What's the worst live music show you've ever seen

[Fizzzzle]

I'm working at one right now that I think might top the list.

 

Before this, I think it was when I bartended a concert for the Jerry Garcia Birthday Band. 

[stepee]

Blink 182 easily, that’s counting fair bands and bar bands. Just absolutely terrible and barely able to sing at all.

[Fizzzzle]

5 minutes ago, stepee said:

Blink 182 easily, that’s counting fair bands and bar bands. Just absolutely terrible and barely able to sing at all.

Never seen them. Do you think they just sucked or was it just a drugs day?

 

One time I saw the Weeknd at a festival and he was so fucked up he couldn't speak the words to his own songs. Then I worked a concert he was at a few years later and he kinda killed it

[stepee]

6 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

Never seen them. Do you think they just sucked or was it just a drugs day?

 

One time I saw the Weeknd at a festival and he was so fucked up he couldn't speak the words to his own songs. Then I worked a concert he was at a few years later and he kinda killed it

 

I think it was probably actually more just sucked than drugs. I didn’t really get a they were fucked up vibe, just really sloppy and kind of careless. 

[Bacon]

Technically, that would be Tenacious D. But that is only because I have only seen The D and Trans-Siberian Orchestra which I've seen twice.  The D was great, but it's hard to beat TSO. 

[Keyser_Soze]

I saw Adema at Ozzfest. I don't think I need to elaborate.

 

Also, saw Circa Survive some time ago and people are super into them now but it wasn't a great show and also at the time I had never heard them and they were going on about which parts of the crowd were "positown"

[Fizzzzle]

28 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

I saw Adema at Ozzfest. I don't think I need to elaborate.

 

Also, saw Circa Survive some time ago and people are super into them now but it wasn't a great show and also at the time I had never heard them and they were going on about which parts of the crowd were "positown"

I never saw circa survive, at least that I can remember, but I have seen Saosin with Circa Survive guy as their singer. I thought they were, like... fine.

 

Adema, though... I think I can imagine

[SimpleG]

Worst live big name band was No Doubt. Opposite end of the spectrum ,Ive also been to a lot of small punk,harcore, crusty shows and what they lack in skill they can make up in pure ferocity and that can make for a hell of ride.  Chillest was a blue grass weekend fest. We show up , a bunch of metal heads and we were welcomed. Spent the entire weekend on mushrooms and getting high listening banjos strum and hacky sacks were flying.

[silentbob]

My worst live show was from Meatloaf in Toronto. He was inconsistent with his vocals and looked really out of it.

 

I’ll add a wrinkle into the conversation. Best Warm-Up Band you saw before the main event and became a fan of their music because of that chance encounter. My easy choice is Bear’s Den who opened up for Mumford and Sons during their Babel tour. Pretty sure I would of completely ignored them if I didn’t hear them live. I could of met them too after their performance, but didn’t. 

[Fizzzzle]

3 minutes ago, silentbob said:

My worst live show was from Meatloaf in Toronto. He was inconsistent with his vocals and looked really out of it.

 

I’ll add a wrinkle into the conversation. Best Warm-Up Band you saw before the main event and became a fan of their music because of that chance encounter. My easy choice is Bear’s Den who opened up for Mumford and Sons during their Babel tour. Pretty sure I would of completely ignored them if I didn’t hear them live. I could of met them too after their performance, but didn’t. 

I saw My Chemical Romance open for someone. I wasn't a fan of their music in particular, and I'm still not really, but dear lord they played one of the best shows I've ever seen. I don't even remember who they were opening for anymore.

[Littleronin]

I remember seeing The Offspring years ago and leaving thinking that they were the definition of studio band. 

 

[Dodger]

I saw Everlast as part of a few other bands playing and they were terrible outside of working that Jump Around song in, but then again I can’t name any of their songs outside of that one on the radio all the time. On the same night as Everlast I saw Korn live and Jonathan Davis’ diabetes was acting up and it was a bad set, but the other times I’ve seen them they were good.

[SimpleG]

29 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

Best Warm-Up Band

Deftones opening for Pantera and White zombie in Aug 96".

[gamer.tv]

Embrace. Boring Brit pop that was somehow worse live. 

[thewhyteboar]

Wasn't a band, but a DJ was so bad at a club that literally no one was dancing. The club owner would walk up to the DJ, grimace, and make a few adjustments to the DJ's equipment. Then he finally booted the DJ so people wouldn't leave. I've never been to a club where everyone was either sitting or just leaning against the wall looking bored.

[best3444]

The Bacon Brothers. Need I say more?

[Rachel]

Sadly it was Weezer. They were completely phoning it in. No passion or energy. Seemed bored and unhappy to be there. 

[Biggie]

Aly and AJ

[ManUtdRedDevils]

Easily Dave Mathews Band. Listen, play the hits. I don’t want to hear you take a 4 minutes song and turn it into some bullshit 30 minute jam band session. 

[stepee]

3 hours ago, Biggie said:

Aly and AJ

 

They were real talk fantastic when I saw them, fantastic energy, they were having a great time and so was the crowd.

[stepee]

4 hours ago, Rachel said:

Sadly it was Weezer. They were completely phoning it in. No passion or energy. Seemed bored and unhappy to be there. 

 

I could totally see shows like that with Rivers. When I saw them he seemed pretty into it, but it was for the memories tour on blue album night and he seemed to be enjoying it.

[stepee]

I really miss live music, I can’t wait until my leg feels good enough or i’m used to it enough to go to one again.

