Bands you witnessed get booed off the stage

I saw The Jimi Hendrix Experience at Winterland in October, 1968. The show opened with the Buddy Miles Express and everybody grooved to the sounds of Buddy's mighty, thunderous freight train. But then Dino Valenti came on stage to do his quiet little acoustic folk set. I thought it was the perfect respite between what would surely prove to be (and did) a couple of massively powerful sets, one by the Express and one by The Experience. Apparently I was the only one who thought that way. Dino got about half way into his first number when the boos started being hurled at him. Give the man credit, he stood his ground but the set was fairly short. Too bad because I thought it was great. Did he cut it short? I can't say for sure. What I can say for sure is, all that booing was some of the most distasteful, obnoxious and odious crowd behavior I've ever witnessed at a live show. Just plain tacky!

 

I saw Smashing Pumpkins get booed of the stage in Oklahoma City in 1992 openning for Guns & Roses. This was king of a strange pairing thinking about it now. Smashing Pumpkins ended their set screaming a series of F-you's to the crowd through PA system while playing improve guitar licks between before storming off stage.

 

I'm not a pumpkins fan but that is a great way to do it.

 

Yes, I was very amused at the time. I do like Smashing Pumpkins and saw them a year or so later as the headliner at a much smaller venue at the fairgrounds in OKC. The put on a fantastic show.

 

Tracey Chapman, opening for 10000 Maniacs in DeKalb, Illinois. A few weeks later Fast Car hit and all the idiots who booed her bought her record.

 

Another unforgettable concert at The Spectrum in Philly was seeing John McLaughlin & The Mahavishnu Orchestra in ’73 get booed. Voted best guitarist by various magazines at the time (Rolling Stones, Musician, etc.) and generally acclaimed by people in the know. There was no emotional feedback for me but a lot of guys, including musicians I knew at the time, would go on and on about what a guitar god he was.

We, me and two friends and our girlfriends were celebrating the local high school graduation tradition of going down to the shore, Wildwood, NJ to be exact, and as added bonus we hit the Spectrum on the way down to catch Alvin Lee, Frank Zappa and McLaughlin. Alvin opens the proceedings and burns the place down and gets 2 encores and I’m thinking, boy McLaughlin better be good or this audience will eat him alive, not even thinking that Zappa is in the mix. So Frank comes on and outdoes Alvin, I mean he was playing rock, jazz, Spanish classical and the usual nonsense he was known for and he was hands down better than Alvin. The place is going crazy which is surprising. It’s not like Philly is a hotbed of Zappa fans. This is turning out to be the concert of the year. The crowd loves him and their just not happy with 3 encores, they want a fourth. The testosterone levels are gigged up and the security guys are trying to put the fires out. The lights come on and the MC announces that Mahavishnu is not coming on till everyone chills out. This went on for about 20 minutes or so, as fights are breaking out all over the place.

Finally things calm down and the place is pumped, anticipating a great set. I mean this his audience, Frank and Alvin are just gravy, and he gets a great reception before he even plays one note. All I can say is the gods are a fickle bunch. By the 3rd song there’s a smattering of boos here & there, so he starts playing his signature pieces and still the boos persist. By the time he got to his 5th number I see some people making for the doors. At the end of the set, they only played about an hour, which was uncommon in those days, especially for a headliner, the place is half empty and the encore clapping was weak at best. He didn’t come out. Can’t say I blame him.

I turned around to my buds and with a big ole smirk I asked “Guitar God, huh?” Tough business music.

 

They weren’t booed off the stage, but I saw Stone Temple Pilots take some heavy booing when they opened for Megadeth. This was maybe a month before Plush blew up MTV, and I’ve always assumed most of the people booing bought the album shortly after that.

