Concerts: What was the worst rock concert you attended?

[Rabrrrrrr]

For the real concert, I say Heart, circa 1988, when they had that huge hit. They played very well, but the whole show was fast song, slow song, fast song, slow song, and it became very boring. The highlight was they played "Rock and Roll" by Zeppelin as the encore. Also making that show the worst I've been to was that Autograph (or that band that sang Autograph) opened up for them, and they really sucked.

The worst in terms of single performance, though he wasn't the main bill, was the VInnie Vincent Invasion. My God, does he suck. I can see why KISS booted him. He was the opener for Alice Cooper on Alice's comeback tour ca. 1987. Alice ROCKED. Vinnie Vincent totally sucked.

Next runner up for shitty performance was Dokken, opening for Dio ca. 1985. Another POS performer, but way better than Vinnie Vincent.

[aquaman]

1. Faith No More

Saw this show back in the 1990's of course. We went to see the opening band Helmet but stayed for Faith No More. They could not even come close to reproducing their sound live, I was embarrassed for them.

[JaySherman]

18. I had a similar experience to yours.

Saw FNM open for Metallica/GN'R the year they did that massive stadium tour (I think it was '92). You could barely tell what song they were playing it was so bad. Either they had a shitty equipment, their sound just did not translate well to a large stadium, or both.

The only thing worse was Guns' set that night. Of course they came on 2 hours late. After Metallica had kicked everyone's ass, no one was into it. Axl sounded like shit. The place emptied out halfway through the set. We left to the sounds of Axl cussing us out for leaving. What a dick. What a waste of talent.

Conversely, Metallica's show that night still ranks one of the best I've ever seen. No band could together 3 hours of mayhem like the mighty Metallica back in the day.

[dad]

21. /

"The only thing worse was Guns' set that night. Of course they came on 2 hours late. After Metallica had kicked everyone's ass, no one was into it. Axl sounded like shit. The place emptied out halfway through the set. We left to the sounds of Axl cussing us out for leaving. What a dick. What a waste of talent"

I think that is the same concert I was at!! Only concert I ever saw where the crowd just started walking out on the main act. Was that in New Orleans? G-N'R was horrible. I was one of the people who left. We said, hell, Bourbon Street is waiting, no need to suffer thru this crap!!

[JaySherman]

28. NJ

But that seemed to be a recurring theme with them LOL.

[Rabrrrrrr]

23. GnR is such an overrated, shit band

I never understood the fascination people had with that band.

yuck.

[fudge stripe cookays]

48. Here here!

I bleepin hate Guns and Roses.

I actually sat backstage with them when they opened for The Cult in 1987, before they got huge. Didn't know who they were because we'd missed the opening act. Didn't care then, don't care now.

[He loved Big Brother]

37. Was Mike Patton the lead singer at the time?

[He loved Big Brother]

39. Smashmouth when they opened for U2

I wanted to smash their mouths. Horrid horrid.

Rancid sucked as well. Gah.

[GOPisEvil]

42. Oh, God yes!!!! Smashmouth sucked when they opened for U2.

I saw the Popmart Tour in Seattle - U2 was fantastic. Smashmouth was just random noise.

[madrchsod]

2. rolling stones first concert

in chicago.."little" stevie wonder and patty labelle and the bluebells were the opening acts..they were better than the stones. the stones were dreadful

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. Yow! That was a LONG time ago!!

Not to try to age you, mind you...

My first concert was in 1982. :-)

[LiviaOlivia]

29. Stones. JFK stadium.

Stevie Wonder was the first act. I don't remember LaBelle but this must have been around the same time. The Stones were 45 minutes late and played for about that same amount time. Honorable mention goes to
ELO at McNichols Arena in Denver. 197?. Sound problems all night long.
Terrible show.

[Nostradammit]

34. I was at that ELO show !

I will witness the suckiness of that outing.

I've seen some bad, bad shows, but probably the worst from my vantage point was Yanni at Red Rocks with the DSO during his "heyday."

My wife won free tickets and dragged me along. Front row.

Yanni's a great musician. Just ask him.

[fudge stripe cookays]

50. You mean "Yawnie?"

this is how Waterloo Records has always stored his CDs. His label card actually has this name on it.

