Always wanted to speak with someone who experienced both the Fillmore and Woodstock. I trust you cherish your memories.
Sounds awful but I'd trade you that for my experience with Phillip Glass (see post directly above ^). .
1978 - ELO at the Hampton Coliseum. I wasn't the biggest ELO fan, but got talked into going by some guys I was stationed with. Some in the audience presumably knew in advance (this is just a guess) that the spaceship stage they were touring with would not be there. I say that, b/c some folks down front came armed with junk to throw. At about the third song in, one of the string players gets hit upside the head with what appeared to be a tomato. We were towards the back, so couldn't accurately tell, but the guy flips off the crowd, and walks offstage in the middle of the song. The band finishes the song, then they leave, too. I'm telling my friends we just wasted our time and money on this show. A rep from the band comes out, lectures the crowd, then the band, minus the musician hit by the object, comes back on. He eventually joined them later, wearing a different shirt. But it was a crappy show, and I'm not even sure they did an encore. It wasn't until years later that we all learned ELO got accused of using pre-taped parts in some of their live shows. Did the people that night that brought junk to throw at the stage know or suspect that? I'll never know, but it's one of the worst 'big ticket' shows I've seen.
Quite a few....thanks to a poor balance by the house sound guy...whose ears were probably up his ass during the sound check..one concert in point...Al Green who had a full contingent of musicians on stage...brass..backup singers etc...and all you heard in the house was the bass drum...bass guitar and Al Green’s vocals...really bad!
John Entwistle in Toronto in the late '70s. He played a total of 38 minutes, sucked down a lot of bourbon from the bottle taped to his mike stand. The band was mediocre and no encore was played. The audience was not happy.
From what I remember! Some memories from FE: Always getting balcony seats, Chris Youlden (Savoy Brown) with raccoon coat and top hat; the whole audience on our feet rocking to Leon Russell (except for the lone couple in front of me!); taking my sister to see Buffalo Bob Smith (w Howdy Doody); napping during "Dark Star" for HS graduation weekend; closing weekend with The Allman Brothers... But most of all, the light shows behind the bands that made the Fillmore experience such a sensory overload (in a good way). Woodstock? That's another story. Edit to add: But this thread is about "bad" experiences. Only bad thing that registers about the Fillmore East was the $35 parking ticket for the Dead show. Hey, $35 bucks was big in 69-that's 5-6 shows!
I've never actually seen anyone actually throw tomatos during a show. The spaceship was a breakthrough, really pushing the limits on staging and I imagine a number of places wouldn't have been able to accommodate it. The thing barely fit into Kansas City's Kemper Arena. It was the first time they used synchronized winches to lift equipment over a live stage. If they screwed it up, like if the chain lengths were different, the light trusses would have twisted, broken and could have killed people. The riggers had to make that life or death decision.
Went to see Guns N Roses at Maine Road football stadium, Manchester in June 92. Went down with a group I knew from the local rock nightclub in the back of a transit van on, all sat on a couple of planks atop upturned buckets. And the drinks were being passed around the passengers quite freely on the way. Once inside with general floor access we got separated from one of our number quite early on andcouldn’t find him during or after the concert. We all eventually got hearded out of the stadium late after the show and made our way back to the car park. Next to the van is a sheepish member of the group looking quite a bit the worse for wear. Turns out he took a pack of mini Melton Mowbray pies in with him and for reasons best known to his drink addled self, tried throwing them at Axl during the opening numbers. For the benefit of those not in the know, Melton Mowbray pies are really dense, small meat pies with an equally dense pastry around them. I’d imagine being hit with one at speed wouldn’t be too far off being hit by a golf ball. These things have the potential to hurt. And security clocked and caught him, and none too gently threw him out of the venue. He’d been wandering the streets ever since. Whilst i’ve Laughed at footage of Daphne and Celeste getting bottled off stage at Reading many years back, I can imagine from the point of view of those on the stage, it might be a tomato *this* time but could be a coin, a metal nut or indeed a Melton Mowbray pork pie next time. For the sake of both the band and the audience, I hope the tomato thrower was clocked and turfed; it only takes one to screw the whole night up for everybody.
I'm going to see him for the forth time in December...he comes around to the NY city area almost every holiday season. It's becoming a ritual. Never canceled around here.
Worst concert experience was having great tickets for The Smiths' fall 1986 Atlanta Fox Theatre show, and finding out its been cancelled right before leaving town to drive up. Ugh, the great band of my era... missed. Moz had laryngitis, IIRC. As far as shows I actually attended: Lloyd Cole in ATL 1990; Robert Quine on guitar was awesome, but the venue and crowd were WRETCHED. Inattentive trust-fund douche-bags out for a drink and chat were 90% of the audience (venue was The Roxy, terrible sound and no character at all).
Both as a spectator and as part of the talent, my worst experiences are simply watching/playing while sick as a dog.
My friends went to that show. Tried to convince me to buy tix with them instead of the person I went with on opening night. Amazingly tight show.
I saw Springsteen once while sick as a dog. I had coughing fit at the end of every song. I was miserable but it was one of the best Springsteen shows I have seen (it was in MSG).
Journey before the Stones and after Thorogood in Buffalo 1981. Absolutely putrid, they got booed off the stage and only played for I believe a half-hour though it seemed a lot longer.
Why not just stay at home and listen to your CDs? I can't imagine seeing a show and not standing and singing along.
If you want to stand and sing along, why not just join the Boy Scouts and go find a campfire? Audience participation is OK to a point, but you should be considerate of others.
Sickest I ever was when I had to go to a show? Stones in Atlantic City, December 1989. I'd had a bad bout of the flu - so bad that I wasn't sure I could make the trip to AC. However, I'd paid $250 for that ticket - a lot of money now, but a king's ransom 28 years ago, especially to someone in college at the time - and I wasn't gonna flush that money down the toilet! I made the drive with a pot next to me in the car in case I needed to puke. I actually felt better as the day progressed - and I won $40 at video poker after the show!
Mikal Cronin's band opening up for Father John Misty two years ago was pretty awful. Every single song sounded the same, quiet verse LOUD CHORUS quiet pre chorus LOUD CHORUS, the vocals were very nasal and hard to bear, and everything was just very stiff and calculated. Im sure it only went on maybe 45 minutes, but it felt like an hour. Everyone looked like they were having fun but they sure didn't sound alive. Lots of people in the crowd were digging it though so I guess It just wasn't my cup of tea. FJM played an amazing show though! Besides that rough opening act, one of the best concerts i've been to.
I actually walked out of a concert midway through the other week for the first time in my 56 years, not because of the performer, Todd Snider, who was awesome and wonderful, but because of the GODAWFUL audience. About eight people (in different groups, not all together) in my immediate vicinity were literally almost falling-down drunk, screaming and shouting, and at least half the crowd -- in an intimate folk-music venue -- sang along with every bit of every song at the top of their lungs, to the point where you could barely hear Snider above them. One of the drunk women staggered down the center aisle right up to the stage to chat with the guy while he was trying to tell a story, and he (very nicely) had to stop and shut her down and convince her to go back to her seat. In retrospect, I should've known he would attract that type of We're Here for a Substance-Fueled Communal Bonding Festival, Not a Concert audience and just stayed home, but ye gods, I went to punk shows in the 70s that had politer, more respectful crowds. Fortunately, I got to follow that up with one of the great, joyful gig experiences of my lifetime the following week when I saw Wolf Parade with a maniacally devoted, engaged, ecstatic audience of dancing howling uber-fans who had a great time and shrieked and yelled and wept with joy between songs but let the band do their thing during songs. It was the epitome of everything great about live music.
