Your worst overall concert going experience

Cafe Society
1

Earlier today I revived an old thread to reply to a comment about Infected Mushroom concerts, and I later realized that it really deserves its own thread.

Tell your tale of your worst overall live concert experience.

Mine was last night. I saw Infected Mushroom live at Webster Hall in NYC last night, and although their performance was great (it was my first electronic show, so I had no idea what to expect…for being electronic, they had a great guitarist, as well an electric drum kit and a keyboardest whose fingers looked like they should have fallen off within the first 10 minutes) but otherwise it was probably the WORST concert I’ve ever been to. Webster Hall tries to double as a dance club (you need a colored wristband to enter the concert hall but can wander around the rest of the building with a cheaper door fee) and between the ravers and concert goers, it was well beyond the fire marshall’s limits. Not to mention how cramped that place is, especially on the stairs. Also the AC was dead, and they were charging $5 for tap water. And the show was supposed to start at 11 but they didn’t even open the doors until 1230…and when we tried to inquire what was going on, we were rudely told to ‘mind your business and wait upstairs or feel free to LEAVE’. When the doors finally did open, there was a stampede that almost turned into a The Who in Cincy incident. And we get inside only to have a really really lame DJ ‘perform’ for 90 min straight. Rumors started flying that Infected Mushroom wasn’t even performing and the club was trying to tire the concertgoers out so we would leave rather than riot or demand refunds. So FINALLY they go on at 2am…and in a way, it was still worth it. But in other ways, not.

Another recent experience was when I saw Regina Spektor, at a record store in my neighborhood. Apparently this show was advertised like crazy, and many more people than the store could hold showed up…some getting there as early as 7am for a 1pm show. The early arrivers were given wristbands (wristbands always seem to be a sign of bad luck at music concerts, particularly the kind that are impossible to remove without scissors) so that they would be the first admitted. Despite showing up 45 minutes before show time (which I know was my own fault, but I had no idea it would have such a turnout), I managed to push my way to the front of the latecomers line, which was allowed to stand in the next room and hallway. From that position, I could barely see Regina, had a hard time hearing the music, and could not hear her speak at all. She also did a setlist consisting of 2 songs from Begin To Hope, and the rest were bsides/covers/unreleased songs which I’ve never heard before. She was going to do a signing after the performance, but the record store employees (who were already treating the late comers like we were scum of the earth who shouldn’t even have been allowed to hang around) refused to let anybody into the line unless they bought something. Again, it was my fault for being cheap, but I’ve never understood the appeal of autographs (who really needs visual proof that something they owned was touched by a marker which was held by their hero?) and I just wanted to say hi and thank you to her for making such enjoyable music, but I wasn’t going to buy a record just for the chance to speak to someone. I know, I shouldn’t be such a dick about buying something from a store that gave us a FREE show, but the whole experience just left a really bitter taste in my mouth, none of which was Regina’s fault. At least she’s playing again in my neighborhood in August, and this show has actual tickets.

2

David Bowie - early 80’s. Possibly the Glass Spider tour, maybe China Girl.

I’d travelled five hours by bus, stood in line in Wellington’s freezing weather, been groped by the security guards on the premise that young women always smuggle booze in their bras - and then stood through an hour or so of Mr Bowie being bored and uninterested.

It was reported as ‘the concert that wasn’t’. There had been a recent controversy with 10cc using tapes - we wished we’d had that level of enthusiasm.

Years later I read an article where Mr Bowie recalled the hard slog of that tour and how they’d travelled all around the world becomming more and more depressed before finally finishing in Christchurch (the night after the concert I attended) and taking the set out into the countryside and burning it as a cathartic release. Wish I’d been there.

While I was down in Wellington for the concert, I saw “Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence” at the movies - I mentally pretended I’d spent the concert price for the movie and the movie price for the concert, it helped.

3

Dr. Hook and The Medicine Show. They were so stoned, they were incoherent. We got up and walked out.

4

Dave Matthews band. New Years Eve 1993 or 1994. They were an up and coming band that played Richmond weekly. They were playing the Richmond Marriott. My GF and I bought a package that included the room, tickets, and food.

The place was total chaos. You had to wait 45 minutes to get a wristband, 45 minutes to buy drink tickets, then 45 minutes to get a drink, and you could only get 1 at a time!!

The opening act (some local yokels) got no attention as everyone was in the drink line. Then----NO FOOD! They ran out!

But here is the capper. When the show finally started about 11:30, it turns out we were in the WRONG BALLROOM! There was a giant video screen on the stage showing DMB playing upstairs, which of course was completely full.

We left. I tried to get my money back from the promoter, but it was like talking to a brick wall. i would have had to sue.

5

I’ve seen a few clunkers, but I don’t think I can top yours, fusoya, they should change their names to the Infected Dickheads.

