Worst Live show you've seen?

[crazy_guitar]

mine has to be... shamefully... Kid rock

[Steve Smith]

I have a whole bunch of Tejano shows I had to work in Dallas in a tie for first place.

[Fletcher]

After a 25+ years of going to, and working in music... there are way too many to list. How about leaving it at 75-80% of them...

[alphajerk]

i had two of my top ten happen within the past month. some shitty ass band from philly who had a kilt wearin bagpipe player for a lead singer [had to get out after the 1st song but had to stay through 3] and this band the other night who thought they were the monkees from knoxville with about a quarter of the talent of the monkees.

[e-cue]

2 Live Crew

Bought tickets, yet couldn't get in because I was too young for "explicit material". Why the hell didn't ticketmaster card me when I bought the gotdamn ticket?

Anyway, outside the show, Luke was hauled off by the poe-poe. Thank god Mr. Tipper Gore just dropped out.

[Jules]

The two worst live shows I have seen I have seriously concidered HIRING for a party for being SO BAD its funny...!

One was a small band,

the other a DJ using twin cassete players (he was 70 and spoke between songs!)

[Jules]

I suppose Stone Roses at Reading Festival ranks up there... the singing was awful. Fans cried..! I laughed and did dog howl impersonations on my way back to the hospitality area along with everybody else in the industry.... It was a classic, famed bad gig.. And they were the HEADLINERS!

[NYC Drew]

Where would I start?

Are we talking strictly about the band, or the production or both?

[Tim L]

I don't know which was the worst but it probably involved "big hair". One show that does come to mind was dfegad Pure Prairie League. They opend up for ZZTop back in 79 or maybe 80. No wine sack or bag-o-bud's was gonna help this pitiful excuse for a band sound anything but, well, pitiful... they did not get a chance to finish their set!tut ZZTop on the other hand rocked the place into the ****in' ground!

[chrisso]

I've played in some of the worst live shows I've ever seen!

[jajjguy]

Of course there are too many "worsts" to list, but the most disappointing was seeing Beck at the Horde festival. It was during his Odelay period. He evidently wasn't taking the show seriously at all (not that i blame him, he was only one of like 25 bands that night), was goofing around and sort of making fun of the fact that he was just fronting over a pre-recorded track. Well, i appreciated the irony but not the fact that the show sucked!

[cram]

Worst episode ever...

Black 47: Arrogant assholes who played 14 versions of the same horrible frikkin' song.

Archers of Loaf: So completely out-of-tune that ALL of the opening bands (3) were offering them the use of tuners, which they refused. Their lead singer kept yelling to us, "it's supposed to be out-of-tune!" But their guitarist was so embarrassed he wouldn't even look me in the eye. We called them "Pinchers of Loaf."

Jesus and Mary Chain: Lollapalooza in Phoenix, they totally slept their way through their set. At one point the singer mustered up enough energy to hit a correct note.

Sting: His Cowboy Album Tour...Nuff said.

Sigue Sigue Sputnick: Remember those losers? Nobody else does either.

U2: The POP Tour, forever renamed the POOP Tour. I loved the ZooTV tour, WTF happened in the intervening year?

Alice in Chains: Jerry Cantrell was the only guy playing in time. He was probably on X, while the other guys were on H.

There are so many more.

[groundcontrol]

Originally posted by cram
Sigue Sigue Sputnick: Remember those losers? Nobody else does either.

WOW! I had forgotten about those... Definitely some of the most inspired moments of that decade!

One of the worst I've seen must have been The Cult at the beginning of the "Electric" period. What a total turbo-jet loud mess!

[gabrielk]

It would have to qualify as The Smashing Pumpkins, circa 1995. What a disappointment that was. I expected them to have stage presence, and be, y'know, GOOD live. Oh well.

[adam_w]

Ian Brown at Glastonbury. Happy Mondays. Either couldn't carry a tune in a bag !

[Tubelover]

Rufus Wainright was amazingly bad earlier this year in Santa Barbara. How about a song with the lyrics in Latin and sung so slow it was painful. Entire rows of people walked out at a time.

[OzNimbus]

The absolute worst live band ever: The Spin Doctors.

I went to a Rolling Stones show and had to put up with the Spin Doctors for an eternal 30 minutes. Crowd rants of "You suck!" and "Get off the stage!" pretty much summed up the set.

