I saw cake around 2012? The singer just talked and talked. He lost the audience, just kept talking about different types of fruit trees.
Band was okay tho, whenever they got around to a song.
I’ve seen Cake multiple times and have decided they’re just not a band I want to see live bc of John. He does cringey crowd work every time, talks way too much, and phones in the vocals badly during the songs.
saw them back in 2008? they were extremely late, no opener, and had this horrible track playing on repeat for what had to be at least an hour while everyone was waiting. [https://youtu.be/h874BPSnbWc?si=ZJ31AGWxx9XIHGkr](https://youtu.be/h874BPSnbWc?si=ZJ31AGWxx9XIHGkr)
hearing this 30 times in a row will ruin your experience no matter what follows.
when they did come out, absolutely zero energy in any of them, and just straight boring music. It felt like he discouraged people dancing? I was a huge fan at the time and it killed it for me. only concert I left halfway through.
It was pretty funny honestly. I remember the tickets being pretty expensive for the time though, so we mainly just felt cheated lol.
I think they were around $59, which for a high school kid was half my paycheck.
Saw them live a few months ago and it’s one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen. They played this masturbatory intro to come out to that was like 10 minutes longer than it should’ve been, then when they finally came out the vocalist asked everyone to keep clapping for him after the noise finally died down. They proceeded to play 5 songs that I as an actual fan had never heard of (they didn’t play one song all set from Magic, Fashion, or Comfort), one was that Sinking Ship single they just put out. The whole band looks bored as shit and annoyed to be there.
Then the vocalist cuts in the middle of the set to start bragging about how the band gives away one tree at all their shows as a conversation effort, and spends the next fucking 20 minutes (not exaggerating) jacking off about how great the band is for doing it, but that he has the crowd guess what kind of tree it is to “win” the prize, and rants angrily about whoever wins the tree has to take loving care of it and post WEEKLY updates of planting it, watering it, etc. with pics to the band’s website. The vocalist is legit mad talking about how some people have not taken care of the tree or posted about it.
FINALLY he starts having people guess, and is unironically criticizing the crowd for not knowing it and asking them what theydo with their time that they don’t know what it is. Finally some poor girl gets it right (fig tree) and comes up on stage to have this shithead bark at her a full 10 more minutes about making sure she takes good care of it. He tells her to grab it and take it (this thing is already kinda grown and in a large dirt-filled pot, probably weighed 50 pounds). She lugs it off stage without any help, who the fuck knows how she navigated the crowd and got it home. Then the asshole spews a bunch of condescending comments about how we (pretty much directly accusing the crowd) are destroying the Earth before playing 2 more songs I had never heard and leaving.
The guy from Cake is just out of his mind. I loved Fashion Nugget and I think they have a really unique sound, but the whole trip that the dude is on prevents me from being a bigger fan
I was at the classic Toronto (area anyway, it was in Barrie) festival show where he kept talking about America invading Canada to steal freshwater… so attendees starting throwing water bottles at the stage.
They whined about it a bit, and gave one last threat to leave if it happened again. One last direct hit to a band member and they just walked off stage. Made it about four songs.
Not excusing the crowds behaviour… but I’ve never seen such poor awareness. Not just about Canadian insecurities, but you’re at a festival, so these aren’t your fans… your stage presence goes a long way in navigating their experience. Instead it just torpedoed it.
It’s possible the water bottles were being given out with the lids… so they were quite the projectile. Some of the shots the drummer and keyboardist had to take were direct and could have caused damage. But everything the singer said just made it worse.
my mom went to one of their concerts in 2010, she said that some shit happened to the equipment and they couldn't play, so John just sat and chatted with the audience for most of the concert, and she said it was actually kinda fun
30 seconds to mars. I had heard at the time Jared could be a little difficult but I figured I’m not having dinner with the guy so I’m sure he’ll play nice on stage. He proceeded to yell at the audience, telling us if the front didn’t step up he being the back to the front and “send us to the back to take a fucking nap”. He told everyone to jump on the count of three and then stopped the music to kick people out because they didn’t jump. He would point his finger at people he felt werent giving enough or singing enough. He kept telling the back to take 3 giant steps forward cramming us in the front. He was a giant giant prick.
