I guess my worst is Wilco at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago in 2004. We used a presale tickets link from the band's email list so since the band took the trouble to send this, they should be good seats, right? They were practically in the last row of the uppermost balcony. Hard to enjoy the show. Fortunately I had a much better experience the next year at the Vic, in one of the shows they recorded for the Kicking Television live disc. Runner up might be Phish in Tinley Park in August 1997. Mostly a great year for the band but for some reason they turned in two very short, perfunctory sets that night. They were much better the next night at Alpine Valley and in the fall in Champaign.
Mine is probably that same tour. General admission show at a little venue at Dallas' Fair Park. People kept pushing to the stage. Some ass next to my g-friend (now wife) puked on her & we left.
Boston - Third Stage tour - The Summit, Houston TX. The right speaker bank was blown out and every time the band played a bass note the entire tower would rattle. Also, a lot of the music was recorded and they faked it . Walked out very early. Freddy Fender, Houston TX - Freddy walked out on stage, mumbled something, then passed out on the floor. He just sort of slowly keeled over until he fell. End of show. At least everyone got their money back. Edgar Winter Group, Frankensteien tour, The Colluseum, Houston TX - had front row seats. Right in front of a speaker bank that was sitting on the floor. Couldn't see anything and it was so loud that even though I only stayed about 10 minutes my ears hurt for a week. Emerson Lake and Palmer - Brain Salad Surgery tour, the Colluseum, Houston TX. Someone spiked my drink with a LOT of PCP and I spent the entire concert praying I wouldn't die.
My worst experience at a concert I think it would probably be in mexico in Molotov concert, I was too drunk to remember much, but I do remember that there were many people being thrown lol
Cornershop at Cabaret Metro in Chicago in the late 90's. During the first song Tjinder Singh (singer/guitarist) kept messing with his equipment. He kept getting more and more pissed off until he stormed off the stage like a little baby. I was right up at the front of the stage, so I could see exactly what was going on. The rest of the band just rolled their eyes at each other and continued to play a lengthy instrumental jam, which was cool, but after that one song they just slunk off stage. I think someone may have mumbled an apology.
so sorry about that.... send me her dry-cleaning bill, I'll take care of it where was this show? you couldn't mean Starplex/Gexa Energy Pavillion? was it State Fair Collosseum? about what year?
Boston: lousy live band, pre-recordings... Fender: wasted days, and wasted nights indeed! Winter Group: the "they only come out at night tour"....too bad, that had the trappings of a great show, a one-time assembly of great musicians, firing on all cylinders...shame they sucked (by the way, was Rick Derringer there, or do you remember?) ELP: I could see reefer, but PCP?! man, I guess you don't remember the show? have you had bad memories of the group since? or do you still like them, play them? just curious, I don't have any barometer like that, I think it would be hard, after an experience like that
Stipe's voice was shot much of the night...it was painful hearing him try to get through "it's the end of the world, as we know it", near the end...I assume his voice didn't rebound the following night?
I remember little from that night. I wasn't disappointed in his voice. I was just stoked they were back on the road in any form.
No I'm talking about his habit of turning his back to the stage during gigs in the 80s because of shyness. I think he faced the back at arenas in the 90s because he was singing to the back.
Hard to choose-- 1. Either waiting for Sly & the Family Stone not to show up at the Spectrum in 1971 amid about 400-odd gang members 0r 2. Giving up on a Richard Thompson show in 1984 because the opening act played a mind-numbingly long set of songs about the Lord of the Rings...I left when they started singing about Ents....
A 4th of July rib-fest in Naperville, IL, 10 years ago. The bill was Dickey Betts and Los Lobos for $5.00. Sounds like a bargain, right? I thought so too, until Betts started playing. His guitar was louder than a Boeing 747, beyond distortion and into the realm of physically painful. He was fairly well-lubricated, and not in good shape. His band, other than Dan Toler on second guitar, were a bunch of young hacks who evidently hadn't been with Betts for long, as they missed several cues. At one point the keyboard player came in with a backing vocal while Betts was still playing a deafening guitar solo. I loved the original Allman Brothers Band, so this concert was incredibly depressing for me. If it weren't for the fact that I badly wanted to see Los Lobos, I would have walked out on Betts.
I'd have to say my worst was practically getting squashed to death at the front of the line at the only Dead concert I ever went to, at my college gym. That was really a close call. The other one was getting too drunk at a Fleetwood Mac concert a week or 2 after Rumours came out, I basically passed out and missed the whole concert. I once witnessed a brutal fight at a concert at the Roxy, where 4 or 5 guards beat this guy up brutally for a long time (the guy punched some girl in the pit).
Divine in a smallish bar in Ann Arbor in the mid 1980s. Crowded in the room where the stage was. Music and voice so over amplified that I couldn't even stand to be in the same room anyway. I went more for giggles -- not because I took Divine seriously as a musician/singer -- but I couldn't even enjoy the spectacle because of the environment.
Saw Weather Report in the Des Moines Civic Center in the late 1970s. So loud, so much echo and bad acoustics, you literally could not tell what instrument was playing -- sax, synth, bass, whatever. Just a barrage of sonic confusion. Completely worthless as a listening experience. That auditorium is marginal even when the volumes are not maxed out. Not too bad for Gary Burton/Chick Corea which I saw there a few years later. I suppose as a possible alternate would be the Zappa concert in early 1980s -- Joe's Garage era -- that was so loud that my left ear sustained permanent damage. I am eternally PO'd at Zappa for running the volume so high. The concert was pretty good, but it was the aftermath that made the "experience" so very not good.
Neil Young did a 20 minute set, walked off and never came back. St. Louis, 1971. I never forgot how unprofessional he was.
My brother attended this event. http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/aerosmith/1978/the-spectrum-philadelphia-pa-23d700a3.html
Getting a knife pulled on me at a Who show in Lexington KY. Luckily, my Wookie-sized pal was sitting behind me. Not so lucky for the jerk with the knife.
