Jump to content
Why become a member? ×

Who's the worst band you've seen live?


ubit
 Share

Recommended Posts

Neal Young at the old Greens Playhouse in Glasgow around 1970-71. The Eagles were the support and were great. Mr Young was off his tits and complained all the time that he couldn't hear himself in the monitors. He was hopelessly out of tune and after about half an hour, was booed off by a rather hostile Glasgow audience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I saw Whitesnake in Newcastle City Hall around '82. Completely dull and uninspiring. Each song seemed to have a 10 minute solo where the rest of the band left the stage. When it was done they left the stage to a recording of Wish You Well. Not only was it monumentally dull, but they played a record of their own stuff sooner than play it live! This was the ultimate sin for me and I've never given them house room since.

Soon after Coverdale sacked the band and replaced them with poodle hairdo's in duster coats. w***ers, the lot of them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='TrevorR' timestamp='1447956373' post='2911857']
Heavy Pettin' supporting Magnum at Hammersmith around 1988. The worst sort of 80s hair metal imaginable. And not even bad enough to be a parody of themselves.
[/quote]

You've just reminded me of my misspent student days when I believe I recall seeing tygers of pan tang at hull city hall

Also recall another extremely dire display from a support band whose name escapes me but the whole episode is unfortunately etched into my tiny fragile mind by virtue of a woefully poor drummer wearing a mask (presumably to cover his own embarrassment) who delighted in thrilling the crowds with his showmanship and probably delighted himself more by the fact that he went by the name of ......

THUNDERSTICK

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rush in Glasgow on the Clockwork Angels tour. Horrendously bad sound mix where I was sitting. This was surprising as I was a few rows directly behind the sound desk! All I could hear was drums and keyboards. I know Alex Lifeson was playing guitar as I could see it on the video screens, but I couldn't hear him or Geddy! I left after about 5 songs. On leaving the hall, the guys checking the tickets said, "don't blame you mate". Hahaha. Real shame, as I love the band.

The Seahorses supporting U2 on the Popmart tour. A busker with a backing band (albeit containing John Squire from The Stone Roses). John's guitar sounded great, but the songs and the band's overall playing were garbage! Saying that, U2 were rubbish too until around halfway through the set (once they'd got the crap Pop album tracks out of the way).

I also got roped in to seeing..... Bros at Wembley Stadium! The idea was sold to me by my ex-wife saying, "there's going to be loads of other acts on too". Turns out the other acts were SAW act like Sinitta, Sonia, and the like. Utter garbage - waste of a whole weekend

Edited by kevin_lindsay
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1448006806' post='2912158']
Samson. Who what Bruce Dickinson sang for.
[/quote]

Samson yes it's all coming back now like a bad dream, buggered if I can remember who they were supporting though, would have been Hammersmith odeon around 79 ish

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='steve-bbb' timestamp='1448006582' post='2912155']


Also recall another extremely dire display from a support band whose name escapes me but the whole episode is unfortunately etched into my tiny fragile mind by virtue of a woefully poor drummer wearing a mask (presumably to cover his own embarrassment) who delighted in thrilling the crowds with his showmanship and probably delighted himself more by the fact that he went by the name of ......

THUNDERSTICK
[/quote]

Hahaha, that would indeed have been Samson (Bruce Dickinson's band before he joined Maiden - although I believe 'Thunderstick' was in a later line up than Bruce).
Their bass player, Chris Aylmer, was actually one of my predecessors in a Norwich based band I played with for about a year and a half called The Floating Greyhounds.
Paul Samson passed away from cancer a few years back. Met him a few times and be came across as a pleasant guy but was less than complimentary about Bruce.

Back on topic, I've actually never had the misfortune of going to see a truly bad performance (at least by a big name band). I did (along with my drummer) however leave a Dragonforce gig early. They sounded tight and had plenty of energy and enthusiasm so not actually bad as such but I just found it a completely yawntastic widdlefest.

The support band on the other hand (Turisas) were highly entertaining in a slightly silly "let's all dress up as Vikings and paint our faces red and black" kind of way. Any band that plays metal with a violin and a piano accordion in their line-up and then covers Rasputin by Boney-M is alright by me!

Edited by Painy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I saw a band in the World's End in Finsbury Park back in the 90s who played awful pomp-rock with excruciating lyrics. During the intro to one of the songs, the bass player had his arms crossed across his chest with his eyes closed while the singer treated us to his deep observations about all the bad stuff in the world. Half the pub were really into it, the other half were openly p*ssing themselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In recent memory two that stick out (both in support slots so not a wasted evening) were British Sea Power (who, considering they had already had 2 or 3 albums out by then just seemed utterly disorganised and amateurish on stage) and Athlete who were drab and tedious and made no attempt to make any connection with the audience at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Amy Winehouse in about 2009. Her band was amazing, but when she finally stumbled onstage about 10 mins into the set, she was absolutely dreadful.

Actually Ryan Adams earlier this year was pretty poor too. His entire set was the downest of downbeat, slow-paced stoner country, with him occasionally mumbling incomprehensibly between songs. He cracked a few jokes which no-one got, and then shuffled into the next identically-paced, misery-fest of a tune.

Found it really boring.

Edited by bassbiscuits
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Luulox' timestamp='1447967849' post='2911979']
Evanescence at the arena in sheffield. Got a free ticket from a mate because his missus wouldn't go. Support band were a poor nirvana type who were on for over an hour playing bad shouty stuff. Evanescence came on, played for 30 sterile, tepid, out of tune minutes said thank you Sheffield and left. I still think I paid too much.
[/quote]

I saw them 3 years ago in Brum, supported by the pretty reckless- both were excellent

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bob Dylan.

Probably 1990, Glasgow SECC. The band was excellent but he wasn't. Just recited the lyrics... no attempt to sing. Made out that he was playing guitar solos while the actual guitar player was in the dark behind. I was a teenager, truly excited to be seeing a living legend, had been listening to my dad's records non-stop for months... Never listened to him again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='steve-bbb' timestamp='1448011978' post='2912212']
well all things considered in this post i just consider myself lucky i never went to see Yngwie :ph34r:
[/quote]

Only saw him once but it was a great gig, Joe Lynn Turner on vocals, gave it their all promoting the 'Odyssey' album. Very little unnecessary solo sections iirc, just got on with the real songs and I quite liked the album at the time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1447988549' post='2912108']
I saw Whitesnake in Newcastle City Hall around '82.... . . . .
[/quote]


The only gig I've walked out of was Whitesnake in Plymouth (early nineties).
Support act were supposed to be Pride And Glory and being an Ozzy fan I agreed to go with a a couple of mates, Zakk Wylde and James LoMenzo should be good I thought.
Pride And Glory didn't show so I was already peed off and then Whitesnake came on. After about fifteen minutes of tediousness they did that solo sh*te, everyone but guitar went offstage and a five minute guitar solo ensued, I made it though that but then the same happened with bass, then drums. I don't know how long the drum solo lasted because we all walked out after five minutes and went on the piss instead.
The only positive I can scrape out of all that solo crap is that at all David Coverstory wasn't wailing away flatly in a can't really be arsed to be here style over all of it.

Edited by Maude
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Robert Fripp, somewhere in Birmingham about 2005 - he sat at the back corner of the stage so out of view for most of the audience, we thought we were listening to some weird intro tape until after about 10 minutes someone shouted 'i can see him!'. The whole audience seemed distinctly unimpressed, the bar though was heaving.

Dave Lee Roth early 90's. He spent most of the gig sat on a stool lecturing the audience about how he isn't Diamond Dave anymore. 90% of the show was poor acoustic versions of his stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...