And I long for the day when DJ’s status is relegated back to anonymity.

6

My worst experience was a great performance by a favorite group, Two Loons For Tea, a lovely “dream pop” band.

The show was a benefit for KEXP. Two Loons were the headliner, but the morons organizing the show decided that all their favorite local bands were going to open.

The first band didn’t get on stage until 9 PM. Not normally a problem, but this was a Thursday. They were typical, aggressive rock and not particularly good at it.

Then the next band, a sort of alt-country, pseudo-Wilco band…except not particularly talented, and they played at the bar across the street every freaking week, so they didn’t need the exposure.

Then a very long set-up time for a DJ and VJ pair who had to set up their video projector. They succeeded in driving everyone out of the club to smoke.

By the time the stage was rid of these clods and Two Loons were ready to play, everyone who had to work the next morning (this is a Thursday, remember) it was 12:45 AM! There were maybe a dozen people left in the club to witness a really great show.

7

Jimmy Page and Robert Plant played at the Alamo Dome in San Antonio some years back, and I was able to talk my wife into attending. She’s NOT a hard rock fan, to say the least, but she figured they’d play standards like “Stairway to Heaven,” which she could tolerate.

Well, as it turned out:

  1. The air conditioning at the Alamo Dome was broken, so it was about 110 degrees inside.

  2. She and I were about the ONLY ones in the arena NOT smoking pot, so we were absolutely marinating in cannabis smoke (I am the anti-Bill Clinton- I have never smoked pot, but I have DEFINITELY inhaled!).

  3. Page and Plant were tired of their popular tracks, so they played nothing but Zeppelin B-sides and obscure tracks." Now, I’m a Zeppelin fanatic, so that was okay by me; I LOVE “The Wanton Song” and “Black Mountain side” et al., but my poor wife didn’t get to hear ANY songs she recognized.

It was pretty miserable.

8

Led Zeppelin, Oakland 1977; worst show by a big name band I ever saw. It was the Saturday show–which was followed by the notorious backstage brawl. They were about an hour late and played an extremely sloppy set. One of the few concerts where I’ve gone home being LESS of a fan.

(The opening bands that day were Rick Derringer and Judas Priest–a couple of really smokin’ sets. They had the crowd UP and ready to go. What a letdown!)

9

I dozed off a couple of times during a concerto at Montreal’s Place-des-Arts.

10

We got tickets to a concert at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano several years ago; the headliner act was Fourplay, with Lee Ritenour. Should have been a nice set. Problem was that it was on a work night. The concert time on the tickets was 9:30 pm, so that shouldn’t have been much of a problem. I could hear a set of jazz that late , and still be worthwhile at work the next day.

But it was (that much of a problem). See, 9:30 came and went, and the show didn’t start. So did 10:00, and 10:30, and the show still didn’t start. 11 pm, and they finally brought out a warm-up act. And I finally gave up and drove back home to Westminster.

11

I will have to go with Candlebox, 1996, in Charlotte, NC. Unwisely was in the moshpit, where things got out of control, and the band had to stop and admonish people, but not until after my nose got broken.

12

Far and away, the New Barbarians in Detroit, 1979 or '80. Keith Richards, Ron Wood, Ian McLagen, Kenny Jones (maybe? I forget) and Stanley Clarke. Yeah, I know!! Great lineup, hunh?

Within the hour after the concert was announced, my buddy and I were on line to buy tickets. We got the best seats available and still were in the balcony. (I forget where it was. It was an arena, but not Cobo Hall. Maybe Joe Louis Arena, which had just opened.) Then, on the way home we hear they’ve added a second show. On The Same Night!! WTF?

The night of the show, we walk in only to be met by security patting everyone down. This may be common, now, but it was unheard of then, and left a very bad taste in my mouth. Rumor had it that the band had received death threats, and by the end of the night, I knew why.

That band SUCKED!!! No opening act and they may have been on stage for the required 45 minutes, but they didn’t play that much music. The sound was by far the worst I’ve ever heard. They focused on Ron Wood’s new album (which no one bought because it sucked) but it was so incoherent that no one in the audience could tell. Between songs, they wandered around stage like they didn’t know what to do next. Any attempt at audience interaction was garbled and unintelligible. At one point the rest of the band left the stage for Stanley to play his bit, and then came back out less than two minutes later. Now, a 90 second bass solo by most bassists might be a blessing, but this was Stanley Clarke at the peak of his career!

After the last song (no encore), the lights came up and we were literally pushed out the door. (And yes, I mean literally. Like Japanese subway literally.) I heard people outside talking about what a great show it had been :eek: , and in the following days I heard people talk about the second show being great. Whatever. I learned at the age of 10 that the average person knows shit about music (objectively) and has no taste. This just reaffirmed my opinion.

