What's the worst show/concert you have ever been to?

C

Coralkong1

Helper
The other post on going to a concert alone got me thinking.....

What's the worst show you have ever seen/been to?

For me, two are memorable, and for all the wrong reasons.

1.) Joe Satriani.
Saw him in Upper Darby, PA by myself in an auditorium that I forget the name of. Bought a ticket the night of the show. Had pretty good seats. But OMG was it terrible. The sound was mixed horribly and it was so loud as to be painful. I remember saying to myself "If he hits that UFO pinch harmonic ONE MORE TIME, I'm leaving." Well, he hit that pinch harmonic and I walked out. It was probably halfway through his show. He was playing songs I didn't care about (I did stay to see Satch Boogie). Whew, what a stinker. My ears rang for the better part of a week. It wasn't cool. You couldn't hear anything as far as a "mix" goes with the other bandmates. Absolutely awful.

2.) Aerosmith.
Saw them when they first got back together after getting sober. Somewhere around '86-'87 (?) in Providence, RI at the Civic Center. (Think "Love In a Elevator" era...)
They were terrible. There's sloppy, there's loud, there's loud and sloppy, and then there was this debacle.
I remember saying "I'd have rather seen them fucked up than watch this again." Joe Perry's guitar kept going out of tune, but you think that was going to stop him? Hell no! His answer seemed to be to turn it up louder and louder. Steven Tyler kept shreiking into the microphone, to the point where you could hardly tell what he was singing, or what song it was. I'm not sure he even knew what song they were on. Then they broke out a 15 minute drum solo. JC. Even being 17 years old, there's just some shit that doesn't need to be done. After Joey had finished beating his toms and cymbals with his hands, feet and yes, even his head at one point, (I remember being surprised he didn't whip out his dick and play with that), well.......I was kind of wishing they had gone backstage and had a bump or two. I know they supposedly put on a good show and got their shit together later on, but this certainly wasn't one of them. Truly terrible.
 
Last edited:
Probably the most memorably bad performance I can think of was this band playing a show at Subterranean (I think) with some friends of mine and they were just doing some insufferable indie noise thing. (It was Wicker Park in the early aughts) And this other noisy band had the One Night in Paris sex tape rolling on a bunch of TVs.

This was not really the vibe of my friends’ band (which was this persnickety precisely retro blues/anglo-rock thing only concerned with sounds from 1969 through early 1972)—so they weren’t really garage rock revival but they suckered people into booking them as if they were. So it was conflicting types of indie pretension and kind of a drag because we’re talking like a Thursday night at 11pm with 10-20 people in the audience. Anyway, just blasting porn at people while channeling Temu Dino Jr meets Lovelessis kind of a harsh realm.
 
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a concert with a bad headliner. But I have seen some awful opening acts. I remember a rockabilly band that just did not give a fuck. They played through some basic songs in 4/4, dead on mechanically playing with no phrasing at all. I could tell the bass player hated it because he played the simplest lines imaginable, standing in one spot, chewing gum and tapping his foot to stay in time. Given that he was playing a p bass he probably wasn’t into rockabilly.
 
jp_nyc said:
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a concert with a bad headliner. But I have seen some awful opening acts. I remember a rockabilly band that just did not give a fuck. They played through some basic songs in 4/4, dead on mechanically playing with no phrasing at all. I could tell the bass player hated it because he played the simplest lines imaginable, standing in one spot, chewing gum and tapping his foot to stay in time. Given that he was playing a p bass he probably wasn’t into rockabilly.
Click to expand...

Worst headliner performance was probably seeing Modest Mouse melt down at House of Blues. They had gotten big off “Float On” and I think they had recently replaced a drummer and Brock couldn’t get his delay boxes to sync and it was a bit of a shit show and they packed it in early. This was before they retooled with Johnny Marr and got more polished/professional…but they were on the bubble.

I was also at the QOTSA show were the problematic bass guy freaked out and killed his monitor and the overall vibe was sort of tense and uncool. This was circa Songs for the Deaf.

The Vines were pretty shitty and they got pelted with shit when I saw them back when I used to see everybody.

Reconstituted zombie Weezer have also been severely underwhelming the few times I saw them. Not a headliner but a big name with a lot of hype at the time — the Black Keys also bored the shit out of me when I saw them at Lolla in 2005. I was in the press pit and tired, cranky, and coming down from whatever so maybe it was just me…but they were also pretty lame on record.
 
