the project when nobody in the band really had any big hard luck stories.
Styx also had, by then, a different bass player (who, if you don’t know, is also the late drummer’s twin brother) because he had been diagnosed with AIDS. Several years ago, Chuck Panozzo published his autobiography; he does discuss Styx because it was part of his life, but it’s really about what it was like for him growing up gay in an Italian Catholic family in the 1950s and 1960s, and later being that way in the world of 1970s arena rock. Yeah, he was flashed by attractive teenage girls, but he was more interested in their boyfriends, KWIM? And knowing what I do now, it was really obvious that he was gay, kind of like Rob Halford was with Judas Priest.
p.s. The book, titled “The Grand Illusion”, contains minimal profanity and no explicit descriptions of drug use or sexual activity, and would be suitable for readers of junior high age or older.
I worked at an outdoor amphitheater for a few years, and I think I saw that same tour. It also had several of his kids and grandkids who sang. They came in THREE tour buses (plus at least one full sized truck), and the sprawling family trashed our green room.
At least they were better than Clay Aiken. Not because there was anything wrong with him, his show or how he left the green room. But the FANS. UGH. I did security for that show, and it was awful; made the show worse just by existing.
You bastards take back everything you’ve said about Sudsy Malones and Bogarts. Bastards!
I think it’s been changed since I first read it, but I remember the Wikipedia article on Priest mentioning that, when Halford publicly came out, “nobody was surprised”.
I was in Sudsy Malone’s once. Didn’t care for the place. Believe it or not, I was actually there to do laundry, and some band was in there playing. They sucked.
So yea, saw quite a few bands at Bogart’s while I was a student at UC. I remember seeing Slayer, The Dead Milkmen, CJSS, Chastain, SOD/MOD, and a dozen more I can’t remember. Horrible place, horrible acoustics.
Speaking of Henry Rollins, I saw him at an auditorium on UC campus while I was a student there. A speaking tour. I’m thinking it was around 1990. He spoke for like 3 hours. Was entertaining.
On edit: Oops, I saw Jello Biafra, not Henry Rollins!