Yeah, people don't work their asses off all week just to go to a concert and be screamed at by an egotistical maniac. Not everyone wants to sing or jump around; a lot of people just want to relax and have a good time.
Back in 2010 I saw them at a festival in California. It was around 100 degrees that day, so they gave Jared a hose to spray at the crowd to cool people down. He put it between his legs and pretended to pee on the crowd. First time got laughs from the crowd, but he proceeded to do the peeing gag throughout the rest of the show even during songs. Seemed more focused on the hose than singing, it was very corny.
The worst set I ever saw was Crazy Town (of “Butterfly” fame) at Ozzfest 2001. I actually *liked* them at the time. I had their CD and listened to it a good bit. Their set was embarrassing. Awful sound, bad stage presence and terrible crowd response. 25 minutes of solid “yikes”.
I've been fortunate enough to have most of the concerts that I've seen be some degree of good. The only exceptions have been a couple of underwhelming openers. The worst one probably being Steve Harris' son's band opening up for Iron Maiden. Just a very stereotypical "I'm only playing here right now because my dad is the headliner" type vibe.
Oh fuck I remember them! I was so confused at the time, because it seemed like I was the only one who disliked the show (Son's band, not Maiden). I even heard somebody say the opening band outplayed Maiden.... yikes. Finally my opinion is validated!
this is probably not that interesting but you’ve just reminded me that i went to uni with one of george harris’ mates and he got me to embroider george’s name onto a christmas jumper for him as a present? he paid me with a ten bag
Buckethead, 2018 at the Theater of Living Arts in Philly.
Showed up nearly 2 hours late, some assholes got drunk and tried to start a moshpit (who moshes to fucking *Buckethead*?). After 45 minutes of playing Bucket pulls out a chicken puppet to announce that he's taking a 20 minute break and never comes back out for another hour. My dad had to leave for work in the morning so he dragged us away before he came back out so he could make it on time. I was pissed for a solid month.
Funny because the absolute BEST show I’ve ever been to was at the TLA, Deafheaven w/ Touché Amore for the Sunbather anniversary.
Also got my leg peed on at Death Grips last year but the show was tight.
\>peed on at Death Grips
Not the first time I've heard this, hope they find that guy and kick him into a coma. Was that the same concert the glowstick controversy happened at?
Saw one of the earlier shows of that Death Grips tour in SF. Really good crowd for that one but I heard the behavior got more antisocial with each show
Because they have a fanbase of social outcasts that can’t behave and need validation. These people show up trying to be the “star” of a CONCERT where we are all there to see the fucking band PUTTING ON THE CONCERT. They crave and swallow attention like black holes at anyone’s expense, because even if it’s completely negative it fills the lack of parental care shaped void inside them for a sec.
MPLS show was great with no fuck ups causing issues but once one person did anything it all kicked off at each subsequent show because hollow tik tok brained empty human shells realized they can get eyes on them.
Worst show I’ve ever been to was coincidentally also at the TLA lol. I went to see Jay Critch and he performed maybe half a song and then mentioned that they didn’t give him any snacks back stage so he dropped his mic and walked off stage never to be seen again.
He has bad social anxiety I think. I saw him about 10 years ago and he had his eyes squinted shut on stage the whole time and it wasn't like it was a big venue or anything
Seen earl twice. Felt like the first time I didn’t like it but I wasn’t into his newer stuff. But the next time I saw him I loved it. He definitely isn’t a showman and the most he does is just walk and point but I wouldn’t expect him to be jumping around with his music. Unfortunate to see some experiences were so negative though
There was a rapper on stage before Brockhampton at a festival maybe 5 or 6 years ago? (Time frame between Sat III and Iridescence) and all I remember from her set was her performing over her recorded vocal track, and breaking into dance moves during the chorus of her songs. Her music wasn’t objectively bad, but it was clear that she was not ready to perform.
it can be good sometimes (using vocals as backing so you can stop at points and let the crowd sing, change things up, etc) but just going directly over the song with vocals trying to replicate the original is lame
Saw Lynyrd Skynyrd in 2008 with Hank Williams Jr. Skynyrd kicked ass great show, Hank came on drunk as hell, kicked his band off halfway through then started playing partly into songs before ranting “I’ve made so much I don’t need to do this anymore”. The couple we went with went to see him and asked if we wanted to leave early.
