Probably Carson. I saw Chuck Berry on the show during the Carson years and everybody in the band was lost when he started playing and then he started pointing at band members to take solos which led to more confused looks. He sat down and Carson asked him if something went wrong and Chuck casually said something like "oh yeah, I think we rehearsed it in another key and I didn't tell anyone they'd be soloing". What a guy.
I doubt it was the room. I saw them (Fripp instead of Johnson) in the new Montreal Forum (forget the current corporate name and don't care) and if I hadn't seen them with my own eyes I would not have believed there were any bass players there. Stu Hamm playing right there (!) and I had to watch his fingers and try to reconstruct what he was playing in my head because my ears had nothing to go on. Three bands, no bass but the freaking bass drum was bouncing my internal organs around. Grrr.
It smacks of total contempt for his audience, and to be honest, Berry seems to have a chip on his shoulder ten miles wide. Its like he believes he's been ripped off by white guys his entire life, so, he doesnt give a damn about what kind of performance he gives. Just give him his money up front is all he seems to really care about.
I don't have one worst experience, but I lump all my sports arena experiences into one crappy musical memory. That includes The Rolling Stones (such poor sound I couldn't usually tell what song they were playing until the halfway mark). Jethro Tull (who I'd already grown to hate, but I agreed to attend the Aqualung tour show due to the dreaded peer pressure of my high school posse). R.E.M. (no fault of the band. The sound at MSG was okay, but there were two idiot families sitting around us who were yapping it up/screaming at each other for the entire show, except when the big MTV hits were played). Looking back, it's odd that I can't think of any "phoned it in" or "too drunk/drugged to play and stumbled off stage after 20-minutes" type experiences, but I really can't.
Bob Seger - April 2013. The performance was fine but a redneck was right in front of us and proceeded to stand, dance, whoop, holler, and just generally be obnoxious throughout the entire show (including the opening act). I have no problem with people doing that if the performance calls for it but by and large the crowd was seated most of the time and even when they stood were not wildly flailing around. Even people on the floor were looking up at him and gesturing like "What is the deal with that guy?" Worst seat in the entire arena and it just ruined the night.
Hot Tuna in the 90's, i thought i got tickets for the Electric Hot Tuna but was acoustic show. Rod Stewart -1975..He was drunk the whole show. Alice Cooper - I was over Alice by the time this concert came around but my friend wanted to go. 1975 - Welcome to my nightmare tour. Awful show. I'm more of Alice fan of the first 5 albums. Johnny Winter saved the night.
Randy Newman at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. I got tickets on the day they went on sale and they were in the front row on the left side middle of the grand circle. The front rows of the stalls had gone and I picked these seats so we could get a good view of Randy during the show. Turn up on the night and ticket sales were bad I guess and they decided that everyone should sit in the stalls so they re-ticketed all of people in the grand circle and the circle. They gave us seats on the right side and all we could see was a piano throughout the show, that started an hour and a half late. Randy was obviously not in a good mood either. This was the last concert I could get my wife to go to.
The Memphis Blues Fest in '90 I think. Standing there watching BB King, and we were packed into the venue like sardines. I felt this odd splashing on my calf. I turned around just as the wobbling guy behind me was zipping his fly. A distant second would be INXS in '87. They weren't bad, but I had just seen U2 the week before, and nothing would've compared at the time except if Lennon had risen and the Fabs reunited.
I saw live music five nights a week for over 18 years, I don't know that I can quantify all the bad experiences. It's the great moments that stand out, because of their rarity.
I think so. In my mind I recall seeing the soloists as they played but it's been a few decades so I could be wrong.
Van Morrison at Oxford Apollo, 1994: Brian Kennedy sang a great deal, while Van stood there applauding him. It was terrible.
