Bands/Artists That Brought Bad Crowds?

Not a concert but I was a junior at college (Spring '78) at a disco
when a kid came in wearing a Devo suit and got the crap kicked out of him.

 

No Oasis gig was ever complete until a plastic pint glass of warm piss hit you on the back/head from long range.

 

My friend and I saw Don Henley at a mid-sized amphitheater near Virginia Beach in 2004. This was the Friday before Labor Day, and it was a very "we're here to party" kind of crowd.

Felt more like a Jimmy Buffett concert than a Henley show!

Not a bad crowd, but more liquored-up and vocal than one expects at Henley.

Henley gave maybe 3 of his usual semi-nagging speeches about saving the world, and the guy in front of me wasn't having it.

When Henley started to talk, this guy let Henley go for about 3 minutes and then yelled "PLAY BALL!"

 

I saw FLAG (ie Black Flag reunion lineup minus Greg Ginn) a few years back. Most of the audience was 40something-plus punk and hardcore dudes. I’ve not been in *lots* of pits, but this was the most violent/macho pit I’ve ever seen. The dude I was with had recently undergone some respiratory surgery, so he stood well off to the side and I still ended up taking a few fists, elbows, knees and boots to various parts of my body, just so he didn’t take any hit to his chest that could have hurt him.

I thought it said it all that, first of all, one such 40something dude got hauled out by security. And then, Keith Morris stopped the show to yell at the audience that “If you wanna $&@% things up at your own place, then go ahead. But it’s not punk rock to go into someone else’s place and $&@% things up!”

So consider that one more strike against punk rock actually representing anything effective, in my mind. I skewed younger than most of the audience, and the singer still had to call them out like preschoolers.

 

Oi and British bands such as Exploited attracted neonazi and fascist racist crowd.
Some hardcore bands attracted violent stupid bullies.

 

Actually they look like brainless bully jocks

 

Not a band but a venue, City Gardens, Trenton, NJ. The skins who did the Wall of Death at shows

 

The first time I tried to see The Cramps they were sold out, but I thought I could just hang out and try to buy a ticket from a reseller. WAY too many skinheads hanging outside for this long hair's taste.

When I did finally get to see them several years later in a different town, I didn't notice the Doc Martin brigade around.

 

Ska bands also attracted some undesirable people

 

I went to several Ozzfests. The one where I bought a pit ticket and was by myself was a bit alarming. I'm only 5 10" and seemed to be surrounded by the steroid brigade. Fortunately, the crowd was pretty well behaved. If fact Slipknot even mentioned in Rolling Stone what a bunch of wussies the Charlotte crowd had been. Thanks, Charlotte!

 

I can't stand all that skinhead stuff. Left or right wing, they all are the same scum. It's macho, violent, intimidating.. Their only leitmotiv seems getting drunk, bumping against each other, getting in fights against their contraries and beat random people for fun.

 

Judging by SNL, I'm guessing Fear didn't draw a friendly crowd? XD

 

Note the one prepster in the sweater on the right side, towards the back!

 

My first experience with a mosh pit happened during their set at Lollapalooza. Since most of the moshers were skinny college kids, I could toss them off more then they could me, but I still wound up black and blue all over my back from the elbows. Also lost my shirt, which I had tied around my waist. I think it got set on fire, as they were burning anything and everything they could.

 

Should have yelled "WAL-MART!"

 

I went to a Scorpions concert at Irvine amphitheater in SoCal back in the 90's and the band had to clear the stage because
they were getting lit up with red lazer dots from somewhere in the back of the venue. Security must have found the rascals because after
about 30 minutes they band returned.

 

Awesome photo. A larger scale version of the Sunday afternoon hardcore shows at CBGB's I went to a couple of times.

 

I used to go see the Circle Jerks in the late 80's until they disbanded and Keith Morris would do something like this at pretty much every show. He'd stop everything in the middle of a song when violence would break out.

 

Good eye. You found Waldo.

 

Really? I probably saw Coe a dozen or more times back in the late 70s and 80s. I never saw a fight or felt uneasy, and several of these were literally in backwoods biker bars.

 

Got a knife pulled on me at an AC/DC concert in Sydney in the early Eighties. The first tour with Brian on vocals in fact. This little **** was waving it around in order to get to the front of the stage. He was parting the crowd like Moses and The Red Sea. Should have nutted him but the blade looked big and sharp. I let him through.

 

Three couples went to see a Triple Bill of Lynard Skynard, Hank Williams Jr., 38 Special with special guest Kid Rock. I was skeptical about the evening but we seldom had the chance to get together with this old friends and it was basically an opportunity to relive our youth, first chance to do anything without kids involved. It was at PNC Arena in Raleigh. How good was it? The afterthought band 38 Special was by far the best act. LS was a 2nd rate tribute band, Hank Jr. was like a caricature of himself and Kid Rock was obnoxious.

But what I remember most was the crowd. There were more leather vests than the prop room for Big Valley. There were drunk middle age men weeping during Freebird, some through the whole show. I've never claimed to be the smartest guy in the room, but for one night I have to say, I knew how Einstein felt at a cocktail party.

 

1.Early Led Zeppelin attracted what we titled "greaser hippies"

Trouble making , weapon toting , long haired thugs...wait that was their road crew (too)

2.Texas's local Psychedelic Cowboy movement of the 1970s drew a excessive amount of illiterate ner'do wells & undesirables

3.Lynyrd Skynyrd...I have a friend who knew Ronnie & used to pull security for the band , actually my podner & all his bros (they were 1% outlaw biker gang)

What else would you expect from a band that frequently rode their Harleys to shows

 

Some indie bands from the U.K. like Oasis, Stone Roses and Happy Monday’s would attract quite a few yobbish chav types, very undesirable.

 

I saw Johnny Winter in a small venue in the late 80's. It was the first time I'd seen him in over ten years when he was still playing arenas and really looking forward to it. The show was great, but what I didn't expect was what seemed like half of the audience were bikers. It was never actually a "bad" crowd, but I really felt like a lamb in a den of wolves.