What is the ABSOLUTE WORST Live Performance that You Have Ever Seen?

[Malfunction]

Sadly enough it was Art Garfunkel last week. High hopes and low delivery...

[Mav64]

Probably Eric Johnson (techinical issues) or Dick Dale (terrible jokes and talks too much issues.)

[Hard Truth]

ELO late seventies. They could not reproduce their sound live at all. I never liked them anyways, I went to see opener Steve Hillage.

Also late seventies, a very drunken Dan Hicks making racist remarks at a small club.

In the category of "they should have retired from live performance category:"

Jazz organist Jimmy Smith talked more than he played, but had nothing to say. His playing was OK on the few songs he managed to do.

Jimmy Witherspoon sang the same three songs repeatedly.

Lionel Hampton had a great large band, wich made the show OK, but he could barely play.

Its sad to hear about Dick Dale and BB King, both were fantastic live not very long ago.

[tlbonehead]

Mighta been because Mickey Thomas sang that song on the record. Elvin can't sing like that.

no, it was because Mickey owned the rights to the song.

[tlbonehead]

I saw him in the early 90's. I literally fell asleep at the show. I am serious. I fell asleep sitting in about the 6th row of a 25,000 seat venue. I must have blocked that from my memory for the past few years.

 

 

do you like Dylan?

[Tall]

Black Crows. Simply sucked on every level.

[ugameus]

 

do you like Dylan?

 

 

I love Dylan. I have seen him perform and he was good. I think that was early 2000's. That one time though, I literally fell asleep. It was like everything was the same muddled mess. Like white noise on the TV at 3 in the morning. I was completely sober and just nodded out.

[fretmonster]

I once went to see Jackson Brown I kept waiting for the rest of the band to join him on stage. It never happened. But I thought it would. Turned out it was a solo acoustic show. It was like what Bill Cosby described in his famous standup show about 30 years ago when he was talking about going to the dentist. He said (paraphrasing) it convinced him that even if he had no legs, he'd still be able to walk because the dentist made his butt crawl so much that his ass alone was trying to walk himself out of the chair and out the dental office. Well, that's how I felt with listening to a solo acoustic evening by Jackson Brown. My ass was twitching the entire time and the only thing holding me back from fleeing the theater was thinking the rest of the band would be coming out any minute and I'd be hearing Running On Empty, etc. Kind of like what Senator Lloyd Bentsen said to said to Senator Dan Quayle - I wanted to say, Jackson, you are no James Taylor. Only the truly diehard JB fans with only half a pulse seemed to emerge from that one happy.

 

That's hilarious and really describes the way I feel about Rockers trying to do a solo acoustic set. Even Neil Young has to be billed with Crazy Horse in order for me to spend my hard-earned cash to see him (loved the Greendale tour). I made the mistake of shelling out to see George Winston once to impress a date and wow what a boring set that was. Actually liked quite a bit of that New Age stuff but somebody gave that guy a huge pass in my opinion. But to be fair, I've only seen a couple solo acoustic sets that I was really enthralled with. One was some old Mississippi Blues guy that played the Dead Goat Saloon back in the mid 80's and the other was Leo Kotke.

 

Actually had a similar experience as you did when I went to a show with several New Wave acts billed, which was also back in the 80s. The headliner was the Church and they were decent, although I wasn't really a huge fan. Peter Murphy was great although he only did a couple of tunes. But the guy I went to see was Tom Verlaine which had made quite a name for himself at the time in the band Television. Nobody expected a solo acoustic set from him but there it was. He did maybe two unknown tunes if memory serves which were just mailed in on strummed acoustic and the dude was obviously high as a kite, which I should have been to appreciate the performance.

 

Enjoying the stories and a bit surprised at the commonalities. And I gotta agree that I've seen Willie twice and he was fantastic. Hope he comes through again cause that road can't go on forever and I'd regret not getting a last chance.

[*BLEEP*]

[straycat113]

By far the worst as well as biggest dissapointment was Chuck Berry back in 78 at The Ritz in NY. I was standing right in front of the stage and though I was only 16 at the time I knew after three songs (if you even want to call them that since he practically talked the lyrics) was there purely for a payday.

 

My older brothers girlfriend worked for Arista and got me and her brother who was my best friend to go see Al Stewart (Year of the Cat) at the Palladium. Talk about torture! I nodded out about 8 times lol.

 

Saw Sound Garden open for G&R's at the Garden and walked out on their set after three songs-they sucked.

 

The Stones on the Bridges to Babylon tour- An old and tired band going through the motions, though they totally kicked ass on The Steel Wheels tour.

