I saw Alexander O'Neal in Stockholm,Sweden 1991
& he was sooooo out of it.He even fell asleep during this looooong intro.
Finally his manager came up on & had 2 walk him offstage
saying the concert is over,after 4 songs.
Alexander O'Neal said afterwards in an interview that he'd mixed alcohol with sleeping pills.
People in the audience were booing him out & it was just sad.
Anyway,he did come back 2 do an extra show & that show was great.
Half the audience missed that tho' ,as they choosed 2 get the money back instead
of seing him a 2'nd time.

The worst concert I've ever been to was in, I think, 1991 when Alexander O'Neal played Konserthust in Stockholm. He was so stoned that he fell asleep sitting in a rocking sofa during a ballad 15 minutes into the show. His bodyguards had to come up on stage and carry him out. Needles to say, he was incapable of finishing the show. Fortunatley I got my money back.

One that I can clearly recall would have to be Badly Drawn Boy, Manchester Academy, 2000. Damon Gough has a sense of humour and clearly is a gentle soul if we are to glean anything from his music. His debut album, The Hour of Bewilderbeast reflects that. However, the devil came out of him that night. Something to do with the fact that he suspectedly necked a whole bottle of Jack Daniels prior to coming on stage.

It was mildly amusing to begin with. He got a couple of his crew to introduce him one claiming to be Jamie Theakston (British TV presenter-bit of a twat) and Neil Diamond.

The pressure of playing his home town after receiving recognition for his album had to some extent got the better of him, not helped by the drink. Songs were misplayed, not completed etc as he got progressively more irritable.

The final song was touching yet rather embarrassing too. He got his girlfriend up onstage who he had recently proposed to. She felt rather like I did judging by her reaction.

Unlike what Jillybean has written about above: I'd be seriously pissed off and reluctant to see Sinead O' Connor again if that had happened to me. I don't own any of her music, but if I did I'd send it to Jillybean so she could destroy that too.


.

My most disappointing concert was definitely Liz Phair, in Cleveland during the whitechocolatespaceegg tour...

Good times...

LightOfArt said:

CRY TO DEATH!!!!! Sorry, Light A Fart, but that's yer stankiest one yet.

JDINTERACTIVE said:

oooh, that's a bummer. I would assume BDB would be stellar live...

im gonna have to go with the Fugees at first ave in 1995. it was awful. i walked out....i really think thats the only show i have ever walked out on. lauren hill was up there talkin her racist shit...and i had had enough. the opening act the goodie mob was rockin though....but once she got up there....that was it...i figured....well you got my white money....im leaving if your gonna be disrespectful and talk shit about the people who are payin your bills.

manki said:

tommysoul said:

Same exact gig? manki, do you remember getting your money back?

I saw this awful heavy metal band, Impaler, in a crowd of about 30 people. The place cleared out, because of a fight. The shit was awful. lol

Sinead O'Connor. She sang 3 songs then said, "That's the minimum number of songs I have to sing for you to not get your money back," and walked off stage. I threw her albums out the next day.

Sinead O'Connor. She sang 3 songs then said, "That's the minimum number of songs I have to sing for you to not get your money back," and walked off stage. I threw her albums out the next day.

im gonna have to go with the Fugees at first ave in 1995. it was awful. i walked out....i really think thats the only show i have ever walked out on. lauren hill was up there talkin her racist shit...and i had had enough. the opening act the goodie mob was rockin though....but once she got up there....that was it...i figured....well you got my white money....im leaving if your gonna be disrespectful and talk shit about the people who are payin your bills.

Tom said:

I'm so insanely jealous...this is a fantastic thread!!!

My most disappointing concert was definitely Liz Phair, in Cleveland during the whitechocolatespaceegg tour...I was late leaving work, it's about a 2 1/2 hour drive, and there was tons of traffic, then construction, and then a semi jack-knifed across the freeway about 20 miles south of the city, blocking 4 out of 5 lanes of traffic...GRRR...

I had called ahead earlier in the day to find out who the opening band was and when they were expected to go on, and I was told that there was no opening band, and that Liz was expected to start playing 1/2 hour after the doors opened. I was already cursing her on the way up, because it just shows that she never goes to see any shows herself, or she'd realize that she should at least put that shit on the ticket, because people don't expect the main show to start 1/2 hour after the doors open, at 8 pm for Chrissakes...

Sigh.

So then I got past the semi, and brilliantly decided to smoke a bowl of weed and drive 85 miles an hour...so of course I promptly got pulled over by the po-po. When I unrolled the window, a huge blast of smoke actually poured out of the car, into his face and off into the cold winter night air. Heh. I mean, it wasn't funny at the time, but shit.

So flash forward to me sitting in the back of the cop car and using my powers of persuasion to get the cop to just give me a ticket for speeding and a ticket for paraphernalia and not take me in (luckily I had just smoked the last of the weed, and somehow he believed me enough to not take the time to search my car)...and within about 1/2 hour I was on my way, shocked to realize that I would only be walking in to the venue about 20 minutes after she supposedly was going to go on...and surely every rock concert starts at least 20 minutes late, right?

Not this one. Apparently it started promptly at 8, and it ended somewhere between 8:35 and 8:40, not even 40 freaking minutes, no encore, no interaction with the crowd. The look on my face would have killed puppies.

And then of course on the way home, right in the same spot I had been pulled over but this time going the opposite direction on the highway, I ran out of gas. There was about a foot of snow on the ground from a previous snow storm, and I walked 3 or 4 miles until an angel in the guise of a Pakistani cab driver on his way home from work in the city picked me up and took me the rest of the way to the gas station and then back to my car.

I guess my story doesn't say much about the actual concert, huh?

Good times...

Ween - Munich 1997

bunch of fucking assholes. The venue was sold out and they were more excited about that than putting down a good show. The totally pissed of by imitating a bad Van Halen show!

fuckers

I saw Pavement in 1993. Generally, one makes allowances for indie-rock bands as they're often inclined to not have particularly hot chops, but this was the sloppiest, most ramschackle performance I've ever witnessed. The drummer could not maintain a constant beat, and more than a few songs simply fell apart. The band didn't even have the excuse of being drunk - they simply were not competent musicians. I still love their records, though...

A special mention must go to the most obnoxious, revolting performance I've ever had the misfortune of witnessing: a band called the Philosopher Kings played a free out-door concert some years back in my town. Musically, they were forgettable but proficient R&B-ish rock - what made the show truly appalling was the lead singers unctuous lover-man act. He was trying to be Marvin Gaye/Al Green, and consequently was constantly bombarding the audience with this horrid "I'm going to sex you up, baby, I need your body so bad" patter. I'm not a violent person, but if I'd had access to a rifle with a decent telescopic sight that night, that man would be dead.

grammar edit
[This message was edited Thu Jul 1 20:27:05 2004 by flipwilson]

Anxiety said:

You are right - I've clearly been duped by the oppressive, patriarchal and hyper-capitalist notion that when one pays for a gig you should expect to be "entertained".

I'm so unenlightened!!! I guess i've got a lot of growing up to do...

The Fall - Clapham Grand 1994. A pissed up Mark E Smith tried to kill the front two rows of his then fairly sizeable audience by tipping over the amp stacks. The audience and roadies pushed them back. Terrible show.

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I idolized Mark E. Smith at one point in my life. If I never accomplish another thing, I'll always be proud of the fact that I introduced their music to about 1/2 a dozen people during my university days.

But I'm not the least bit suprised to hear that they were crap live - Mark's definitely the kind of performer who would take his bad mood out on an audience.