There's been several I've walked out of for being too loud. But there's plenty of those stories here. The absolute bottom though was a Nick Lowe "appearance" at a radio station sponsored beach party event. This is just after Party Of One came out. Some friends and I made the Jersey shore trek thinking we'd be seeing a band. Instead, Nick shows up alone with a bass guitar, and plays two or three songs playing along with the bass only. Then to finish, a house band gets on stage and starts playing "Here Comes The Weekend", which was something a paticular DJ used to lead off his Friday afternoon show. Nick obviously didn't remember the song, and was trying to read a lyric sheet to sing along. Pathetic. Granted it was a free show but I would have gladly paid to see something a little bit closer to professional.
I can say he's grown up quite a bit. The two shows I've seen have been have been of the utmost professionalism, with his normal goofiness thrown in...
For me it was Radiohead during the OK Computer tour at the Metropol in Pittsburgh. I was 22, but it felt like most of the crowd was around 16. It seemed like they’d sold way too many tickets to this show, and the crowd seemed unusually pushy and inconsiderate. It was uncomfortably packed; I think Radiohead was too popular to be playing such a small venue at this point. Maybe I was just feeling particularly grumpy that night.
I wouldn't say worse as such, but Kris Kristofferson played here in Melbourne, Australia, he did an acoustic show, but his guitar was terribly out of tune.... Jeezus! with a voice and guitar, you would expect at least the guitar to be in tune.
Getting hair-flicked in the eye by some headbanging bogan prat at a Mayhem show. YOU INCONSIDERATE LITTLE SH%@!
Wow... did he look baked? coz that may have contributed, I've noticed baked people don't often notice.... "intonation problems"...
My spouse went through a brief period of infatuation with New Zealand's Willy Moon. He came through Denver and played a small show at an awful venue bar venue. The room was small, the sound system was garbage, Moon was seemingly wasted drunk, everything was too loud, and the songs were played much faster than expected. I'm pretty sure he wanted off that stage as badly as I wanted him to be done, so we could just get out of there and go home. Hot damn it was just an awful experience.
I made it to Metropol a couple times before it went away for good. (Once while it was Club M.) It felt like a slaughterhouse floor to me. Both times, the crowd was packed in way too tight, and you went where the crowd wave went. Terrifying - it was the first time I understood what happened in crowd crushes like the Pearl Jam one or the Who in Cincinnati. It was just a long, narrow room with zero ventilation and the stage up high at the far end. The second of the two shows I saw there, the brother of the girl I went with ended up over at Allegheny General with a concussion.
Neil Young: Psychedelic Pill tour. Neil had come through brain surgery totally recovered and was determined to break more sonic barriers, I guess. At one point he stood in front of a giant speaker and tried to produce the loudest feedback possible. Plus the songs were extremely long on that album - they just went on forever. Great for Crazy Horse fans, maybe. Plus the group sitting next to me were obnoxious the whole time. Clearly they wanted to hear Heart of Gold and were not getting it. Honorable Mention: Steely Dan in 1996. Just by the book and zero personality the entire time. I remember their opener ("Do it Again," of course...) and the encore ("Black Cow") only. The rest of the concert put me to sleep.
Nick was doing a lot of solo shows as promo for that album. I have a video somewhere of him, then Elvis, doing solo material to a small group of Warners employees at the time. Nick solo is really good, but when he's with band, it's a really great show. I wonder if he'll ever do a band show with his own band again (not Straitjackets), since Treyhern (sp?) died.
After the show I saw some guy walking out of the club with footprints on his back. It was that kind of gig.
Mike "Michael" Nesmith at Union Chapel in London in about 2012 or 13. Sweet Jesus. I left after about 25 minutes of his "re-imaginings" I was not alone.
My worst concert experience always involves people putting their phones high in the air to record it when I and they should just enjoy the Performance. When I saw Big Wreck they made it clear that they did t want the show recorded because it would interfere with the audience enjoyment and it was distracting to them. Taking occasional photos, they were cool with. Even when Ian Thornley complained to the audience (and to one member)that shooting him from right in front of the stage was a crotch shot and he didn’t know the guy that well, they continued. I think it’s rude of the audience to disregard a performer's request.
You are witnesses at the new birth of Spinal Tap, Mark 2. Hope you enjoy our new direction. On the bass, Derek Smalls. He wrote this.
ha yeah, never thought about that, this was about 10 years ago.... another thing uncanny, he forgot the words to 'sunday mornin' coming down'..... he turned it around into a joke and it got a good laugh. Pretty sloppy performer though all things considering.
He'd been struggling for years with what he and his wife thought was Alzheimer's but turned out to be Lyme Disease, but in either event was affecting his memory.
My friend and I had great tix for Bonnie Raitt at The Gorge.( a long drive from Seattle)... There was an opening Band and I suggested going to a bar and getting a beer instead of seeing the opening act. well my timing was all wrong - we drove in to the parking lot and heard Bonnie playing....by the time we got to our seats I think we heard about 3 songs...I still feel guilty to this day.... this must have been around the Nick of Time Tour...
Was 2011. I got front row tickets for the night before those Union Chapel gigs at Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank. I had seen The Monkees at the Albert Hall about a month earlier and was deeply disappointed (except when they did all of Head). “Obviously Mike is the talented one” was my view going in. After two or three songs and his ‘mind movies’ spiel (all of which totally failed to connect with the audience who were politely clapping and hoping he’d put the drum machine away) I sort of felt like perhaps I’d got it wrong.