 

I remember that Dexies Midnight Runners performance-it was not on SNL. But Come on Eileen was the song of the summer that year and the lead singers voice cracked as bad as could humanly possible throughout the entire song- cringing does not even describe what I felt.

[drawdeep]

I only have to say 2 words, and any Google search of his name with the words "drunk live" will bear me out as me being the winner of the thread...

Hank Jr.

[jtr654]

Country Joe And the Fish they opened for Traffic who were Great.

[GAS Man]

That's hilarious and really describes the way I feel about Rockers trying to do a solo acoustic set....... I made the mistake of shelling out to see George Winston once to impress a date and wow what a boring set that was. Actually liked quite a bit of that New Age stuff but somebody gave that guy a huge pass in my opinion. But to be fair, I've only seen a couple solo acoustic sets that I was really enthralled with. One was some old Mississippi Blues guy that played the Dead Goat Saloon back in the mid 80's and the other was Leo Kottke.

 

Thanks And I've also had those same two experiences I bolded above. Saw George Winston, and although I do indeed like his music (great ambient new age background music) seeing him perform it live added absolutely nothing. In fact spending the money on his CDs and playing them at home on you stereo is a far better plan that watching a man with zero stage presence plunk on a piano while you're sitting on crappy theater seats.

 

And yes, Kottke is indeed worth it. I've seen him live a couple times and I'd pay to see him again. His playing is amazing, it's a big sound, and his little stories between numbers are always good for a laugh. I love his dry wit style of humor.

[twisty571]

 

hands down Guns and Roses on the use your illusion tour in LA...Skid Row opened for em and blew them away totally...2 hours later SR came back out and played for another 1/2 hour...finally GnR came out and Axle was so drunk you couldn't even understand anything comin out of his pie hole, we left 3 songs into their set, it was atrocious...

 

 

Guns for me to,saw them with Metallica and Axl was horrible!

[Angry Tele]

grateful dead

 

hey jerry we get it you know your modes, stop noodling and play some music.

[epi56ebony]

Rod Stewart Cow Palace 1979

Shania Twain Hollywood Bowl on the Come On Over Tour (and I loved the album and high hopes but she just had sing a longs, brought babys, kids, old dudes up on stage and acted cute. lots of cutesy pie talking. yuck. the music suffered)

[SnowViking]

A couple spring to mind.

 

UFO - Phil Mogg was drunk, the band was was {censored}, the crowd wasn't impressed and let them know about it. Mogg got the light crew to shine a spotlight on some of the hecklers and then he asked them for a square go (fight). More booing and he would have got his ass kicked.

 

Rainbow supported by Lita Ford. She was Blackmore's squeeze at the time, but this didn't stop the roadies from sending her out on stage with a badly tuned guitar. She was awful but looked great. Rainbow weren't much better, and Blackmore insisted on playing a solo spot with pseudo-classical guitar noodling on his strat. Needless to say he got the 'get off yer pish' from the crowd and 'play smoke on the water', etc. He flounced off and wouldn't play an encore. Wanker.

[Arr0wHead]

 

I love Dylan. I have seen him perform and he was good. I think that was early 2000's. That one time though, I literally fell asleep. It was like everything was the same muddled mess. Like white noise on the TV at 3 in the morning. I was completely sober and just nodded out.

 

 

 

I think I saw the same tour, with Ani Difranco opening up. I had amazing seats. Ani was intense. Bob was ... zzzzzzzzzzzzz. At one point I watched as the guitarist on a riser behind him had to walk over and kick Bob after a solo ended because it appeared he had nodded off during the solo and missed his cue to come in.

[3 Headed Moses]

Mastodon during the Crack The Skye tour. Made me wish I hadn't seen it cuz it tainted all the old memories from previous times I had seen them.

[Canadian Jeff]

April Wine. Disinterested front man talking to the sound people through the mic during a song. The bass player was epic though.

[EllenGtrGrl]

Yeah, I think the best thing about seeing Bob Dylan is just being able to say "Hey, I've seen Bob Dylan."

 

Yep, that's probably one of the only positives (along with the fact that the crowd was very well behaved), I got out of seeing Clapton at Alpine Valley Music Theatre in 1987. The show was so bland, it was like the guy just phoned in the performance.

