worst of all I have seen,

George Thorogood,

live in about 1987 or so,
he released a live record, and his concert the next year was damn near verbatim of that album,
even the comments between songs were the same as on the album,


like he phoned it in,

Stevie Nicks, out of tune, stumbling on words, must have been some really good stuff that night. Not quite sure where they inserted whatever held her up behind the microphone but she had to be led to and from her mark on stage. Total zombie.

Spin Doctors.

They were drunk and sounded terrible. Only had about 2 good songs anyway...

Wasn't my idea to go..

Snake River Conspiracy and A Perfect Circle at the International Ballroom in Atlanta Metro area sometime around 2002. The venue and its acoustics were total shit.

I’ve seen A Perfect Circle in other venues and they were always great. It was the venue that sucked.

David Bowie Foxboro Ma. Just a shit show and he forgot the words to Heroes.
The Who Mansfield Ma. probably due to being way back on the lawn but the sound was brutal and way to low.

For me it was Jimmy Buffett sometime around 2006 or so at Citizen's Bank Park in Philly.

The tailgating, pre-concert scene was OFF THE HOOK, but the actual concert itself kind of sucked, the sound was very echo-y and poor and all the assholes around me wouldn't shut the hell up long enough to let me hear Jimmy.

I paid to hear Jimmy Buffett sing, not a bunch of drunken, off-key people shouting along!

Great Thread - Back when it was $25-30 a bad concert was kind of like a bad BJ - Now at $100 it better be good - I saw many of these groups and as long as I was all in - It was good -

This is a interesting post.

quote:

Originally posted by MoreCowbell:
I saw Jethro Tull in the early nineties it was the most boring concert I have ever been to.I can't remember who opened for them but they were just as bad.

That stinks. I saw them in '89 at The Spectrum in Philly and they were AWESOME.

Got stationed in Germany and saw them twice again in '92 and '93 and they were awesome there too. '92 was at Frankfurt's Old Opera House and they ended up putting a song on a live album (A Little Light Music) from the very night I was there, and in '93 I was at an outdoor venue in Frankfurt and got so close to the side of the stage I saw Ian Anderson warming up with his flute, I literally could have reached across the fence and shook his hand.

quote:

Originally posted by SigJacket:
Aerosmith, Pump tour. God awful sound. Joan Jett opened, was much better.

The Nashville show was the opposite. JJ was the only act I've seen booed that loudly

I went to a Jason Aldean concert with my wife three or four years ago in Tampa.

His sound was AWFUL! I usually wear silicone hearing protection to concerts just because...but even with hearing protection JA was a loud that was beyond concert level and just terrible.

It was as if the sound engineer would randomly turn up the volume on different instruments and try to balance it by turning up other instruments.

The opening act for Santana at a Munich concert in 1970 or 1971 (I can't remember the actual date) was by a group named for its lead singer, Karen Dalton.

German audiences do not tolerate crappy performances. Karen Dalton was booed off the stage after their third song. Santana, on the other hand, was one of the best concerts I've ever attended.

In close second place was Blood Sweat & Tears. Their concert was opened by the group Spirit, who were awesome, and the David Clayton-Thomas and company hit the stage and stunk up the place. Clayton-Thomas' stage presence was vile.

Ive been to several Beach Boys concerts and a Brian Wilson. All were great, but Brian cant hit the high notes like he used to.

Depeche Mode was another great concert. Lots of movements & sounded like they do on the albums.

Worst, by far, was Eminem. He would start a verse & hold a mic to the crowd. I paid to hear YOU perform your songs - not the drunk/high idiots around me.

Rolling Stones about 1975 in Bloomington Indiana. IU Assembly Hall, near top row ground floor and the balcony cantilevered out over the ground floor seats. Blocked the sound and too far away to see good. Not the Stones fault but my seats sucked. I saw the same tour in Louisville with great seats and loved it.

