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

[GAS Man]

............ or Dick Dale (terrible jokes and talks too much issues.)

 

Funny, I saw him just 2 or 3 years ago and it wasn't at all like that. Just hard straight on playing. But the next day both my wife and I woke up with our ears ringing like a .44 magnum had just been shot off next to our ears. Man, he was loud in that club. He was good, but I'd also seen Los Straitjackets in that same club and they were better. But, in all fairness, that's more of a surf ensemble. But LS also had a finely crafted tone. The volume was right at that perfect level of full but not blaring or damaging. Dick Dale had a lot of that blaring tone in his mix. I mean, I woke worrying about permanent hearing loss.

[Muddslide]

Worst show I ever saw (and one of the few I ended up walking out on before it was over) = George Thorogood & The Destroyers in Tulsa back in the mid-80s.

[Muddslide]

 

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.

 

 

I saw them on the El Loco tour in '81 or '82. IT was tons of fun.

[JR13]

 

Damn, I've seen Dick Dale three times (circa 1996, 2000 and 2004 or thereabouts) and it was killer each time. I saw them on the El Loco tour in '81 or '82. IT was tons of fun.

 

 

i would have loved to have seen them then. i saw them in 2009ish.

[super56k]

I saw Cradle of Filth at an Ozzfest show as a teenager. Actually, most everything I saw at that Ozzfest was crappy thinking back on it. Didn't enjoy it much at all, but Cradle of Filth was at the top of the heap. Awful screeching noise is all I heard on their set. I re-listened to a few of their albums after that experience and confirmed it, awful screeching noise.

[yanktar]

I think the three worst were:
1) The Roche Sisters (before they were called the Roches) in 1973...Maggie and Terry Roche and they were in their drug/alc abuse phase. Just hideous. Wollman Rink in Central Park, NYC.
2) Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Merriweather Post Pavillion, Maryland, 1987. Sounded like they hadn't even rehearsed. Legendary band, horrid concert. We walked out.
3) 1978, Chapel Hill, NC. Richie Havens. Showed up about an hour late, wasn't into it, no connection with the audience. Played a short set, too. Ironically, 4 years earlier, in the same Wollman Rink as the Roches, Havens gave one of the most amazing concerts ever. 9:30/10:00 show and the cops left at midnight--he played till 1:30. Totally connected with the audience, tried out new stuff, NOBODY left the Park before he was done!

[Help!I'maRock!]

Widespread Panic - SUNY Buffalo

 

Gnu Fuzz - Irving Plaza

 

X - Nokia Theater

 

Matisyahu - Webster Hall

[Verne Andru]

All time worst was Aerosmith in early 70's.

 

Band [without Tyler] came on really, really late. They started playing and about 1/2 way through the song Tyler stumbles to the front of the stage. He started screaming incoherent noise into the mic between bouts of falling down and having to be propped up by the roadies. The audience was not amused and started booing him. He shouted "{censored} you" into the mic and stumbled off stage. One by one the band members stopped playing and left the stage - concert over.

 

No apologies, no refunds - just Tyler's "{censored} you."

[steve_man]

I've seen a lot of shows, but I went with my mom and dad to see Mel Tillis once in Branson...and WOW was that ever a terrible show....

[CloseEnoughRocks]

Johnny Winter. It was a small venue and we had great seats. Backup band was good, but JW was just awful. It was so painful and embarrassing that we left during the third song. I ended up being in a band a few years later with the venue's manager and heard the sad "behind the scenes events" of that evening. JW was in baaad shape.

Also chiming in on Dylan...wandered into a show at a fair and OMG, that's Bob Dylan! A couple of "songs" later, we were out of there.

Aerosmith...I like a lot of their recorded stuff, but do they ever rehearse before they play in front of people?

[richey888]

Aerosmith around Live Bootleg era. Saw 'em around '99.....totally made up for it.

[BeanoBoy]

I've got to go WAY back.....I saw Mountain at an outdoor venue in the Bronx. I was a HUGE ( no pun intended) Leslie West fan. Mountain Climbing was one of my favorite albums at that time. Leslie played NOTHING but overly-distorted rhythm guitar all night. Even his 'solo' was Who/Zep type rhythm figures. Big disappointment. I saw Johnny Winter And at the Fillmore. They were great. About a year later Johnny was without 'And' playing at the Capitol Theater in Portchester. He was horrible. Bum notes and clams in abundance. Solos that went nowhere. Totally disappointing after seeing him so brilliant with 'And'.

