Yeah it was. Kind of a weird precursor was buying the tickets. Ticketmaster had outlets in Sears stores back then, if you can believe it. We were lined up outside the store before they opened to buy tickets the day they went on sale. When the store opened people started running through the store to get to the ticket counter. One group of guys deliberately went through a plate glass floor to ceiling window between departments as a “shortcut”. Ticketmaster was gone from Sears shortly thereafter, always wondered if there was a connection there. Anyway with 20/20 hindsight it seemed like an omen.
I don't know if I posted this already but I wasn't going through 51 pages. 1979 Zappa he played with his back to the audience all night because he was having a dispute with his label. Now, I wasn't a big Zappa fan but a friend of mine was and begged to go with him assuring me I would love him. Well I didn't. No offense to the folks here who do like him just not my cup of tea.
I ended hopping the fence on the other side of the stadium and when a security guy grabbed me I showed him my stub so he let me go.
I've been to a few shows where I wished I hadn't gone, but not so much because they were bad, but because I was in the wrong headspace/tired/cranky. There was one show, though. Early 2011 at an (in)famous venue in Springfield, VA, once called Jaxx, briefly called Empire, now called "closed". Some good freinds of mine had a (good) band playing what was supposed to be a thirty-minute set. They had been playing for about four years by then. They pulled their weight, sold plenty of tickets, lots of folks came out. At this point life was pointing this band in different directions, and their days were probably already numbered, but for the time being they were still having fun. Ever been to a venue so bad that it broke up a band? The venue kept moving their set time around, and then rushed them onstage and through setup. Then... just said "go". No soundcheck, and NO MONITORS. This venue was known for having relatively good tech for a venue its size; it's one of the main reasons bands in the area aspired to play there. Not today, though. They had no chance. With no monitors and the bass and guitar amps facing out, the vocalist fell out of key immediately... And because of how delicate their songs are, it sounded BAD. They came off the rails a few times because the drummer could only hear himself, and the bassist and guitarist each could only hear drums. Meanwhile, some huge security guy was looming off the side of the stage shouting to the band how much time was left in the set, and eventually pulled them off after barely 25 minutes despite the whole room screaming for one more song. The band kept it professional despite all that. The crowd was all good vibes - their biggest show. But I have never felt such a defeated, sad feeling coming off the stage. Later that evening I was hanging around with the bandleader/guitarist and we just sat around listening to his new vinyl copy of RATM's "Evil Empire" (a very uplifting album, as we all know). We didn't discuss the show or the band at all. I recorded the show (video and audio) for posterity, as I did most of their shows. I edited it the next week as I usually do, and me and them agreed pretty early into the edit that this was a video that wasn't going to come out. Ever listened to Phish's farewell show (Coventry II, 2004)? If you get any kind of feeling during "The Curtain With", that's pretty much the feeling of that recording. Good band, played their best, days were numbered already, but that venue experience ended it onstage.
I never went to Jaxx, but I knew about it because it focused on metal bands and I have some metalhead friends. What made it infamous?
David Bowie, Sound and Vision Tour - Foxboro Stadium, 1990: Love Bowie, but his small four-piece band's reliance on backing tapes and sequencers was painfully obvious. Black Sabbath, Boston Garden, 1982 - 12 songs and they were gone. Goodnight Boston! Genesis, We Can't Dance Tour, Foxboro Stadium 1992: I dig Genesis, but the set list on this tour sucked. Squeezing "I Know What I Like" into a medley of old songs, while playing full versions of lame ballads like "Hold On My Heart" and "Throwing It All Away"? That hurt. Aimee Mann, The 9:30 Club, DC: Oh, for the sake of "Momentum"...which she didn't play. Or even have. Matter of fact, I don't think she wanted to be there at all. The Eagles, Verizon Center, DC - 2003: My ex-girlfriend loved the Eagles, so sitting through this concert was clearly a demonstration of my devotion to her. The Eagles were oddly inert as a live act - which surprised me given the love people had for them and the sheer amount of hits they could pack into a set list. Thank God Joe Walsh was around to remind the Eagles what it feels like to crank it up and have some fun. I think I even caught Don Henley smiling during "Funk #49".
Good shows - especially good metal shows - were awesome there, for sure. And when their tech was good, it was real good. Maybe this was more of an issue with booking than venue management, but I heard many a story about local musicians (especially at "battles of the bands") getting totally fleeced by being expected to move a lot of tickets and being on the hook for what they didn't; or, if they did, still not making enough money to make any of it worth it. Being the only "real venue" in the area open to those kind of groups made it somewhere to aspire to play even if the artists knew they weren't going to be treated equitably. Also, at least in the 2000s (it got a makeover in late 2010), it was real gross and sketchy-looking. Lots of teens had a real hard time convincing their suburban noVA parents to let them anywhere near there.
Funny, I've heard two people reminisce about Zeppelin concerts, and both reviews hinged on the Bonham solo. One highlighted the "32-minute drum solo," beaming with pride. The other said he literally fell asleep during the "45 MINUTE" drum solo, and never recovered his energy (but loved the opener, Grand Funk). Obviously, wish I had my own opinion to decide the matter....
Phish is my choice as well. I really don't recall the year, but I'm thinking mid to late 90s as well, sometime after Jerry died. It would have been in NYC. A buddy just loved them. Assured me I'd have more fun than a Dead show. I kid you not, I fell asleep in my seat. Monumentally boring with a mentality among the crowd that just made my skin crawl. But hey, they did play guitars while jumping up and down on trampolines...so there's that.
No specific recollection but I did own at least one of their records A drum solo that went on for what seemed like forever was not one them But every concert I have ever been to have been on the basis that I liked them or critic reviews were good Decades later I saw Kenny Wayne Shepherd whose guitar playing skills were being quite rightly lauded by critics but I only lasted 20 minutes of the dullness because the guitar playing never seemed connected to the song and the bottom line for me is songs On the other hand Layla is one of my favourite records from around that time and still today because of the guitar playing of Clapton and Duane Allman
Shouldn't a club that specializes in metal acts look sketchy and gross? C'mon - you want to bang your head in some pristine palace? No puke on the walls, no metal!
I'm remembering a King Crimson concert around 1973 and I wanted to impress the girl I was with. We parked in an indoor parking garage downtown and the garage was closed up by the time the concert ended. Had to walk to the police station and wait quite a while to get the car out. I saw the Sweetheart Of The Rodeo concert at the same venue 45 years later I always ask the parking garage what time they close so my car doesn't get locked inside.
I saw Kenny Wayne in 1999 and while he had chops he did overplay and only had one vaguely memorable song.
A couple come to mind in varying degrees. Van Halen 5150 at Seattle center coliseum..... My cousin whom I went with got drunk and I literally carried him over my shoulder in the venue. I propped him up against the wall and walked near the stage to hear bad music in a very bad sounding venue. BTO was the opener and even though I prefer their music to Van Hagar, the bad sound completely ruined it. We parked at tower records and the car got towed...We took it all in stride being more adventurous in those days, but what a fiasco. Huey Lewis and the news...... A concert I only went to because I was chaperoning a younger cousin, and not there for the music. They were a band I hated, equalled a few years later when Hootie got famous... At the Huey show I got drunk and kind of had fun anyway in spite of the music. A lot of pretty women there.....I was a bad example as a chaperone.....Kids had fun though..
Thread begins with The Fall. How about "stages that broke up on the band"? Pink Floyd and They Might Be Giants would like a word.
add modern country which Hootie I guess is into these days and there's the trifecta. Most modern country= IMO very bad 70s rock.....