 

Three other shows that stand out in the Pantheon of Bad Performances for me:

 

1. Doyle Bramhall & Smokestack Lightning - the members of a band I used to be in, and I saw him perform with this band at Summerfest back in the late 90s. Our band had done Arc Angles songs (Doyle was one of the guitarists, and singers for the Arc Angels), and expected to see a rocking show. What we got instead, was bigtime disappointment. Doyle is known as being a pretty good guitar slinger. I don't know if he was just in a phase of wanting to make a musical change, or if it was due to the fact that he was still probably a big fan of "better living through chemistry/pharmaceuticals" at the time. But man! He didn't even pick up a guitar! He played drums! He had no business doing so. I've heard 7th and 8th graders play better than him (even when they were having off days). The drumming was awful - like a non drumming band member, fooling around on the drummer's kit. His vocals were also flat and lifeless to boot, which combined with the music basically sounding like generic Texas roadhouse blues rock, made it a show the we bailed from after 3 songs. Thankfully, nowadays, Doyle has cleaned up his act, and is back to being a formidable guitar slinger, and a decent singer.

 

2. Seven Mary Three - anybody remember the song "Cumbersome". It was done by these one-hit wonders. I saw Seven Mary Three perform on the rock stage at Summerfest, when "Cumbersome" was being played quite a bit, by rock radio stations. They did a good job performing the song. The big problem? They were in over their heads. Listening to them play, it sounded like none of the band members had been playing for very long. They looked like they were having a hard time even performing live onstage the rather basic material they had on their hit album. The singer was kind of passable (I've heard better, but I've certainly heard worse), the rhythm section was basic, but could keep the time and stay in the groove most of the time. But, the lead guitarist kept on playing the same two or three lead riffs in every song - it was like he didn't know anything else to play. Combined with the basic (but passable in a pinch) singing and rhythm section, it made things musically get really old, really fast. Most of the people in the crowd must have felt the same way I did, because like me, they bailed (en-masse) from the show (almost causing a riot, due to security people, hindering people from leaving the show) after Seven Mary Three played "Cumbersome" (which was the 3rd or 4th song of the show). By the following year, Seven Mary Three had slipped into obscurity. It's too bad in a way, because, their next (and last) album was a much better, and more musically developed album - like they were starting to gain some capability as musicians.

 

3. The Beach Boys - I saw the Beach Boys at Summerfest in 1983. I'm not much of a Beach Boys fan, but the show didn't cost extra (above and beyond the ticket price to get into Summerfest - nowadays, that's not the case for main stage shows at Summerfest), and like when I saw Clapton in 1987, I could at least say afterwords, that "yes, I saw perform live". It basically sucked and them some. Besides the fact that we had to basically sit in our seats for several hours before the show, to make sure that nobody took them away from us, The Nylons (a one-hit wonder doo-wop group, known for their cover of the song "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye') opened for Beach Boys - late (between 8:30 & 9 PM). None of this went over well with the Beach Boys super fans who were irritated that not only were things starting late (Summerfest has a daily closing time of 11 PM), but a doo-wop group was the opening act. As a result, many of the show attendees (a goodly amount of whom were in their 40s or older), proceeded to boo The Nylons off the stage, after they'd performed 4 or 5 songs. To add to the aggravation, after The Nylons left the stage, the Beach Boys screwed around, and didn't start to play until 10:30 PM. The band phoned in a hack job set of their biggest hits. To further add insult to injury, they barely played a half hour. Yep, quite the Beach Boys lowlight!

[realtree71]

I hate to say this but I think I'd have to say Alan Jackson"...........I know I know I love his music and I've met him and he is a very cool humble guy...... But the pulse or heartbeat through the entire concert about 62 bpm. I guess I've seen some lame concerts before but his wasthe most dissapointing

[JR13]

if i HAD to pick, I'd say ZZ Top. I just thought the show was a little boring. I don't regret going though. I'd love to see them start playing older stuff again.

 

and I paid $35 for a 2 year old concert tee

[PunkKitty]

Peter Gabriel at the United Center in Chicago playing the Up tour in 2002. The place was half empty and the show was lackluster. The only bright spot was seeing Tony Levin live. The show reminded me of the scene from Spinal Tap where the band opened for a puppet show.

 

It was really sad considering that I'm a huge Gabriel fan going back to the Genesis days.

 

Another bad show was Eric Clapton back in 1984 or 85 at Poplar Creek outside of Chicago. It was one of the most boring shows I've ever seen. I still don't understand what people see in him.

[jpnyc]

I saw Pantera play a show at Ozzfest where they were so wasted that Phil and Dime couldn’t finish songs or stay standing. It was just plain shameful. I also once saw a Nine Inch Nails show on the NIN/Bowie Outside tour where Reznor spent most of the set screaming and bashing away at his guitar almost incoherently, as if he was at a different show than the band.

 

But the worst ever was Limp Bizkit playing Ozzfest before anybody knew who they were. It was despicable. People were actually begging security guards to drag that awful band off the stage. They may have tightened their act up after they got big, but that early show was repugnant.