 

Crowd booed Hendrix when he opened for Monkees @ Dallas Convention Center 1966

A then unknown Journey was booed
as opener for Jeff Beck @ Moody Coliseum SMU campus Dallas TX 1976

Bob Seger was booed when he opened for KISS @ Reunion Arena Dallas TX 1976

 

yeah i remember some jazz fusion band with a flute being booed off before Kiss at the Calderone.

also the Starz/Rush/Bob Seger bill at the Palladium lost an army of Rush fans when Bob Seger came on.

i was at some Joey Ramone memorial show at Irving Plaza where the audience clearly did not know what to make of Tuli Kupferberg from the Fugs. there were unflattering comparisons to the Unibomber. sad, actually. i felt really bad for him.

 

LOL!

 

folks were none too happy when Van Morrison wandered off stage in the middle of a song, after doing his requisite 45 minutes, never to return. the band looked even less happy about it than the audience. that was at the Rockpile/Van Morrison show at the Palladium.

 

Late seventies:
Journey
Montrose
Introducing Van Halen,
St Paul Civic Center Theatre.
Friends and I were outside the theatre in the late afternoon,
Taxi pulls up, out comes Roth in a full fur trench coat in August,
Friendly, and fueled up and ready to rock, and they did.
We had the first and second rows.
Relentless booing from behind us after every song for Van Halen.
Montrose was touring for his Open Fire record
And was very good and well received, we left after his set.

 

The only close experience I have had was when I saw Styx in one of those 4 band evenings. Fabulous Thunderbirds opened and Styx closed (dont remember the other 2 bands).

Anyway, on the finale track for Styx, at some point near the end, they just got up and walked off stage. This was strange enough, but the music continued to play uninterrupted. WTF? The crowd caught the significance pretty quickly and started booing. So in a sense, they were booed off stage.

 

I knew I had seen Red Rider open for someone but was having a heck of a time finding it. There isn't much out there for hard info on that one. I don't know if they had more than one date at Boston Garden but I was there for one of them. I do remember getting psyched up to see the Kinks then thinking, who the heck chose this pairing? They seemed to have just that one song that people knew. I don't remember much of a stir but there seemed to be a definite feeling of most people hoping they would be done ASAP.

 

Mine!

 

[QUOTE="Safeway 1, post: 18735830, member: 71724" Etta James opened was not booed.
The Rolling Stones US Tour 1978 - Wikipedia [/QUOTE]

Even if I had been there, and just hated her, I would not have had the guts to boo Etta James.

 

Bringing this full circle...
Early nineties:
Van Halen (touring for their "F***" ablum), with Alice in Chains opening who were getting booed relentlessly throughout their set.

 

I have too much respect for musicians to boo them, even if they screw up. I know how hard it is to give a good performance and how easy it is for things to go tits-up.

 

I recall reading a similar story regarding their appearance at the Clash of the Titans shows they were a part of around the same era.

 

I saw The Who at Swansea's Liberty Stadium about ten years ago. As they were in Wales, Pete decided to introduce his Welsh bass player Pino Palladino saying "Here's one of your own, from Cardiff..."

It should have been a great moment for Pino to be playing in his home country. Unfortunately what Pete didn't realise is that Swansea and Cardiff have a fierce football (soccer) rivalry and as they were playing in Swansea's football stadium, Pino and The Who got strongly booed. Sadly I've seen a few incidents by football fans which have ruined gigs and this is one of them. Idiots.

 

Van Halen was booed? That's crazy talk.

 

This is bizarre. Even if you really got off on the opener, why the hell would you boo the band you ostensibly paid to see off the stage?

 

Saw that tour as well but in my area AIC were not booed at all, I just remember them being extremely loud.

 

Candlebox opening for Rush in 1994 at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. Candlebox was just awful with the few fans that remained in the arena booing them and the majority walking around outside of the arena to avoid the din.

 

One time. I saw Jethro Tull in November 1977 (on my 18th birthday) at MSG, and Livingston Taylor opened solo with just his acoustic guitar.

The crowd went from restless to boos to downright hostile. I can remember Taylor literally running off the stage as debris was being thrown at him.

Never saw anything like it before or since.