[Biggie]

25 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

They were real talk fantastic when I saw them, fantastic energy, they were having a great time and so was the crowd.

[Fizzzzle]

30 minutes ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

Easily Dave Mathews Band. Listen, play the hits. I don’t want to hear you take a 4 minutes song and turn it into some bullshit 30 minute jam band session. 

The exception to this rule is Foo Fighters. I've seen them twice, and both times I'd say they only spent about 40% of their set playing their own songs. The rest of the time, they were just playing covers or fucking around, sometimes even taking crowd prompts. And because basically every member of Foo Fighters can play every instrument, they would all just switch around. So it's like, don't go see Foo Fighters concerts to hear Foo Fighters songs, because they aren't going to play that many. You go to hear them play... whatever, and it's great.

 

 

By the way, this is the concert I worked last night

 

Yes, somehow this semi-viral song from like 15 years ago still gets enough attention for this washed up shitlord to be selling shows.

[best3444]

4 hours ago, Biggie said:

Aly and AJ

 

1 hour ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

Easily Dave Mathews Band. Listen, play the hits. I don’t want to hear you take a 4 minutes song and turn it into some bullshit 30 minute jam band session. 

 

Thank you both for the laugh

[Biggie]

1 hour ago, best3444 said:

 

 

Thank you both for the laugh

You’re welcome. 
 

Now buy me a game. 

My 1TB micro SD card for my Switch will be arriving soon and I’m going to need lots of new games. 
 

Thanks

[ManUtdRedDevils]

@Fizzzzle I am all for artists being creative by doing covers, remixing their own songs, and generally doing what they want in concert but playing 2 mins of a hit then basically sucking each other off with their instruments for 20 mins and then circling back to the last 2 mins of a song is where I draw the line. I believe the jam band shit is an inside joke. DMB is like “how long can we play this nonsense and still get a raucous applause?”  I think they have yet to find the answer to that question. 

[silentbob]

As a DMB fan and having seen them twice in concert . . . I agree that they can jam on one song for wwwaaaaayyyyyyyyy too long sometimes. The occasional covers could be great but I was let down with my first concert from DMB. (Wasn’t the worst) Although the 2nd outing was better with a killer cover of Sledgehammer. Funny enough, I prefer the sound of their live performances over most of the studio stuff (little more emotion in the singing sometimes) I actually followed the last DMB concert by seeing Foo Fighters two nights later and was a great and lively crowd. 

[Keyser_Soze]

Your problem was listening to Dave Matthews Band in the first place.

[Nokra]

The band that sounded the least like themselves live (which maybe qualifies as "the worst") was The Mars Volta. I saw them while they were playing a festival near Seattle in around 2005 or 2006 (along with Wolfmother, Postal Service, and RHCP) and their songs were nearly unrecognizable live. At one point, someone actually threw a bottle of piss at the lead singer and they left the stage before the end of their set. 

[SuperSpreader]

Man... I don't know. I've been to many shows but none seemed bad that I remember. 

[silentbob]

On 5/14/2022 at 11:32 PM, SuperSpreader said:

Man... I don't know. I've been to many shows but none seemed bad that I remember. 

Not one show that, you know, was a disappointment? Maybe you didn’t get the songs you wanted, bad crowd around you,  or vocals just weren’t there that night? 
 

 

so I’ll add another few question

1. do you own any recording(s) of your attended concert?
2. best crowd/audience moment(s)

I saw in Toronto Matthew Good at Massey Hall and later was released on cd. Two songs didn’t sound right because we sang most of it and sure enough were recordings from the previous night performance

 

Best crowds for me were 1) The Tragically Hip farewell tour. Everyone was there for Gord Downie and his final performances before his passing. The audience singing with him, phone’s lights shining for the song Scared, and people were buying/offering $10 beers, for complete strangers like myself (who doesn’t drink)

2) Mumford and Sons we stood for the whole entire concert and they sounded great live. Everyone was singing, clapping and stomping their feet in tune with the song. Again they introduce me to Bear’s Den and their wonderful music. Plus they pulled a random guy for their encore to sing Thunder Struck. Just some lanky tall long hair dude they pulled from the front and nailed it. 
3) Snow Patrol/Matthew Good for obvious reasons already mention about MG. Snow Patrol was standing room only event and it was amazing. I was 3-5 deep from the stage and everyone was into it. Only downside were the girls jumping and landing on my back screaming for the bands attention. I was pretty much down to only 20% of my normal hearing ability for 3 days

[ThreePi]

I don't go to a lot of concerts, over the last couple years it was mostly stuff I went to see in Japan.

 

2014 - Summer Sonic music festival - Saw Suicidal Tendencies play. Lead singer started off asking for a moment of silence because one of the original Z-Boys just passed away. The near all Japanese crowd either a)didn't understand him, b)didn't know who the Z-boys were, c)didn't understand the concept of a "moment of silence", or d)all of thr above. Later in the set he said one of the most profoundly stupid things I've ever heard uttered by a human being in my life. He said " what Americans don't understand is, it's not about what you say with your mouth, it's what you say with your heart." Also, I don't care for thrash metal, thought the music was bad, and the only reason I was at the stage is because I was interest in the band after them.

 

2017(?) - Deep Purple at the Budokan - I had seats so bad they were actually roped off until I showed an usher my ticket that I had seats in that section. Ian Gillan's voice was effectively gone and all songs had extended solos so he could sneak behind the stage to rest his voice or take oxygen or whatever. Between songs he told these rambling stories that I, as someone who ostensibly speaks the same language as him, couldn't understand any better than the Japanese audience could.