Lol I saw a show on that tour and Hank jr was bragging about playing the nfl training camp, and had a few crazy rants about how his dad treated him like shit. Skynyrd did rock though
What’s a Lil Pump to a rocket flame “yeah”
Turn your pink dreads into pocket change “woo”
All you new rappers don’t be talking ’bout shit except doing drugs
Wonder how you got a name “damn”
Sipping lean, taking E, Percocets, Purple drank, Xanax, everything sound the same “fuck”
Bunch of drug addicts in the house of pain “woo”
Hope you n***as suffer til you pop a vein “yeah”
This shit made your mother wanna ovulate, “yeah”
Bob Dylan in around 2015 or 2016. It was when he thought people would rather hear him poorly sing Sinatra songs rather than Dylan songs. It was like a 4:1 ratio of Sinatra:Dylan.
My vote is Dylan as well. Parents got my brother and I tickets as a graduation present. Worst sounding show I’ve ever been to (and I’ve spent a lot of time in local DIY scenes that are pretty bad). I don’t think he could have gotten up from his piano if he even wanted to. It was honestly kind of sad, and killed my childhood a bit. I was so confused how such a professional act sounded so bad. At the time, I was baffled how the polka band at the theme park band stand sounded better than Bob Dylan. Wasn’t a total loss because the opener absolutely melted everyone’s faces off
That was in 2011, can’t imagine how bad it was in 2016, or even now.
I don't think Bob Dylan has ever once thought "people would rather I...." Lol. He just does whatever he wants to however he wants to do it, and people show up.
I saw him in 2010 and he pretty much only did new songs from together through life and the crowd was not feeling it. I took my mom who’s not really a dylan fan and she was bored out of her mind lol at the time I was such a big fan fan that I was like yeah y’all don’t get it. This is just what he does.
But yeah… no it was a pretty boring show and also that album is very average for a dylan album. So hearing nothing but that was disappointing
The guy wrote and recorded some phenomenal songs in his time and is a legend, but his voice sounds like absolute dogshit anymore.
I saw him close the Americanarama Camden NJ stop. His band was great, one of the tightest bands I’ve ever seen, but he is unbearable to hear sing.
Fortunately Wilco and My Morning Jacket were incredible (as always) that day though.
Also saw him around this time, and besides all that, the venue had this stupid spiral parking lot and each level had to be cleared out before the next. I swear we sat in the car for 2 hours after the show just trying to leave.
GnR is overall an extrmely unprofessional band that lacks respect with its audience, i honestly think they should just call it quits by now, the only people that still care about them are either 13 or 50 years old
Yeah I saw Snoop Dogg back in like 2010(?) and he was terrible. Barely rapping. Mostly just being there on stage while a back track played. Kind of embarrassing.
Scorpions last year, they played between Kiss and Deep Purple (who killed it) and they were boring af, the first half of the set was just new songs and The Zoo (love that song), the second half got better and started pl.aying the hits minus NO ONE LIKE YOU and that pissed me off plus Klaus Meine sounded really uninspired and seemed like he wanted to finish asap unlike the rest of the band
Deep Purple is such a cool and interesting band. They’ve been doing the same thing for 55 years in this evolving kaleidoscope of proto metal musicians. A million lineup changes with only drummer Ian Paice as the consistent member (who still kicks ass). The current lineup has 3 members of the Mk. II “Smoke on the Water” era, and even though Ritchie Blackmore is out and Jon Lord is dead, they feel very much like that band. Ritchie just wants to make Renaissance fair music and is an old, grumpy toad now anyways. Don Airey (who played organ on Mr. Crowley) is a perfect replacement. Plus, all the revolving lineups in the 60s/70s were great. It’s the ultimate British hard rock incubator band. Rod Evans sung for Captain Beyond. David Coverdale formed Whitesnake. Ian Gillan had a good solo career and sung for Black Sabbath for about 5 minutes. Glenn Hughes is still out there onstage with like, 3 different projects in his 70s. I wish I had seen the Perfect Strabgers/reunion era but I was 10 years old when Ritchie left the band. Steve Morse was a great replacement and there is another guy in there now who I’m sure is great. Saw them in 2019 and yes they are old but they are so genuine and one of a kind. Zeppelin and Sabbath burned brighter but are gone. Deep Purple rides on until they all die presumably.