They can get away with it because they are one of the most famous independents in the world.

[bubblesby2002]

3. Primus was the worst show I ever saw

Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristopherson even worse.

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. Really? I like Primus, and love Les Claypool

Are you a fan, and they sucked live, or not a fan to begin with?

I've never him or any of his bands live, so I'm curious.

[bubblesby2002]

46. Well I wasn't really a fan

but someone dragged me to the show and they gushed over the band. And they sucked - their performance was so bad they were booed. So I ended up thinking they were a bad band and never paid them any more attention to them.

You like 'em, maybe I'll give them another chance.:hi:

[Lisa0825]

5. Guns 'n Roses

One of the many nights Axel was 45 minutes late, wasted, and forgot the words. Really sucked. But I was really there to see Metallica anyway.

[JaySherman]

20. Add another vote for Guns.

Was at the same tour you were. Saw them in NJ. Metallica absolutely crushed the place. Guns' came on 2 hours late and were horrid.

[Emboldened Chimp]

56. Yet another vote for G'n'R

I saw them on the Metallica/GNR tour. Metallica was actually pretty good, but GNR was late getting onstage, sucked ass musically when they finally did decide to play, and Axel Rose kept running offstage to change outfits. I can't understand why people like(d) this shit band.

[Rabrrrrrr]

58. People liked them because Slash had "The Stance" which told

the world that he HAD to be the world's greatest guitarist becasue he had "The Stance". He also had "The Hat" and "The Hair" which reinforced his status as a guitar God because of "The Stance". And as if that wasn't enough to make anyone see how truly marvellous and extraordinary a band GnR was, Axl had "The Headwrap" and "The Leather Pants".

Of course they were the best band ever. Just look at 'em!

/end rant against misreable tasteless American music-consuming public who base their appreciation of music on the look of the performers and not, as any intelligent person would think, on the actual music. "I love Rick Springfield's music - he's so hot!"

[mitchum]

7. Cars, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Fall, Aerosmith...

not on the same bill, of course (I shudder at the sheer hellishness of that proposition)

[Lisa0825]

8. I saw Aerosmith, and they put on a great show.....

what was it that made it so bad? Off night? wasted? other?

[mitchum]

13. Oddly enough, this was back in the days when they made great records...

(instead of their current garbage), but they were a legendarily atrocious live act. It was a 70s teenager rite of passage to walk out on Aerosmith, but still crank up "Toys In The Attic" as you were leaving the parking lot.

[Lisa0825]

15. I saw them around 1986-7... comeback time....

I liked the comeback, but not their later stuff.

I had some great times in college, dancing on the tables to "Dude Looks Like a Lady," with a guy friend wearing a feather boa!LOL

[madrchsod]

9. the former manager of the rockford il

metro- center drove to springfield il after an aerosmith concert, basically kidnapped tyler drove him back to rockford and locked him in a hotel room so he couldn`t get drunk and miss/play the concert the next night....

[EstimatedProphet]

10. The summer storm tour!

This was one of those "classic rockfests" that radio tends to sponsor during the summertime, back in 1997. It was billed as Mountain, Black Oak Arkansas, and the big name, Iron Butterfly. Sounds good, doesn't it? It quit sounding good when we went...
1) Mountain cancelled, and they brought in a local bar band called the Delta Bush Pilots that were horrible. As it turned out, Mountain sounded the best of any of them, not being there...
2) Black Oak Arkansas was so overamped in this jerky stadium that literally all that could be made out of their songs was someone mumbling in an extremely low cigarette voice. Didn't catch a thing they did.
3) So finally, the moment that everyone has come for: Iron Butterfly. They start with "Most anything that you want", and since I was probably the only person in the stadium that had their album, I was the only one I think that knew the song. It wasn't bad. The brightness goes down after this...
4) The next thing they say is "We'd like to do some of our new stuff."
WHAT?!? New stuff? They've been split up for 30 years EXCEPT FOR THIS TOUR! So that started playing a song called "Silent scream", which I think was written specifically to scare an audience. Yuck.
5) After 45 minutes, pretty much everyone is screaming for them to play "In-a-godda-da-vida" just to get on with things. They do. And then...
6) THEY F#$KED IT UP! In the middle of the drum solo the guitar comes out and plugs in, starts playing an entirely different song, stops and looks around, then unplugs and walks off. God only knows what that was about.
As a side note, while they were doing that Silent Scream crap I had a muscle spasm in my scalp, kind of felt like my muscles popped. In what was rapidly becoming a paranoid environment due to scary music my first thought was that I had had a brain aneurysm rupture. It took me a long time to talk myself down off that one.
Yeah, I'd say it was the worst...