But my mother (yes I went to a Stones show with my parents. One of the few things we actually connect on) had the best comment of all. "I've heard better at Karaoke."

[David R.]

Got a gig tonight, I am just a hired gun but I sure hope it does not show up here tomorrow...rollz

Jax, it is in your 'hood. Stay home tonight, it is going to be raining to hard to go to New George's.

I believe we will be playing rock and roll. rollz rollz

[Mike Rhys]

Dee-Lite in Yokohama, Japan.

Awful in every possible way. The only saving grace was Bootsy Collins...couldn't hear him through the crap, but he was a joy to watch.

[David R.]

Had a feeling it was going to be bad, but that gig was one of the worst I have ever been a part of. Appologies to whomever was there.

It was already horrible before the club manager yelled for us to get off stage, before the 'guitar slinger' launched into a long version of "Voodoo Child." When I looked over and saw him playing the solo with his teeth, I almost unplugged and walked off stage.

grudge grudge grudge

[Remoteness]

It's funny, but I've seen plenty of bad live shows on TV and I'm trying to find the logic in why this is so more times than not.

There are a few TV shows that consistently give you excellent live music entertainment.
The rest of them simply blow.

How do it know to suck so much?

[James Meeker]

Tori Amos in 1997.

Not only was her performance terrible, but she seemed to be on drugs. She drooled on the piano.

Plus half the audience consisted of pseudo-lesbians shouting "we love you Tori!"

Ugh.

[Keldog]

sadly....

I think it was ours after seeing the video of it later.

[Robert Randolph]

Radiohead.

Too much sequenced stuff made it like listening to a really shitty album version. No movement from the bandmembers, and really generic stage show.

On the flipside, I can't stand coldplay's music, but their live show was significantly more interesting.

[edwinhurwitz]

The Grateful Dead in Highgate VT 1994. It was embarrassingly bad. It seemed like they had just been introduced to their instruments. It was brought into sharp relief by the slamming opening set by Youssou N'Dour, who sounded amazing through that sound system. They made it worth the drive from Boston.

I guess it evens out after the GD shows I saw in the 70s that were great.

Runner up: Stevie Ray Vaughn at Great Woods ca 1986. I had heard so many good things about him, but this was just terrible. It was made extra bad because they shut Pinetop Perkins off after a 1/2 hour set, but SRV decided to make us wait almost 90 minutes for him to show himself.

Edwin
PS I have probably participated in shows that were worse. Oh well. I might have walked out if I could!

[boojum]

GD in the Frost ampitheater at Stanford was a clunker, but the all-time worst musician I ever saw/heard was Hendrix at a gig in White Plains, NY in the late 60's. He was so stoned he could hardly stand up, walked on late, walked off, walked on, made an attempt at imitating a guitar player and kept the off-on routine going for a while and then quit. Man, he sucked.

I was told by one of the fellows working the gig Basie had been there the week before and put on a great show. He couldn't believe Hendrix, either.

[tsvisser]

Originally Posted by Robert Randolph

Radiohead.

Too much sequenced stuff made it like listening to a really shitty album version. No movement from the bandmembers, and really generic stage show.

On the flipside, I can't stand coldplay's music, but their live show was significantly more interesting.

Radiohead at RFK stadium... mainly because I'm a big fan and the sound was so horrible, I just couldn't get past it, then lighting stuck and someone died.

[plexisys]

Aerosmith - Most of 1981 until? and I was mixing. Most of the time we canceled more shows than we played. The crew called it the "salad bar and sauna tour". The band wouldn't even talk to each other when they were concise enough to talk. On several dates they were actually playing two different songs at once and they didn't even know it.

In all my years of touring I never heard or saw anything like it. I think the thing that amazes me the most is that they still managed to keep plenty of fans. I left asfter 4-5 months of it. No matter what they were paying it just was not worth it. To this day I'm shocked any of them are still a live.

[withintheflux]

Originally Posted by Tubelover

Rufus Wainright was amazingly bad earlier this year in Santa Barbara. How about a song with the lyrics in Latin and sung so slow it was painful. Entire rows of people walked out at a time.

I find this very surprising. I've seen Rufus wainwright twice and both rank in my favorite shows of all.

too bad.

[mattkw80]

I am a hugh fan... but... worst show ever for me..... Bob Dylan.