And my understanding is that it must be cash, no matter how much his fee for the night is, and he requires the cash handed directly to him before he will play a note. A friend of mine was called for an audition once, and he went into it thinking it was for a slot in the touring backing band for a "major rock/blues artist." Showed up, found out they were trying to put together a scratch band to play a one-off show backing Berry in Atlantic city, put his stuff back in the car and left. Nope, nuh-uh, no way. Far too much hassle and aggravation for one night at minimal money, and apparently Berry has a reputation as a complete douchenoodle both on- and off-stage
I also found this from 1987 but it seems like a much better performance than the 1989 one I linked earlier. Chuck is shockingly animated here!
I managed to step on my cable and inadvertently unplug my bass onstage. (Probably in the midst of some stupid sub-rockstar move.) In the middle of a slow song. In front of a packed house. Opening for the White Stripes. At their CD release show. A friend of ours actually taped the show, so we listened back later. You could hear several people in his proxmity laughing heartily.
1. Bob Dylan in Tasmania, on the Never Ending Tour tour, 1992. He treated the audience with indifference at best, contempt at worst and the performances were mediocre. 2. Neil Young at BST Hyde Park festival, London earlier this year. Neil was great, but the dickheads in the crowd totally ruined it. 3. Joe Cocker at Festival Hall, Melbourne in the 70s (don't recall the year). He was too drunk to stand, let alone sing, so the concert was short, to say the least, but because I was very young and in a somewhat altered state myself, don't remember minding all that much.
Mooseman Was that the TransAtlantic Crossing Tour?Saw him at the Boston Garden.Second row so we could see him snorting snuff (maybe) on the side of the stage.Rod sure did have a lot of energy that night.... Caught Alice there that same year on the Nightmare tour.Not the biggest Alice fan but you gotta admit he was way ahead of the curve.He was already doing a Vegas type rock show way back then. I had never seen anything quite like it.
That cannot be it. That's a marvelous performance--and Chuck and crew are having a lot of fun with it. I'd get in line right now to see a show full of performances like that.
When I was way into metal in the 90s I saw two of my favorite bands, Obituary and Morbid Angel, in a very small club in the burbs on separate occasions. Both bands were openly snorting powder during their sets, Morbid Angel being daring enough to do it on stage. Totally unprofessional, and it made their musical "abilities" seem all the less impressive. This was after seeing Brutal Truth stagger to the stage so stoned they could barely walk and RIP THE PLACE TO SHREDS on nothing but green and cheap beer. Just goes to show you who the real talent is. Oh yeah that and watching the drummer from Angel Corpse curse out and threaten the sound guy out between every song at the top of his lungs. Awkward.
Two wildly different types of bands here: Ministry on the Filth Pig tour: music was fine, but Al Jourgensen was a complete jerk. I realize part of his on-stage character is rude and offensive, but I recall the audience being pretty active, yet he went into foul-mouthed tirades between every song about what an awful audience we were. Tears for Fears on the Everybody Loves... tour: we got tickets for this late, so we wound up in the back of the venue. Apparently the people who love the music were in the front section and having a rapturously great time. Those in the back (or second ring - this venue is "in the round") appeared to be hanging out at the mall's food court or something. The two couples in front of us were very drunk, and proceeded to speak loudly over each and every song that apparently wasn't "Shout" or "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" (going so far as to shout requests for those two songs between songs, and cajole songs that were not those.) I'm not meaning they were merely "talking" - shouting, jumping around, paying no attention and caring absolutely not at all for anyone behind them. I asked politely a few times for them to take it down a few notches as I was there to hear all the music, but they actually proceeded to make fun of my wife and me! It was like a bad high school experience. I gave up and, letting them win, I suppose, left the show about 45 minutes in. I was really angry about that as I'd wanted to see them for a long time, and still have yet to actually see them. From this, I decided I would never be in the back section of any show. If I care, I will buy tickets closer to the stage. It's just not worth dealing with the dregs of humanity otherwise.
not the first time I heard this report. Glad I never saw them. I think Burton either drank a lot or had some sort of anti-American audience at times