[swag]

11. Styx at the Northern Montana College Armory Gym, Autumn 75

This was a rehearsal gig, I suppose, for some Styx national tour. I was a freshman in high school and was really excited to be going to a rock concert in that town where nobody every played.

Anyway, the band came off like a bunch of creeps and played a rotten show. I reviewed the show negatively for my high school paper and got loads of hatemail from other kids.

Who else sucked? Loverboy and Quarterflash, of course (1981?). The last Residents show I saw really sucked, believe it or not. One I had seen years before had been wonderful.

Worst concert experience was probably driving all the way from Missoula, MT to Seattle to see The Who farewell tour (alas, the first of many) with the Clash opening for them. We were smalltown rubes who got stuck in the top tier of the Kingdome watching a bunch of little ants onstage make noises that echoed horribly into the rafters. Big tin-can shows should be outlawed.

[punpirate]

12. Dating m'self...

... but it was Jethro Tull at the Honolulu Arena in 1970. Don't know who booked that venue, but they probably got fired, afterwards. Comedy of errors throughout the night. The Arena was the usual site for Saturday night wrestling, so the stage was the wrestling ring, minus the ropes and stanchions, the seats were the roll-out bleachers. The sound man was stoned, so, every once in a while, Ian Anderson was heard to yell, "Nigel... oh, Nigel, the monitors go down on the quiet songs, and up on the loud songs!" And, the Honolulu police get honorable mention for having plainclothes police in the audience (dressed in police shoes and Hawaiian shirts) who pounded across the bleachers every few minutes, chasing every doper they spotted, which usually resulted in the music stopping while the chase ensued, because of the distracting noise.

All in all, Tull managed it well, tried to put on a good show, despite the problems.

[Rabrrrrrr]

14. Where is/was the honolulu arena?

Is that now the civic center, or whatever they call it? Downtown?

[ForrestGump]

16. I'd guess the HIC Arena

Not downtown -- it's where Elvis did the 1973 satellite concert.

[Rabrrrrrr]

17. Ah - gotcha!

The place that musicals come in and perform, etc., right?

Sadly, never been in that one.

[punpirate]

27. Not sure...

... the only musical I saw at that time was "Fiddler on the Roof" (the touring company with Theo Bikel and it was at the Civic Center). I remember the older place only as the Arena, and it was more or less downtown. It certainly wasn't out in the suburbs of Honolulu.

[punpirate]

25. Haven't been back there since 1970...

... so I can't guess at what's happened in the meantime. As I recall, the Civic Center was pretty new then, and was a different venue. I saw many well-run concerts at the Civic Center. The Arena (as I recall the name) was much older, but still in existence then. May have been torn down and replaced by now.

But, for sure, the Arena and the Civic Center were co-existent at the time.

[arwalden]

19. Up With People

??

[Rabrrrrrr]

22. Oh, that doesn't count Arwalden!!

We hosted a couple performers when they came to my city in 1983. Nice people. Annoying show.

"Up, up yours people.
We don't wanna put on a show.
Up, up yours people,
You know where you can go."

That's what my friends and I - who were the drama guild stage geeks who helped out - came up with.

[Semi_subversive]

24. Bob Dylan

Guess he wasn't in the mood!

[FDRrocks]

26. Mephiskapheles

at a now defunct local club. They came across as freaking pricks, probably because only 20 people showed up. They played sloppily and the only interaction with the audience was when the singer started screaming at the bar in that back for more beer every other song. Guess our little PA club wasn't suited for thier British rock star asses.

Too bad, they are really talented.

