Bands/Artists That Brought Bad Crowds?

Especially one member.

 

Late 80's Naked Raygun shows here in Chi. Love the band, but it sure brought out a fair amount of skins and 'burb wannbes

 

Well; this is gonna be an odd one and not sure whether it belongs in this thread or not, but here it goes :

I was attending a UK SUBS gig in Buenos Aires. The band was pissed the audience were just 25 people in a place with capacity for 1000. So the singer went to the door holding a lot of tickets in his hand. There were a lot of people who had no money but hoped to get in some way, so he started handing the ¨punkier looking¨ fellas (mohawks and leather as opposed to us regular-looking, ticket-paying punters who were already inside, hoping to enjoy the gig) free tickets. Turned out these fellas were from a dangerous slum, real lo-lifers, and as soon as the gig started they proceed to beat up and rob anyone who dared to get close to the stage, making it look as a part of the pogo.

Then the band were so angry at the violence they only played for 20', but what 20' !!! I managed to sneak backstage and chat with Charlie Harper after the gig. He autographed my 3 7¨UKSubs singles .

 

Yeah, I saw him live in Houston in 1993 less than a month before he died. I don't know if the crowd was all bad since I stayed primarily in the back of the room to protect myself (we went on a dare), but the crowd looked mostly like homeless people.

 

Though I never actually had the stomach for him, myself, though all my friends did.
G.G. Allin.

 

The far right are more polite now.

 

Same guy every time? He's probably wondering who you are.

 

I saw them for the "Farewell Tour" in 1982. Constantly surging towards the stage. Pushed back numerous times. Had my glasses kicked off several times. Lots of pushing and shoving. Someone was smoking and suddenly 4 black shirts(Mississippi's Finest) swooped in on him. HE HAD TO SWALLOW IT. They never found the doobie.

On Ozzy's "retirement" tour of 1992, a friend mistakenly bought me a floor ticket. They had several bands, and as each band left, the slam/surfing crowd moved back. Thankfully a few friends of mine rescued me and brought me upstairs.

The Stones......December 1981. Almost 90,000 fans. The first 30 or so feet....if you fell, you didn't hit bottom. I was about 20 feet dead center...and there was an ara.....5 deep about 8 across, kept on making a "cross"(swaying up,down, side to side). Vicers paradise...you name it they had it on the floor! Someone partied too hard....we passed him back from the front retaining wall to the back of the Dome floor! AND.....they warned people brining guns/weapons. They STILL confiscated over 300!

And for me...my wildest.....my first time seeing AC/DC "For Those About To Rock" tour. I'm on the mezzanine between the upper level and floor. The lights go down....I start hearing hisses and pings hitting the steel cages where the light guys were. Maniacs shooting bottle rockets!

 

OK nobody mentioned Rage Against The Machine.

I like Tom Morello guitar, just not at these shows. He has toured with Springsteen.

 

Yikes!

We're all too civilized to return to those awful times, Aren't we? Aren't we??

I'll get the wet wipes just in case!

 

Well, I like hacky sack and I'm a dork, so I might be the stereotype. What I found though was a whole bunch of frat-bro types that insisted on talking over the music for the whole show. At every damn show.

 

Not as bad as what UK people are describing, but early LA punk was pretty much ruined when the OC hardcore kids started showing up. For the most part they weren't seriously violent, but as far as I'm concerned they were a bunch of ignorant malletheads who took over and destroyed what was originally a really vibrant, creative scene. Everything got a lot stupider and never really recovered.

 

Actually the crowds at a Pat Boone show were pretty tough. Got milk splashed all over my white bucks. From what I read the crowds at the
Beatle shows in Hamburg made some of these other gigs described here look like a Boy Scout meeting!

 

I went to a Bad Religion show in the 80s that attracted an entire gang of neo-nazis with matching tattoos. There was an ambulance outside the tiny venue because someone at the show had been stabbed.

 

Tom Petty crowds circa 2010. Spoiled, drunk frat boys.

 

I saw Tom Petty in London in 2012, and the crowd were amazing - respectful, loud, they revered the band.

Fast forward to Tom Petty, Toronto 2014 and most of the crowd where I was (front block on the floor) were facing away from the stage, speaking loudly, getting wasted, and spilling beer over each other.

I have no idea if this is a Toronto thing, an outside-Europe-thing or a Tom Petty thing but it was terrible. I've never seen such a disrespectful crowd, before or since.

 

Any EDM show. You never know what they'll injest and when they start to puke it up.

 

...but at least its so loud you can't hear them talking over the music.

 

It's the reason I stopped seeing Petty live....the last three times I saw him, we were surrounded by loud, obnoxious drunks! It just wasn't fun anymore. (Which was really sad, since the band was GREAT!).

 

Other than one incident (where the crowd trashed the stage), I can't think of any examples of ICP having an unruly audience.

Thankfully, since their shows are 'all ages'.

 

The early hardcore scene in Boston was pretty mellow--there was a lot of crossover with the "older" art punk scene--but it was ruined by SSD and their "Boston Crew" of violent idiots.

 

One of the professors I worked for in college was a huge ICP fan. Yep, buttoned-down tenured engineering professor with a PhD. He said he kinda liked the music to start, then went to one of the shows and said it was the best concert he'd ever gone to, then became a fan. This was 15 years ago.

I think it's such a, relatively, small fanbase that they are pretty laid back.

 

Yeah, they don't have a violent reputation.

By the way, there is a film out now called Family about a teenage girl who becomes a Juggolo.

 

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. They were partying in their green room for 45+ minutes when they were supposed to be on stage. I heard one of them say, "Who's on stage now?".
They also tried to sell an all access pass at our front door for $100. None of them had any AA pass or laminates on. Go figure.

 

Dead Heads...