[Satchmo72]

I saw Satch on the latest Wormhole and Wizards tour at a casino in Northern Indiana. They did not promote the show very well and if there were 100 people in the 400 seat auritorium I would be surprised. I cant say that his playing was bad but the normal vibe of the show was just way off. It did not help that as awesome as Keneally is, keyboard does not belong on Surfing with the Alien. It dulled down the songs.

I have seen Satch on almost every tour and this was the only show where I did not walk away awed.

[ElectricEye]

The only one that comes to my mind off the bat was Slayer two years ago opening for Megadeth. Horrific. It mystifies me that they can put out some pretty good albums, yet sound and look like amateurs on stage. Jeff Hanneman, who I hope recovers from that necrotic thing he has going on, should NEVER be allowed to pick up a guitar again or play on a Slayer album or tour ever again. And Kerry King wasn't much better. For guys who've been in a band for 30+ years, you'd think they could have found the time to really learn how to play. It was embarrassing and IS emabarrassing such bad players thrive in this business somehow. And I've been a Slayer fan for a LONG time.

 

Going back 20+ years, I think I recall seeing Poison and Ratt at MSG and Poison was god awful as well. but, really, who's surprised to hear THAT?

 

Oh! Almost forgot. Dokken during the Monsters of Rock tour with Van Halen, Metallica ad Kingdom Come. Most uninspiring live show I think I ever saw. NO stage presence by anyone in the band.

[Robert Kortus]

Eric Sardinas.

Me and a buddy went to see him at a small club around here, because we'd heard he was some big slide player. It was horrible. His amps were WAY to loud for the small venue and he spend most of the time just wanking away on stage. He had a band with him, but they spent most of the time just looking around/being bored, waiting for this idiot to let them play. We left after 15min. The guy was a joke.

[Christhee68]

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!

I would have to put the Beach Boys on my BEST and WORST list.

The first time I saw them was at Farm A id in Columbia, S.C. in the 90’s. Huge football stadium, nice weather, had the place completely rocking with all their hits. I thought, “Wow, these guys are still rockin’!”

I saw them about a year later at the House of Blues. This time I was right up close where I could see everything (and everyone). It was here that I realized that the Beach Boys had about 8 young guys on stage playing and singing in the shadows while the real “Beach Boys” were up front. I realized it was the young guys in the shadows doing all the heavy lifting, musically and vocally.

Carl Wilson was playing guitar while sitting on a stool. I thought, “C’mon man; you can’t stand up and play for an hour?”

A few songs in, Mike Love says, “Let’s all give a big hand to Carl Wilson! He’s been fighting cancer and this is his first show back.”

[bsman]

I saw the Police's tour in 78(?) supporting their first album in Madison, WI (IIRC, it was at a club called "Headliners"). Their opening band was a local favorite band "Spooner" who killed and had the crowd ready to rock. The Police came on and had a very limited repertoire (I swear they did "Roxanne" three or four times!) and just plain sucked. I think they were rather mystified at the "polite, restrained, and perhaps sarcastic" clapping they received, 'cause they sure seemed flustered.

[madrigal77]

Strapping Young Lad back in the day. It was so loud, it was just white noise. My friends and I walked out after 10 minutes.

[Ed Zachary]

The Melvins opening for TOOL in San Antonio around 1998-99.

[EllenGtrGrl]

I saw the Police's tour in 78(?) supporting their first album in Madison, WI (IIRC, it was at a club called "Headliners"). Their opening band was a local favorite band "Spooner" who killed and had the crowd ready to rock. The Police came on and had a very limited repertoire (I swear they did "Roxanne" three or four times!) and just plain sucked. I think they were rather mystified at the "polite, restrained, and perhaps sarcastic" clapping they received, 'cause they sure seemed flustered.

 

 

 

The club probably was Headliners (I'm an alum of the Univ. of Wisconsin, and I used to go to Headliners quite often to see national [and occasionally international] acts that were breaking, back in the mid 80s). F.Y.I. - Spooner was a quite popular Madison based regional band, that released a few singles, and a couple of independent albums. Two of its members (Butch Vig, and Duke Erikson) went on to form Firetown (which had some modest success, releasing a couple of albums, and the song "I'll Carry The Torch For You" [off the first album], getting some radio airplay), and then the very successful band Garbage. Butch Vig (of course), has also gotten quite a name as a producer.