[drumwolf]

30. For those of you who are indie rock fans..... Polvo

Saw them once in 1993 in SF, and then again in 1998 in NYC, with a different group of people each time. I found both shows to be just excruciatingly boring, tedious and interminable, and both times everyone who went with me also found it mind-numbingly boring too. They're not only the worst indie band I've ever seen live, they're also the worst band I've seen PERIOD.

[Rabrrrrrr]

31. Glad I never heard of them!

Sounds interminable.

[chenGOD]

44. Really...I like Polvo quite a bit...

Never seen them live though...

I think worst show for me was Smashing Pumpkins. Saw them at Lollapalooza in about 1990? THe best thing about that show was the light show. Otherwise it was unintersting twaddle.

[mitchum]

53. I can vouch for Polvo's maximum sucktitude

I had to endure those atonal trustfund twits a half dozen times over the years. Horrid.

[Lou_C]

32. The Osmonds

My best friend in grade school was in love with Donnie and her Mother took us both to see the Osmonds :puke: and It was pure torture.

[texas1928]

33. It was not a rock concert

I went to an Alabama concert and all they played was bluegrass, then at the end the did a colage of thier songs and that was it. I don't mind hearing different music but I paid good money to hear them do their songs live. not just little short bits.

[Rocinante]

35. Bachman Turner Overdrive

Muscle Shoals Alabama. 1973. Lamest attempt at a concert you could imagine.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

55. Mine too............

played at the college in my hometown. Worst excuse for a concert has there ever been one. Their opening band was some group called the "Band of Angels"(Assholes). When the BOA brought out the accordion, I knew it was over.

[Tom Kitten]

36. Heart also!

Only this time it was in 1976 when the lp with "Barracuda" just came out, it was at the Portland Memorial Coliseum(seats about 12,000, an awfully big venue for them at the time I thought)...

They did the same sort of playlist, started out with a slow song, then fast, slow, then fast...The Wilson sisters were fine but the rest of the band weren't all that accomplished musically...the sound was terrible! Amps must have been turned up to "11" because it was basically white noise after awhile...towards the end the speakers on stage started to smoke, the roadies sprayed them with fire extinguishers! Plus the crowd (at least those around me) was kind of obnoxious...

Then a couple of years ago I saw Pere Ubu at the Crystal Ballroom...I live close by there...I bought my ticket at the door at 10pm, went in and they were just taking the stage...All I remember of this debacle was the David Thomas with accordion sea chanty type stuff (not exactly "the Modern Dance"!) and him looking up at the ceiling and complaining about the air-conditioning, wanting it to be shut off, repeatedly! Finally, they left, Thomas said he couldn't deal with the cool air, no encore...I arrived there at 10pm, by 11pm I was back home, watching the beginning of the news! That's a band that's definitely on my shit list!

[Forkboy]

38. Two stinkers really stand out for me

Wang Chung and the Cars way back when,and Ozzy in 87 or 88 sometime.

[VolcanoJen]

40. Smashing Pumpkins, Cincinnati, 1998 or so

I was a big fan, and God, did they suck. Boring, predictable, same set list as reported by every internet SP fan at the time.

[GOPisEvil]

41. The Cars

:boring:

"Hi, we're The Cars."

That was the extent of their interaction with the crowd. They just played their songs. The soungs sounded great, in fact they sounded just like the albums. I could have put the albums on at home, and had a better experience.

[Whitacre D_WI]

43. Tammy and the Amps, Poster Children, O-Matic

At Canal Street Tavern in beautiful Dayton, Ohio.

Alright, it seems unfair to lump O-Matic in with this travesty, 'cause they were a local band I hadn't ever heard of before and haven't heard of since. Every song sounded the same, they didn't have a lot of energy, and they didn't sound very good, though.

They were the highlight of the evening.

Now, I've seen the Posterkids several times, and they always seem to put on a good show. Except this time. They played about 10 songs off their most recent album (which hadn't come out yet) vs. NOT A SINGLE GODDAMNED SONG THAT ANYONE IN THE AUDIENCE KNEW. Now, that's okay, normally -- I like being exposed to new material. But this "new album" was shit, okay? Bad songs, it sounded like they'd never played them before, what with all the wrong keys and false starts and whatnot.