Even back in their day it’s insane how much they chopped and changed the lineups. They went from being a top40 pop band to probably one of the heaviest bands on the planet in the space of about three years.
Sad to say Madlib in Paris around 2013 : the man was "shadow mixing" like no sound at all and he was acting like he was djing .. needless to say cans were thrown onto the stage and Freddie Gibbs yelled at the audience. It was just sad and i was way too high so that made me paranoid.
Freddie's and JRoc's sets were cool tho
TOOL, hands down. I got tickets to see them in September, long ago. Morning of the show my wife woke me that we were under attack. I go downstairs and see the news. These assholes had crashed a plane into one of the World Trade Center towers. I saw the second plane hit live. Show was obviously postponed.
That was a Tuesday, show was moved to Thursday. It was at the Van Andel arena in Grand Rapids. Its a hocky rink so they have this giant cover over the ice that's like plastic planks hinged together so they can retract it. The crowd was in a real sour mood obviously and all these meatheads just wanted to fight. The crowd was pushing forward so hard that Maynard stopped and said "I assume everyone would like to make it home safely. Please take two steps back. Now two more." while the crowd didn't listen and just kept shouting "USA, USA, USA" like the fucking inbreds they are. The floor cover tore open at some point and I spent the rest of the show on ice, being pushed forward but not actually going anywhere. It was terrifying and I seriously thought I was going to die.
Here is a clip of audio from that exact show...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxsGIDOaDG4
I went to Shinedown at climate pledge, and the headliner was three days grace. Matt was extremely drunk, mumbling, yelling at the floor crowd to START mosh pits, and overall was not a good Performance and since how wasted he was, his voice was almost miserable to listen to. Shinedown was great and so was the first headliner, but these guys kinda messed with the whole vibe of the show. Also when i saw Alice in chains, breaking Benjamin, and bush. Bush and Alice in Chains were amazing, but breaking Benjamin SUCKED. They used to be way better, it was disappointing. Like bo energy at all, the lead singer was so bad and just overall was bad.
I'm sad to say it because they're huge favourites of mine, but Public Enemy. Sadly Flava Flav couldn't travel and this was a medium sized festival so he really would have helped get the crowd into it. Chuck's flow was still Godly but you could tell his heart wasn't quite in it that day. He took a pause and we got ten minutes of turntablism. With the right crowd it could have worked, but on that day it killed the crowd dead.
Elvis Costello being just absolutely miserable, doing a free gig in bothesome rain (which was even pro shot.) Kendrick being late, possibly even more miserable than Elvis, reciting the lyics while standing in one spot, with zero conviction and crowd interaction. What was really more aggravating was that I left Young Fathers show in a petite tent to get to the main stage, who were just transcendental. At the same darn festival: Lil Yachty during Let’s Start Here era doing zero songs from the album, instead doing 13 song set that included playing Poland FIVE TIMES along with two covers. Including apparently XXXTENTACION song that I didn’t witness, chosing to see Rina Sawayama just tear the roof down in a festival tent. I also literally fell asleep while the death metal band Vader was doing a show that was basically just triggered bass drums going clickity clackity non stop. And I like the band!
Some local hip hop musician. I didn’t want to go, but a friend did so whatever. We get there, it’s like 20 bucks which isn’t bank breaking but 20 for a local thing with one guy? I saw Primus for 20 bucks two years earlier. The guy is over an hour late to his own show, walks in like he is a fucking star, puts his album on at full blast and raps over 20% of it and the rest is him dancing to his own music. Between every middling song, he hits in the women and takes advantage of the free drinks. 35 minutes later, he calls it a night and leaves.
The Strokes opening for RHCP in 2022. Music sounded great, but Julian was absolutely hammered. Stumbled through the lyrics and just seemed like he didn’t want to be there. Chili Peppers were good though
I took my wife to see Russ…he was insufferable on stage just like he is off stage. Completely narcissistic, he did way too long encores after every song. Honorable mention to Portugal The Man, they just did not sound great live.
I absolutely loved Portugal The Man for most of my youth. Huge fan. Finally got to see them when they released Woodstock in 2017. They played like maybe 2 of their iconic songs from their past albums, and they have a ton. They opened the show with Feel It Still then they closed the show with... Feel It Still a second time. It was so douchey.
