Has an artist's live performance ever turned you off of them?

I was pretty disappointed when I went to see GBV touring Isolation Drills and they basically played the entire as-yet unreleased Universal Truths & Cycles album.

What also stinks about GBV live is they save all the songs you really wanna hear for the end of the set when the band is sloppy and Bob is slurring. At least they used to...

 

Red Hot Chili Peppers

 

I first saw Pretenders January 1987 when they came to UVa. CH seemed distracted and unhappy the whole time - not a good show.

Saw Pretenders again a few weeks later when they came to the DC area, and it was a much better show!

 

Vegas was opening night of the 1997 and an infamous trainwreck.

I loved that tour but if the Vegas show was my only experience with it, I'd hate it too!

 

Has an artist's live performance ever turned you off of them?

No.

 

How anyone can be turned off of a band by a single gig is beyond me. Considering all the things that go wrong before a show the fact that maybe you got a bad one is no reason to be turned off permanently.

 

Ryan Adams came in and played a small venue, the Uptown Theater. The wife was not as big a fan so I grabbed up a solo ticket and went. I was psyched, dug his music and had seen a set list so was anticipating a great show. He comes out and not only cuts down the set list by four or five songs, he phones it in. I'd never seen such a half @ssed performance. He was sober which somehow makes it worse. This was before all the bad stuff hit the press. He all but looked at his watch during the show.

Mick Taylor, erstwhile lead guitarist of the Rolling Stones. Saw a solo show of his in Louisville one time. The opening band hung around and played as his backing band. He was 45 minutes late. I've seen wasted performers before but never like that. He had 1 sock on. He kept turning around to talk to the young guys in his backing band, but he had his guitar strapped on and the neck of the guitar kept knocking over the microphone stand... with the mic on it. That got old.

 

If you're lukewarm toward that artist in the first place, I could see it.

Could a bad Stones or Springsteen show turn me off in a massive way? No, but a bad show from someone much less important to me could do it...

 

Crowded House. Their music now brings back bad memories from one of the worst concerts I ever saw. Neil Finn asking the audience to repeat the chorus from new songs over and over again, Mark Hart screaming through Creedence's "Born On The Bayou" like a village idiot, including nearly all of my least favourite Crowded House songs in the setlist (Hole In The River, In My Command, When You Come, Locked Out), awful sound, ugly venue (Voorst Nationaal in Brussels).

 

Thread reminds me of this classic moment.

 

I'm sure you saw Johnny Thunders on an off night...I'm grinning, hoping for a good story...

 

I saw him on off nights with the Dolls and Heartbreakers, but never anything that would be worth a story. Mostly he just looked really high at times, but nothing outlandish.

 

I got to see the late, great Waylon Jennings at the Dollywood Celebrity Theatre (I think that's what it was called) way back in the late 1980s or very early 1990s (before he had to start using that customized chair) and I have to admit that the show was absolutely WONDERFUL!! Waylon is and was a Class Act......PERIOD!! It's sad that performers like him are a dime a dozen these days. You are missed dearly, Hoss!!

 

I too saw the 1983 Police Cleveland show. I thought it was pretty good. What didn’t you like?

 

it was likely seeing Bowie the night before in the same basketball stadium, still among the handful of best concerts I’ve ever seen, and the contrast of seeing The Police, who were then the biggest band in the world and a favorite of mine, in a much less interesting and satisfying show. my 40 years ago memory of The Police is that they were disappointing and that I enjoyed the studio versions of the songs better than how they were being presented in concert. We know now that the band was falling apart at the time and there was little interaction among them.

 

I do prefer the Ghost tour live recordings except Gateshead. They seem to rock a little more.

 

When the performer acts like what my Cockney friends would describe as a James Blunt, it's easy to lose enough respect for them that listening to their music can become difficult, I reckon.

 

I also saw Bowie and Police close together in 1983 and liked Police more, probably because I liked them more as a musical act.

I basically went to Bowie "to go". Lotsa hype and I was curious.

Didn't know more than 2-3 songs - it was an interesting performance that I'd come to adore on VHS but I didn't leave the arena bowled over.

I really liked the Police show. I loved "Synchronicity" and thought they sounded good.

As I've noted in the past, I saw Police about a year and a half earlier on the "Ghost" tour and that show disappointed me - so much that I nearly skipped 'em summer 1983. Only went because friends had a spare ticket.

Glad I did!

 

I saw The Police on the same tour in Los Angeles. They seemed like three guys who hated each other and were tired of the road. They sounded fine but there was just little energy or life to the show. In the middle of the concert they went backstage for a "tea party" that was visible on the video screen -- it ended with one of them yanking the tablecloth so dishes went flying, and it was obvious they were doing the same thing show after show and they were just bored with it.

(The opening acts were Berlin, Thompson Twins, and The Fixx. I was very excited to see The Police and The Fixx and didn't care about the other two. As it turned out, Thompson Twins and Berlin blew the others off the stage -- they were terrific.)

I'd add this about The Police -- I saw Sting solo three times. The first show was one of his first solo shows in the U.S. and he was wonderful. He sounded great, the band was amazing and he was engaged with the whole experience. The next two he just seemed completely indifferent and bored. So, the problem I had with The Police may just be a Sting issue.

 

Through 2016 or so, I'd see Sting pretty much every time he rolled through town.

Eventually stopped just because the shows tended to become... boring.

Actually, Sting started to get dull live probably in the 90s, but this didn't become a major obstacle to me for a while.

He'd still put on good shows when something different became part of the concerts - the "rock-oriented" 2005 tour, the show with Peter Gabriel - and I enjoyed the Police reunion in 2007-08.

But "regular" Sting shows? Not interested anymore.

 

I met him after a show in ‘93. He pretended to be completely zoned out and was whining and asking for his troll doll or something. Wouldn’t look at or acknowledge his teenage fans by the door. He was a jerk after playing to a mid-sized club. This was their commercial peak and he was already a bit of a trust fund rockstar like Gram Parsons. On the other hand, drummer David Ryan was very nice. He saw was a jerk Evan had been and invited us around the bus to make up for it

 

Not exactly, but the first time I saw the Kinks live in the late 70s, they were still doing their burlesque Preservation/Soap Opera style show, which was a little too whimsical for me at the time.

 

Oh man, you really should though. Good records.

 

Bob Dylan early 70s. I realize they are your songs and you can do them however you want, but if you would just like leave in a little recognizable melody and try to actually sing the lyrics it might be nice. As it was...thats it, I'm done, you can take your self portrait and self importance and jump off a cliff for all I care. Still feel like that, although I suppose I respect him for holding his ground and ruining all his one-time masterpieces in the process.

jb

 

Early 70s? Puzzled here. His reaally radical re-arrangements were much later, no? Saw him in '74, perhaps sped up somewhat, etc. but completely recognizable.