About 20 years ago Dwight Yoakum was doing his Reverb tour where he had a stripped down bar band w bar band equip. Sound was the worst ever. I saw the Thorogood tour mentioned above and it truly was super weak. Played about 45 minutes and he was outa there.

Back in the late 70s David Allen Coe was billing himself as the world's greatest magician. A local outlaw country band, Cowboy George and his Beer Drinking Rodeo Band, thought they would mogul as music promoters so they hired DAC to play Louisville's Memorial Auditorium and they would open the show. CG & BDRB's bass player hung with The Outlaws motorcycle club and gave then some free tickets. The Grim Reapers then got a bunch of free tickets. DAC drove up from Nashville with just a guitar player and proceeded to spend about 45 minutes on stage grunting and sweating trying to pick the locks on a chain wrapped around him. A couple hundred bikers in full colors drunk and hollering. DAC finally broke through the chains and played about an hour. BDRB lost their ass $$$.

quote:

Originally posted by shovelhead:
Bob Seger pre Silver Bullet Band days, 1973. He was on the same bill with Iggy and the Stooges.

Seger was bad, really bad. To the point that I walked out and returned when Iggy came on stage.

Two years later I went to the Michigan Palace, the old Michigan Theater now a parking garage in downtown Detroit. Seger was the headliner, I got talked into going, that took a lot of talking. This was just ahead of the concert that Live Bullet was recorded at, Cobo Hall.

He had back what he lost a couple years before!

Very interesting. In '81, the Stones, Santana and Iggy played the Pontiac Silverdome. The Stones and Santana were awesome. Iggy opened and he was so bad he was booed off the stage about 15 minutes into his set. I had never seen that happen to an act and have never seen it since. Believe me, it was justified. He was absolutely awful. I guess anyone can have an off night.

I guess I am lucky - most of the concerts I have got to have been great. The worst for me was also The Cars - sometime in the early 80s. They played a really short set. Had no spontaneity at all. The songs sounded too much like the recordings. It was like sitting there listening to a record while the band basically just stood there. I was a huge fan but that night was a disappointment.

To me the venue can make a difference.
I've stopped going to any of the outdoor concerts here at a venue called Cynthia Woods Pavilion.
It used to be a quaint place out in the woods of Woodlands Texas but now it is just stuck in the middle of a bunch of shit.
But the real reason is that is sounds like shit and unless the weather is great it is usually hot and unbearable anyway.
No more concerts there for me and I have seen some great ones when I got good front seats and it wasn't too hot.
Now days frontal seats are so damn expensive so not gonna do it!

quote:

Originally posted by wxdave:
Jimmy Buffett in Tampa 2007. The show was terrible and the acoustics were worse than that.
I grew up as a young parrothead in south Florida. I now realize what a liberal cunt he is and can no longer stand him. Like most actors in Hollywood, I wish he would stay out of politics.

I too was a hard core Parrothead when I was younger but between his politics and just plain getting old and having to slow the shows down quite a bit I just stopped going, it stopped being fun

remembered another one,

first and only time (so far) I have walked out of a show


Real Big Fish, headliner,
English Beat, 'midliner'
and a variation of a local ska band as the opener,


local band was a variation of an older band that was called The Good Guys, basically some former member and other folks,

ska/kinda reggae type sound, really good group

English Beat, despite the fact that Dave Wakeling is the only original member,
were fantastic


real big fish, we made it thru 3 songs and punched the fukkit button, they were horrible, but then again, we were not college students ,,,,


walked out by the front bar to look at the merchandise on the way out and lo and behold Wakeling is hanging out,

got to have a great conversation with him, wife's shirt was signed, great time,

he told me he did the tour with RBF to get his music in front of a younger audience

saw Capt. Beefheart in 1968 (?) at the U of Iowa student union .

did not know how to accept it, the pot heads had no expression, me and my best buddy could not begin to figure out any aspect of the deal

then again I was only 13

The last Texas Jam at the Cotton Bowl..must have been like 1988, anyway, Dokken took the stage and none of their equipment worked. It was pretty pathetic.