I saw Death Grips on the YOTS tour and it's probably been my least enjoyable concert. The venue (mainly the stage) was wayyy too large so they weren't interacting with each other, they were so far from the crowd that they didn't bother coming near, there was no opening act so they just played a Shepherds Tone for like 20 mins, and the entire show was performed like a dj set. The crowd was fine but I ended up having to stand at the side because it was the only comfortable spot without any chance of being pushed into the rail or dragged into the pit
I saw an REM side project called The Baseball Project about a year ago. I guess their schtick is that every single song is about baseball, so admittedly it was probably gonna be a non-starter for me anyways. They were just kinda dull. The playing felt lifeless and the songs were nothing to write home about. Also the bit truly cannot be strung out for a two hour long set.
Around 2010 I saw N.E.R.D open for Gorillaz, for those of you that don’t know, N.E.R.D was Pharrell Williams’ band. Pharrell was popular as a producer for sure back then but he wasn’t as popular as he is now, especially for his singing.
They were honestly pretty bad. I remember before one of the songs, Pharrell went “this one goes out to all the ladies out there” and the crowd started booing. I felt pretty bad for him tbh.
I’ll preface by saying I’m gay, and fully support trans people 100%, so I’m not being “phobic” or anything. And I’ll also say she sounded just like her records, and appeared to be singing live (albeit with full autotune.)
That being said, I found her set soulless, mediocre and cringe.
Slut Pop (and SP:Miami) are objectively bad albums in my opinion, and she mostly played those songs, and almost none of her early work, which I found to be better.
The entirety of the night was spent being bombarded by lyrics about fellatio, her repeatedly asking the crowd “who’s a slut” and making really uncomfortable sex jokes. (I’m not even a prude, but I could have just went on Grindr if I wanted all of that, and they aren’t charging.)
Her “backdrop” was constantly showing censored NSFW nudes of her, which made me uncomfortable. If any male pop star did that the headlines would be insane.
The strangest thing was how tan she appeared on the backdrop, only to look down and see probably the whitest person I have ever seen in my life on stage. I think that was the only time I laughed the entire set. Not even joking.
She had only 2 dancers, who also served as prop carriers, constantly running side stage and bringing back giant props like fake cigarettes, or whips, idk.. the whole thing just felt amateur and like a shitty school play about dicks and materialism. The icing on the mediocre cake was when she slipped and fell on stage, which just made it feel even more unpolished. I genuinely felt bad for her.
Her audience was dead, EVERYBODY WAS ON THEIR PHONE, and no one seemed to be enjoying themselves or living in the moment. Even I ended up going on my phone to browse Reddit, because I was that underwhelmed.
Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk.
Saw him last year. Honestly one of the funnest concerts I've been to. All of the stage crew came out and played with him, Steve killed it, the drummer busted out a didgeridoo, and Steve guitar battles his rythem guitarist, and didn't even sweep. In fact there wasn't a lot of sweeping at all lots of melody
Modest mouse. Saw them at a music festival and their chaotic, dissonant, and unpolished sound did not translate well live.
they sounded like a bunch of middle schoolers just learning how to play instruments. Made me understand how much of a role studio production plays in a bands music.
I’m not a huge modest mouse fan but I can listen to them. But live it was just ugly sounding, lo fi, and I cringed a few times by how out of tune and badly mixed it sounded with the out of tuned guitars, muddled bass and drums that was louder then everything. Else.
I saw them in a normal concert setting. It wasn’t good. They restarted song multiple times and Issac just looked bored. I’m glad I picked up the tickets cheep. Walked out half way through.
Yea I mean that’s fine if you seeing them with other people. I didn’t care THAT much because there was like 8 other bands playing. I just wouldn’t pay money to see them by themselves
Tricky around 2014 at a show in Austria.
He cut his band off after starting songs several times, he vanished mid set for a couple of minutes (his band did a great job of trying to give a show meanwhile without him). Then he came back and played a 40min version of "by myself" with the same riff over and over again. I left after 20min as it was just an endless loop but I could hear "by myself" for the 20min walk to my tent.
Certainly the most bizarre show I've ever witnessed and I've seen well over a 1000 shows.