And then, the kicker.

Tammy and the Amps (later to be rechristened simply "The Amps") was Kim Deal's side project from the Breeders circa '95. You know, when Kelley was in rehab. Kim was (probably) high and (definitely) blind drunk. Replacements drunk. Leaning-on-the-mic-stand-to-stay-upright drunk. She didn't know the words to the songs. She couldn't play guitar. The band wanted to kick her ass. She kept saying hi to her mother, who was in the audience (and, I assume, wanted to kick her ass). Three songs into it, I wanted to kick her ass.

It was great! Probably the worst rock & roll show I ever saw (Billy Fucking Joel and Crosby, Stills, and fucking Nash do not count as "rock"), but one of my favorites!

[toddzilla]

45. eric johnson

what a self-absorbed weenie. twice.

[ikojo]

47. Chicago.....boy do they SUCK!

It was quite by accident....before the huge outdoor amphitheatre was built in suburban St Louis, they used to have concerts at the Muny in Forest Park (in the city of St Louis). At the Muny there are free seats and people stand in line, since it is first come first serve.

I got dates confused. I thought I was standing in line to see the B52s and Ziggy Marley until I noticed that the crowd was dressed FAR too conservatively for a B52s concert. I then asked someone in line what concert it was and he responded "Chicago." My friend and I decided, that since we had stood in line for TWO hours, we might as well see the show.

IT SUCKED!!!!! I haven't been able to listen to any of their music since.

The B52s concert was the NEXT night and I did go to it and LOVED it. They are coming to St Louis again this summer as part of the Riversplash series on the Arch grounds....It is FREE!!!!

[TheWizardOfMudd]

49. Steppenwolf

It was cool. It was 1968.

[fudge stripe cookays]

51. The Church- 1986

For the Heyday album.

They played the Fast and Cool Club here in Dallas. Their sound mixer should have been SHOT.

They are a very dreamy sort of psychedelic band. Number 1, they played WAY too fast--like they were bored and wanted to get it over with.

Number 2, the sound was up so loud for such a small club it was REALLY distorted. I wasn't doing the earplug thing at the time, so I couldn't hear normally for at least 2 days afterward.

It's a good thing I gave them several chances to top that. They can perform better, but they are definitely better as a CD band, not live.

[livetohike]

52. John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra

What was I thinking?? The details are fuzzy - it was 1974 or 1975. I think he was touring with Dave Mason (that's who I wanted to see). I remember sitting outside on a fire escape with my friends enjoying some "refreshments" and waiting for the performance to be over and Dave Mason to begin.

Second runner up is Little Feat. They were awful. It is the only concert I ever left.

[afraid_of_the_dark]

54. A random Christian Rock concert in Waterloo, IA in the late 1990's

I know, I know. But it was the only thing my mother would let me go to at the time, because it wouldn't "pollute my soul." I was halfway excited about it at the time, because I wanted to see the main band. Unfortunately, they never showed. They filled it in with hours of standing around and waiting for them to show... which was boring, to say the least. Plus, the other bands totally sucked.

I think I made up for it by catching Staind, Cold and Godsmack when they were on tour together. Now THAT was a concert!

[Spirochete]

57. Ted Nugent

he played far too loud. I couldn't hear right for three days. In fact - he was banned from playing in Portland for a while because of that concert.

[Nikia]

59. Alanis Morisette

Part of the problem was that the opening band sucked big time, partly because they did not have their sound balanced well. There was a long time before she came on and my enthusiasm really had gone down.

[tjwash]

60. The Cars...

...in 1980. They played for 45 minutes and then bailed. What a rip.

[BlackVelvetElvis]

61. This woman named Sally.

On edit:
Not a rock concert but had to share.

She gave a performance at a church in Lynwood, Ill. She was soooo bad that I had a hard time trying to stop laughing. It was if she wasn't singing the right song for the music. Tone deaf! It was torture. Thinking of dead puppies didn't help the giggle fit I was having. The guy in charge of the canned music kept turning it up louder and louder to drown her out. That made the giggles worse.
That is small time stuff though. No Guns and Roses stories for you guys. Sorry.