Yep. Yawn. It’s just a different realm of endeavor than live musical performance by musicians, is all, and I don’t care for them. Maybe it’s only good if you’re rolling or something, which I don’t do.
Yeah, when it comes down to it, a deejay just plays recordings of other people making music. Why not just learn to make music yourself?
Well, there’s that, but I don’t deny that a good DJ who plays good music and effects and has the knowhow to keep it going can be very entertaining. It’s just not my thing. I’m sure Hannah Montana puts on a whale of a show as well, but I’m just not into it. 
My worst concert-going experience was actually for a band that I was in.
We were, at the time, one of the innumerable struggling Boston bands (I lived in Allston, where you can’t trip and fall without hitting a guitar player). The venue was a starter venue, to be sure; however, we had begun to make a name for ourselves, and confidence was high that there would be a cornucopia of attendees.
The fans did not disappoint. By the time we arrived, there was a good crowd already there. The band was pumped - we prepared to give an earth-shattering, high energy set. Then, as we spoke to the bar manager to get the ok to begin setting up, the horrible truth was revealed.
They had double-booked that night. A DJ was about to set up, and we would not be receiving any stage time whatsoever.
We managed to restrain ourselves from throttling the manager, and immediately began damage control… but there’s only so much you can do. Sure, the audience knew full well it wasn’t our fault, but they had spent their time and energy to make it here, to this show. Some of them, I’m sure, never ventured out to see us again. To add insult to injury, the band ended up having to stay for the whole lackluster DJ performance (not a dig against DJs in general, just this specific one) in order to spot our fans coming in, so we could explain what happened.
Several months later, I did a solo gig at the same establishment, under “new management”, and was paid with nothing but two tickets for a free drink (I realize that doesn’t exactly fit with the “worst concert” thread theme, but since I’m already complaining about the bar, I figured I’d go ahead and toss it in).
ZZ Top at the War Memorial Arena (where most of the hockey scenes in Slap Shot were filmed) in Johnstown, PA, mid-‘70s. Seemed like everyone in the place was slobbering drunk. Some acoustic opening act gets jeered mercilessly and finally leaves under a hail of thrown objects. Band comes out and starts into their set; about thirty seconds in, a lit M-80 sails onto the stage and explodes practically in Billy Gibbons’ face. Lights go out, then come back on, band sez “It’s all right, folks, we’ve seen worse!” Well, they should have gone ahead and cancelled the thing anyway: they were terrible live. To make things even better, as the Top lurch painfully through their shambling, incoherent set, some blitzed yahoo behind me spends the entire concert shouting “YYYYEEEEAAAAHHHH!” at completely random moments, then throws up on my date. Good times.
Actually Todd live jumps all over the place. Sometimes, especially solo, he’s sloppy and awful - he needs other musicians to give him shit if he screws around. But other times he’ll decide to push the limits on what’s possible with a concert. For instance, he did an album called “Acapella” and toured the album with a choir. One album was covers of previous hits in a bossa-nova style, and he toured a tiki bar, complete with selected audience members being served drinks at tables and chairs on the stage. Back in the 70s, he had a stage show as big and involved as any, with a pyramid and a sphinx with fricken LAZERS. Another was solo with in the middle of a “Todd Pod” surrounded by keyboards, video screens and hip-hop dancers with fishing poles that would lower stuff into the surrounding audience. The most recent solo tour was with the string quartet Ethel.
(I tried to find links for all the above, but Todd’s fans trend older and have less presence on YouTube.)
Sounds like stpauler had the misfortune to witness one of Todd’s embarrassing solo “I Have to Get Money to Pay My Tax Bill” tours. I’ve seen a few of those and I’m skipping any future tour when there’s not somebody else on stage with him.
“No Show” Jones at Pechanga.
The Possum was getting over a really bad cold and his voice just wasn’t there. He should have sang one song (of course “He Stopped Loving Her Today”), shown why the show was cancelled , and refunded everyone their $. His voice was so shot that I honestly thought he was dying and that I was about to kill off another singer (I saw John Denver 3 weeks before he died). Add to that a female background singer that proved it’s not what you know but who you blow to get famous.
On the bright side, his opening act was Jason Byrd, a young up-and-comer with an old-time sound.
Lydia Lunch.
She came out onto the stage, ranted for 90 seconds, then stormed off. I was VERY happy that she wasn’t the act I had come to see (and that I hadn’t paid for tix).
I haven’t had any very bad concert experiences, but in general I wish they weren’t so ear-splittingly LOUD.
Rascal Flatts at the Ford Amphitheater in Tampa, June 2003 or 2004. We were surrounded by little screaming teenyboppers. They opened and closed with the SAME SONG. Their encore was an 80s Bon Jovi Medley. My best friend and I, who had heard the real thing in High School, left. Best thing about that concert was the opening act, Blake Shelton.
My best friend had bought the tickets as my birthday present. She felt horrible. We both agreed that if we were that annoying for New Kids on the Block we heartily apologize.
Nothing as horrendous as some here, but my worst was probably Mark-Almond back in the early 70s. The concert was scheduled for 9:00, so people started lining up at 8:00. By 9:00, the house* still hadn’t opened. It was a cold night and the steps were covered with ice and often you felt yourself slipping back and forth.
By 10:00, the house still hadn’t opened. Most of us had been there for coming up on two hours without a chance to sit down.