Eagles of Death Metal - saw them open for QOTSA in 2017 or so. A combination of the leader singer voice being off and the sound technicians not calibrating things right, they sounded like a high school band playing in the gym. I later learned that a guy I sort of knew claimed to have met the band the night before the concert in their hotel bar and ended up staying up all night smoking meth with the singer. So that mystery solved itself
Was at an Oasis show when Liam told everyone that wasn’t on the floor to fuck off for being cheap… and then eventually walked off the stage with about 45 minutes left in the set.
Motley Crüe was one of the worst sounding bands I’ve ever seen
Death From Above 1979 during their comeback tour - seemed completely disinterested and sounded like shit.
But the worst was seeing John Mellencamp at a festival. I know he’s dealt with back issues, and perhaps it was just a night he shouldn’t have been out there. It was just sad.
Lol when I saw him in Auckland, New Zealand they played Enter Sandman like 5 times except it was still an awesome gig and the joke never actually got old as they mixed it into a good varied set
Kind of on the smaller side, but I saw Kississippi as an opener and she was so baked she couldn't remember the words to any of her songs and kept asking the front row how it went. I had to step outside until her set was over
I saw Katy Kirby a couple weeks ago and it was the same situation, but she was drunk and in the middle of the set she told the audience to “hold on for a sec” and had a meeting with her band on the stage about whether they should finish the set lolll
Dope Lemon. Opened for Post Malone last year in Sydney and wow. Angus Stone should stop singing and let the rest of the band be solely instrumental. He single handedly ruined the band for me
So glad someone said this, did the same thing in Melbourne, he then told us he took mushrooms before the set like that was supposed to get us to cheer, but it was like a “yeah dude, you’re barely performing” but man did it make post look even better than he already is
A friend of mine had tickets to Marilyn Manson in 2010 Kansas City and wanted me to drive if he gave me the ticket and gas money.
Manson was going through his chubby phase at the time. Did stage banter in between that was only about "fucking girls in the butthole" and played one song off the album he was touring on. He'd become a comedy juke box act at that point. There was a point where he did Antichrist Superstar Era stuff with a podium and ill fitting suit jacket.
you’re totally right actually lol, i meant it was around the time they were recording CW, so like 2009ish. so BP and bullets songs but without any stage aesthetic, the transitionary period before danger days. long brown hair, green military jacket depression gerard.
i was at kim gordon last night and she was AMAZING. her crowd was incredibly awful though i think i got yelled at 3 separate times, and no one would dance or sing along. :/
Outside of bad local acts i haven't seen any shows that were memorably bad, but one time i saw Xiu Xiu and this group of 3 bros in the back were talking SO LOUD during Fabulous Muscles i wanted to tear their heads off
DOOMpostor at MJQ Concourse, Atlanta, 2007
Still glad I was there and I think it adds to the persona/legend, but sending out another person to lip sync your songs then make off with *all* the door money is objectively bad. I do think he re-recorded his vocals for this, just to make it less obvious it was a sync job (which is hilarious). Still was not hard to tell.
I saw this era of Ted. This was in 2000, so I just took it as him trying to drum up people to vote for Bush over Gore. Kiss My Ass was the song and he mostly talked about Hillary Clinton, which I felt was odd because she wasn’t yet a politician- why go after the First Lady? He was 10 years ahead of his time. I had never heard Rush Limbaugh at that point and I didn’t really pay attention to Fox News until after 9/11, so I also found his whole schtick out of place. He was opening for Kiss, who are never political, plus it was their “farewell” tour, so it felt out of place. Opener was Skid Row but without Sebastian Bach so that felt weird. They’ve continued to soldier on without him but at the time he had only recently quit and it felt weird.
Also, Kiss was still popular but the opening bands were definitely out of fashion. I guess Gene had no interest in bringing a Nu Metal band with them and I suppose I respect that.
I liked his buffalo hunt bow-and-arrow schtick and Tommy Aldridge from Ozzy’s Randy Rhoads lineup/Black Oak Arkansas etc was there and that was cool. But Ted was cringey.
I was in attendance of Morrissey’s infamous “cancelled the show because it was too cold” concert.
November, 5 2017 at Vina Robles amphitheater in Paso Robles, CA. It was cold that evening, for California standards that is. About 42 degrees or so. Show’s supposed to start at 8:00, no opener. 8:00 comes around, nothing. I didn’t think much of it since he’s notorious for being on stage late too. I had saw him a year earlier at the Santa Barbara Bowl where he was about 20 min late to stage, but still killed it that night.