Last edited:
Aerosmith back in the late 70s. They were so high they could barely stand up. Joe Perry kept playing intros to the wrong song and would have to stop and start over. And it was LOUD - even by 70s standards.

Def Leppard. I saw them long after their hit machine had run out of juice, and they were just phoning it in. Joe Elliot's voice was shot - he couldn't hit any high notes. Vivian Campbell was literally yawning through the whole show.

Sammy Hagar opening for ZZ Top. Hagar was loud and obnoxious - cussing and bitching about everything. And he wouldn't leave the stage. He played for about 90 minutes despite the crowd chanting "ZZ Top". When ZZ Top finally took the stage, they only played for about 30 minutes.
 
Meat Puppets, 1983
They were trashed. The drummer looked like he was messed up on speed and threw up. They were even playing different songs from each other.
 
I've seen several shitty local band shows over the years. But as far as a famous band, Motley Crue absolutely sucked last time I saw them. Vince Neil needs to just quit it.
 
Aerosmith here too, once in the early '80s and once in 1990. The first time wasn't quite a train wreck but it wasn't good either. The second time was just dull and uninspired. Joan Jett was the opener and that was a much more enjoyable set.
 
Had to be Rainbow w DIo/Eric Clapton.
Rainbow drove me to the lobby of the midsized basketball arena with loud ice pick to the ears treble, and then Clapton put me to sleep in my seat.
 
off the top of my head, Dexy's Midnight Runners at a festival. They sucked and were doing weird takes on their tunes to the point they'd almost finished Gino before I realised that's what they were playing.

Kevin Rowlands was dressed up like some weird French mime artist too. It was just really bizarre.
 
TomcatMF said:
When GNR and Metallica did that tour together in 1992, I thought GNR were terrible.
Click to expand...
I have never heard a positive review of that era of GNR. Just lots of complaints about Axl showing up very late and being a complete asshole on stage.
 
Pantera late 90's.

They might've been good but the mix was so brutally loud, unbalanced, and painful. Only big name show I ever left.
 
While I appreciate the chops of a Frank Marino, a three hour guitar solo was too much. I wish I had gone to that show alone. He really beat a dead horse that night. He would do a scale hundreds of times before beating the hell out of slightly different one. I took a nap.
It had all of the suffering of the Tour de France.
A Tour de Frank if you will.
 
sonik said:
Pantera late 90's.

They might've been good but the mix was so brutally loud, unbalanced, and painful. Only big name show I ever left.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately this happened to me with Drive By Truckers, one of my fav bands. All I could hear was brutal organ and mud with shrill ice pick guitar noises. Forget hearing any individual parts or vocals. I can handle too loud if the mix is good, but if not I’m outta there.
 
I was dating this redhead girl, Angela. Must have been during my Charlie Brown phase. She was a fan of Mannheim Steamroller. Why a girl so young was interested in music that uncool, I’ll never know.

I bought two tickets for a show at Red Rocks. In the middle of the performance, a storm arrived. Sheets of rain poured down from the skies. It got really cold. Most people left. Angela, did not want to leave. We stayed ‘till the bitter end.

An assault on the ears and an assault from the skies. If only it had been NIN, a band she also liked.

Not long after the MHS incident, I broke if off. Angela was fun for awhile, yet all kinds of messed up.
 
Another too loud bad mix show was Old Crow Medicine Show at the Rhyman. That venue is notorious for not good sound unless your directly in front. Up in the rafters esp to the side can be terrible if the engineer doesn’t know the tricks of the room.
 
sonik said:
Pantera late 90's.

They might've been good but the mix was so brutally loud, unbalanced, and painful. Only big name show I ever left.
Click to expand...
I remember seeing them in 1998 or 1999 and they were obviously wasted. Phil was literally falling down and they kept getting lost and changing songs. In some insane, weird way it was great.
 
Pine Apple Slim said:
Another too loud bad mix show was Old Crow Medicine Show at the Rhyman. That venue is notorious for not good sound unless your directly in front. Up in the rafters esp to the side can be terrible if the engineer doesn’t know the tricks of the room.
Click to expand...
When was that, do you remember? Was that one of the New Year's Eve shows?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top