Finally, about 10:30, they let us in. We took our seats, and Mark-Almond came out.
And proceeded to do a long sound check. When the crowd showed its disapproval, they told us we were at fault (like it was our fault they couldn’t show up three hours earlier to do it). Finally, they left, and, after about ten minutes’ wait, they performed.
The concert at that point was OK, but no one was particularly happy with the band.
*It was the college chapel – really not designed for rock acoustics, but managed well enough with groups like J. Geils and Bruce Springsteen.
The other side of this (I’m not sure I should thank you for reminding me) was when we went to see a friend’s band - Like you it was a starter venue and they were pumped.
There were nine of us in the 150 person venue, four people on stage, us, and a couple who walked out after 10 minutes.
The band were good, but they were hyped and determined to put on a *rock *show without the audience numbers to absorb the sound. Our brains hurt, our *teeth *hurt, the manager asked them to turn down the volume because the bar staff were complaining that glasses were being chipped in the trays.
We stayed to the end, because we had a friend in that band.
There you go. Between us, it WAS a great concert!
Long-time Rundgren fan here. Todd puts on a terrific show. I’ve seen him on bad nights, but usually he has a great rapport with the crowd, and plays a mean lead guitar to boot. He’s always surrounded himself with great musicians, and plays the rare solo show storyteller-style. As gaffa mentioned, his shows with Utopia were a wonder to see, with their lazer-eyed sphinx and giant pyramid that he stood astride while wailing away on his glass guitar. WOW! There’s a pretty decent DVD out of his last tour supporting “Liar”.
I couldn’t get behind his recent outing with the Cars, though.
By far, my worst experience was Rage Against the Machine at the 1993 Lollapalooza. They were protesting Parents’ warnings on CDs so they came out naked with tape over their mouths, and their entire set was guitar feedback and sirens.
There are many links to photos and [descriptions](http:// Rage Against the Machine - Wikipedia) (link edited due to Wiki photo showing male gonads).
The rest of the shows were great but 20+ minutes of loud noise and naked dudes was the worst concert event of my long and happy concert-going life.
Wow, my worst concert experience was seeing Todd Rundgren and Utopia in 1976/1977. If he did any of the special effects mentioned I have clearly blocked them out. It was the worst date of my life. I hated the music, the trip to our seats took forever, too many people were smoking pot around us and my date turned out to be crazy (stalker). I didn’t know any of the music except a strange cover of a song from Westside Story. Did I mention that after such a miserable time that my date stalked me for the next 20 plus years? I had to have him put in jail to get rid of him. That concert was not linked with enjoyable at any point.
Adhemar
There are two concerts that stand out in a bad way for me.
The first was Van Morrison around 1973 or 74. Although he was rotten musically (off key, unenergetic, poor choice of songs, . . .), his demeanor was even worse. By that, I mean he was horribly nervous and clearly uptight. He simply exuded anxiety. So much so, in fact, that he made me feel nervous vicariously (it didn’t help that I was waaaaaaaaaay stoned with some very potent hash and that, in itself, made me paranoid. That, together with Van’s radiating and contagious anxiety, made it that I could have taken a gram of Valium and not even yawned). All in all, a particularly shitty experience.
The other concert from Hell was the infamous one at Watkins Glen in the summer of 1973. Nobody wanted to be left out this time. In other words, Woodstock was already legendary and the people who missed out on it weren’t gonna let the same thing happen again. Sooooo, it wound up that there were something like 600,000 people at the concert (with washroom facilities for, maybe, 600!) What a royal mess. Early on the day, it started sunny and hot. Later, though, it poured. Mud, mud, mud. And it was now hot and humid with absolutely nowhere to get a drink. Dehydration city, man! As for the music, most of us could not even see the stage. It could have been my mother playing up there - I wouldn’t have been able to tell. The sound was no better. I think I heard a few notes. Once. But that may have just been the dope we had smoked. I could not get away from there fast enough.
Here are some pictures from Watkins Glen. I’m the guy towards the back, with the long hair.
My father was at that show. You forgot to mention the parachutist who blew himself up - and also the musicians were really drugged. I think a few members of the Allmans were unknowingly dosed with LSD, in addition to whatever else they were on. Somebody joked once that part of the problem with the performances at Watkins Glen was that each band was on different drugs.
I’m not sure about the worst show I’ve been to. For my dad’s part, I’ll nominate the time he saw AC/DC. He’s told me that show was so loud it was like a drill going into his ears, and I believe he has claimed he suffered some hearing damage from that show alone.
Oddly one of my all time best experiences was seeing Van Morrison in the 70s. He was similarly nervous, walked out and performed the whole show facing the drummer, never said anything between songs but luckily on this occasion was brilliant.
Bummer…you had your eyes closed.
I saw them on the same tour, but in Cleveland. Overall it was a good concert, except that they never could do the harmonies very well live. But it was largely a lousy experience because of the seats we had. They were in the third row, way over to the left, right in front of the HUGE speaker stacks. We could barely see the band, and it was unbearably loud during the electric set. Fortunately, the solo spots made up for it, as did the best performance of “Southern Man” ever.
My worst experience, though, was U2 at the Austin Opera House in 1979 (I think). It was before they were big; they were supporting their first album, I think, or maybe their second. They basically took forever to show up, and when they finally did, they were flat. We left halfway through.