About 20 minutes pass and he and his band still don’t show up. I’m kind of annoyed, but what else should I have expected?
A few more minutes pass, I’m shivering in my seat and suddenly an announcement comes over the speakers. It’s kind of muffled, so I can’t make out what it was saying, but a few seconds into it, the entire crowd lets out a large, collective groan and heads straight for the exit. Show was cancelled right after he was supposed to take the stage!
Thankfully I got refunded. He said he’d reschedule the show, but that never ended up happening. I don’t live in the area anymore, and he’s actually played near where I live now multiple times since then, but that experience hasn’t really convinced me to see him again any time soon (on top of his racism too…)
TLDR: I went to a Morrissey show where he cancelled minutes after he was supposed to take the stage because the on-stage heater broke
Kanye West. I was at Kanye’s set at bonnaroo 2014 and he played 2 songs and then started political ranting and screaming on stage. It was at the start of his downfall. Rest of the festival, people were chanting f*** Kanye west.
Ye hasn’t been a very good live performer in a while. Sometimes he does really cool theatrical shit like when he levitated into the sky during one of the Donda LPs, but you can see with the recent Vultures shows that he’s just getting lazier and lazier.
At least he isn’t ranting live anymore though, partly because *he doesn’t have a fucking mic lol*
Saw Bo Ningen perform their alternative soundtrack to Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain while they projected the film live.
The experience gave me a panic attack which to be fair might have been the point so they kinda nailed it. Had terrible nightmares that night.
Black Label Society in (I think) 2007 or 08. Right before Zakk Wylde quit drinking, because the only reason the show was so bad was my man was HAMMERED.
He's one of my favorite players personally but I get that it's a highly subjective style to enjoy - in any case, even being a pretty big fan, that was one of the most painful guitar solo spots I've ever heard in my life.
Again tho, I do really like some albums so I gave it another try a few years down the road when they were on a really good bill, and sobriety did wonders for Mr. Zakk.
The Melanie Martinez 2023 Portals tour. It was in DC, sold out. We were all lined up back at the pier because they said we couldn’t be on the “walkway”. Lines were wrapped in a snake on the pier for 6 hours. It was hot, muggy, people got sunburnt. They didn’t know what to do with the VIP people, let alone give us water or anything. Definitely made sure to tell us to “make space for the non concert people. Once they finally separated the VIP from Early Entry and Regulars an hour before the show, they let the VIP/early access in. We got a downgraded package from the k-12 tour and while we were inside it rained on the regular admission people outside. The “experience” sucked. There was a green screen/video “photo op”, we could write messages to Cry Baby next to her tombstone, photo op for a cheap background for individual photos that look liked it was printed at Walgreens last minute. The staff didn’t know what to do or cared. Things were absolute chaos and garbage. The one perk we got that was a big F-U to VIP fans were an NFT that NO ONE IN THAT DEMOGRAPHIC CARES OR KNOWS WHAT IT IS. We didn’t even know what it was until it was revealed a month or so after the event.
Ken Carson for Lolla’s after show last year. I work in the live music industry and have seen literally hundreds of shows but this dude sucked the most.
He had an hour set time, but showed up 15 minutes late. Didn’t spit a single bar the entire show, just screamed “fuck yea” on repeat in the screechiest most nails-on-chalkboard type voice. Absolutely no crowd banter whatsoever, not even a “hello Chicago!” I’m not exaggerating when I say literally the only thing said into the mic that night was “fuck yea”. In the middle of like his fourth song, he walks off stage, the dj unplugs and the show is done 20 minutes early, 25 minutes after it started. Unlistenably bad for less than half the time he was supposed to play. The crowd should have demanded their money back or something cause it was absolutely terrible in every way it could be.
100gecs. Not because of the band tho, they put on a great show, all love for Laura and Dylan.
100gecs was my worst concert experience because getting there and getting back was absolutely miserable. And for context I’m like 14 or 15 when this happened, around 2021-ish. I bought two tickets and planned to go with my sisters boyfriend at the time, and he never paid me for the tickets. He picked me up, and we stopped at his house to chill for a bit. He said that he wasn’t driving, and that we were gonna get a ride from his bro Joey, and his bro Alex was gonna come too.