Last month, in Phoenix, I saw the best concert I’ve ever seen, Return To Forever. That more than made up for Stanley Clarke’s involvement in that previous abortion of a show. I forgave him his part, but the rest of those people can suck

13

A few years ago Chris Isaak was touring Australia and I ordered tickets to see him at a local club, paying by credit card over the phone. We arranged for my MIL to babysit the kids. I pulled up at the door of the club and said to my wife, “You go in and get the tickets and I’ll park the car.” I then noticed that the signs advertising Isaak were dated a week ahead so I added, “There’s no rush we can have dinner and come back next week when he is actually performing.” She looked at the sign and laughed.

A week later we went through the same preparations, turned up at the club and found out that due to a bad throat infection Isaak had canceled the gig, it was the last of the tour, and flown home.

I managed to see him the next couple of times he toured. But missing the same concert twice is pretty stupid.

14

I’ve never really been to a truly terrible gig, but the one that disappointed me most was Iron Maiden at the NEC on the Dance of Death tour.

It was basically like going back in time and watching the Powerslave Tour with a few new songs, Bruce even used the same old “we never get any airtime blah between songs”.

Now I understand that they have actually re-done the Powerslave tour for a new generation. Sad state of decline for a once fantastic band.

15

About 3years ago I went to see GodSpeed You Black Emperor at the 9:30club in DC. GYBE makes the kind of music were just want to sit back, close your eyes and immerse yourself into the walls of sounds they create…well this concert was only 12bucks and was on Fat Tuesday so every student in DC and their mates were out and about.

The place was packed with students not even remotely interested in GYBE but hey it’s 12bucks so why not. People were not paying attention, chatting amopng themselves - definitely not the setting to enjoy GYBE

16

I’ve been to a lot of shows where things went wrong, but being teargassed with Jethro Tull in 1971 was a piece of cake next to spending an evening with wasted Parrotheads.

Jimmy Buffet, somewhere around 1993 or so, was my worst concert experience.

There was a bit of foreshadowing as we passed drunken, staggering tailgaters on our way to the concert. Puddles of vomit led the way to the gate.
For the first half of the show, an inebriated couple in front of us sniped at each other.
Buffet was okay, but I was distracted by the bickering, swaying pair.
Things escalated, and as Buffet reached some sort of crescendo, so did the couple.
She had been baiting her boyfriend and he furiously responded.
He began choking her, we stopped him, and Security came and took them both away.
By that point, leaving was all I wanted to do, too, but we did stay until the very (bitter) end of the concert.

17

That was my very first concert ever. I thought the opposite, that Zep was awesome and the warm ups sucked ass. I think the Sunday show was the last ever real Zep live concert as not only was there the roadie “incident” but Plant’s son tragically passed away a day or two later and the rest of the tour cancelled.

My worst show “muscially” was African Bambata in San Francisco at the Oasis (I think that was the name - it had a covered pool). All he did was stand there behind some turntables. He mixed for maybe 2 minutes, and that was the entire show. We just stood around appalled. He was a pretty big fucker though, so no one messed with him except for these really hot black women that we’re chanting “shit, goddamn, get off your ass and jam”. Lame.

Had to get stitches after getting by eyebrow split open at a Cramps show in Sacramento. Get show and totally worth 7 stiches.

18

Totally uncool answer - we were in Budapest in 1990 and found a store selling concert tickets - bands like The Stones were playing - but not while we were there, so we just went with who was performing that night. Because it was a soviet era stadium, the seats were made of fiberglass, strands of which made its way through our clothing and into our skin - our bottoms we were itchy for days, so totally not worth it for who we ended up seeing…Jason Donovan.

19

1991ish: Fugazi at, as it was known back then, The Cabaret Metro (now “Metro”). Not that the band was bad, they were great, as always, but it was one of those horribly awkward evenings where I only figured out two hours into it that it was a date. With my boss’s geeky son. And I already had a boyfriend (which he totally knew, so I don’t know what he was thinking!)

To make it better/worse, my mom insisted I be home by, like, 10:00 or some lame-ass early hour, even when I called her from the club and begged for a later curfew. I was relieved to wrap things up, but I also felt like the biggest loser kid ever.

Oh, and his car ran out of gas in the middle of the south side (the sketchy part) of Chicago. :rolleyes: So I was late getting home anyway, and my mom was certain I’d disobeyed her.

20

Without question, the worst concert experience I have had was Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young at the Baltimore Civic Center on May 30, 1970. I was sixteen years old. I idolized Stephen Stills at the time, and was in a band that did its best to imitate the band’s beautiful harmonies. The concert completely disillusioned me. Everyone on the stage that night was drunk, stoned or both, and the music and the singing absolutely sucked.