Nick Gilder (one hit, "Hot Child In The City") opening up for Peter Gabriel on his second solo tour. Resoundingly booed off the stage.
There was a horrible band around in the 80's called After the Fire. They opened one show I saw (can't remember who the headliner was, might have been Van Halen). ATF was the woist. :thumbsdn:
Ted Nugent opening for Kiss during the final tour (yeh right)! Wouldnt play any of his old Epic or Amboy dukes material. Got booed off the stage twice (once in Phoenix, once in Vegas!)
i dont know if it was the worst of all but i remember in 2000 at the who there was an opener "un-american" and i just thought yea right the whos about to go on and im actually going to sit down and listen to this other rock band playing rock music? yea right
Hey, I like their cover of Der Kommissar! Worst opening bands I've seen: Blind Melon and Live opening for PiL and Big Audio Dynamite (BAD was pretty bad though too) Avant Raag (spelling?) opening for Violent Femmes The band that opened for OMD on their Sugar Tax tour...the name escapes me Picachu and the Shapes opening for Deerhunter/Spoon last year...just plain terrible
Fritz Coleman opening for America at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles many years ago. Coleman has been a weatherman on one of the local news stations for years. Unfortunately he also thinks he's a comedian. So, Fritz did about 6 hours of stand up "comedy" before America came on. Well ok, it was probably only a half an hour, but it seemed like 6 hours. Here's a YouTube clip of Fritz in action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIk3SEv7baQ
What a poor pairing of bands! 60's/70's Psych/Jam Band throwback, with 90's Commercial Rock Band supporting two wildly different Post Punk bands!
Kings Of Leon opening for U2. Saw 5 shows on the floor on that spring leg of the Vertigo tour, front row Gen Admission every time, so we had no choice but to stand through it. God, they were the worst band we'd ever seen. I still don't know how they became so famous...awful singing, amateurish musicianship. I don't get it, and I'm not that old.
It's kind of like when The Melvins opened for Rush. Not that The Melvins are bad, but a Rush crowd may not necessarily be a Melvins crowd. The Melvins got booed mercilessly and they just played their set as fast as they could. I kind of felt bad for them.
Glass Tiger for Journey on the Raised on Radio tour Erasure for Duran Duran on the Notorious tour Cinderella for David Lee Roth on Eat 'Em & Smile Def Leppard *headlining* for Queensryche on the Operation Mindcrime tour (redneck Charlotte NC crowd was not nice to Queesryche... Tate left the stage "Good Night Charlotte, and Fvck You!")
I think for me it was the Polyphonic Spree opening for Brian Wilson performing SMiLE at the Hollywood Bowl a few years ago. Scary. And though I didn't see it, the all-time legendary mis-matched opening act was Hendrix for The Monkees in the 1960s. I like them both (in different ways), but I think the audience was a little bewildered.
Same for Primus when opening for Rush on the Roll the Bones tour. Rush crowd in Chapel Hill wasn't into it at all.
Here's another one I just remembered, Warrant opening for Queensryche! It was not a good pairing, and most, if not all, could not wait for Warrant to get off the stage.
There was a local band, Treble Charger, that opened for the Posies. Forum rules prevent me from using the words necessary to describe just how awful they were. The best review I could give them would look like i was suffering from Tourette Syndrome. Honestly, they were so effing awful that they tainted the night and made the Posies hard to enjoy.
I saw ELPowell in Hershey Park Arena in September of '86 with some band named Bricklyn opening. I've seen high school bands that are better. Heck, maybe they were a highschool band because I never heard of them before or after.
Yeah, it's funny I like some of their songs now, but I remember being there for the U2 Vertigo show here in Denver and thinking, WTF is this? It was really bad. The only song I knew at the time, and I can't remember it now, was a song I heard in a commercial. It was the only time during their set I kinda perked up and said, oh I've heard this song.
I actually kind of enjoyed it, but it was fun to see the puzzled look on fan faces a couple of years ago when Rosehill Drive opened for Wilco.
Ugh. I saw Polyphonic Spree open for Bowie. Hated every second of their set. The first one that came to mind for me was Vendetta Red opening for AC/DC. The crowd did not like them, but to the singers credit, he seemed to thrive on the booing and bird flipping, giving it right back to the crowd. Their music sucked, though.
Swing Out Sister had an unbelievably bad woman open for them solo a few years ago. She sang a few songs on acoustic guitar that were unpleasant, then started rapping with a boombox. People tried so hard to be polite........no one booed, but there was just silence. She announced her last song, thanked the crowd, and no one said a word or clapped. Everyone just tried to ignore her.