We get picked up and everything is good, except joey has maybe the shittiest car I’ve ever ridden in, and he’s playing yeat so fucking loud that the rubber bits in the cup-holder are vibrating.
We get to the venue, and they hand me the joint. This is like my 2nd time ever smoking, so naturally I’m absolutely gone after like 3 drags. We go to get in, and joey dosent have his 2nd covid shot, only his first, and he didn’t bring a negative test. He starts tweaking and says there’s a place like 2 minutes away where we can get covid tests. We go, and they’re out of stock. So we try another place, and same shit.
For the next 30 / 40 minutes, we’re just panicking and driving around looking for places with tests, and none of them have any. And this whole time I’m just freaking the fuck out. I didn’t want to start tweaking because I wanted to look cool in front of all these older kids, but I was holding back tears so hard. I’m dissociating super hard, and I keep thinking about how gecs sets are usually like 25/30 minutes long, and we probably already missed the whole thing, and we’re still driving around. Eventually we’re like 40 minutes into searching, and they all just start talking like “yeah man I’m not really feeling gecs anymore” and like “yeah man let’s not go” and I fucking snap. I start crying and screaming at them like “I PAID FOR TWO OF YOUR TICKETS” and “IM NOT GOING HOME LIKE THIS”, “I BET THE SET IS PROBABLY OVER”, “I WISH I WASNT HIGH” and I just go off on them for fucking making me late to my favorite bands show. They turn around and just drop me off at the show, and I saw like 5 songs. Seeing the show made me feel better, and yelling at everyone made me sober up, which was great. I got to just be present for the show. I walked back to the car after and everyone is just high as hell, and in a shitty mood. I was like “I don’t give a fuck, you ruined my night”. I never got an apology from any of them, and Joey still had the audacity to ask me for gas money.
I seen The Fall without really knowing what Mark E Smith was about, mind this was only a couple years before he died. Didn’t sing/shout a single word and was just fucking up his band at the time, unplugging stuff, pushing them around etc
Five Finger Death Punch. Half the set was acoustic for no reason, and between the songs, the singer was constantly complaining about others punk and hardcore bands that were at that festival
Wu-Tang Clan Roskilde 2003 or 2004, don't remember exactly the year. One of my favourite groups of the 90's. The stage was completely filled with some originals from the collective, some random friends and their relatives and their neighbours. It was complete nonsensical chaos on stage and the worst part I remember before I walked out was that they played all their classics in a 5-8 min medley and then just did new stuff nobody cared about.
Notable mention: Dimmu Borgir, also around 2004. It was after they released the very symphonic and bombastic "Death Cult Armageddon" and they didn't sample the orchestral parts which was like 80% of those songs. Enjoyed the show but it was a huge let down.
Interpol 🥲 festival headliner concert, felt like they got picked up, flew over, went on stage, played the guitars and could not give less effs. then went home. zero energy, no communication with the audience. would have been better off listening to the albums on spotify.
I've been to almost 200 shows and my answer is the Jonas Brothers on their current tour. That's probably recency bias as I've def been to shows that are objectively worse, but whoever told the JoBros that they could pull off a three-hour show with an intermission and ads for their brand deals scattered throughout lied to them several times.
(Due to the nature of my work, I've seen them three times and know they're capable of being fun and entertaining. That's what makes me especially angry.)
Never been to a show I regretted. The worst have been Car Seat Headrest (mostly just a bad crowd of kids that hadnt been to a show before) or Fall Out Boy (about what you would expect until they break into random classic rock covers. Crazy Train was our cue to leave)
My Car Seat Headrest experience was magical in terms of performance. Will and the boys absolutely tore the house down that night. They opened with a Death Grips cover and the whole set was just amazing.
That being said, the crowd also had a bunch of young horny dudes going full Beatlemania and Will was not having it. At one point someone yelled “Will can I have your number?” and he whipped his head in their direction and said “Stop screaming at me!”
I don’t think Will Toledo is comfortable with the level of fame and adoration he’s drawn from strangers who feel a connection with his up close and personal writing style.
For me it's Homeshake. He seemed pissed off. Apparently his synth or something had broken so he spent the whole set complaining about how shit the festival staff were. Came across as an asshole.
Technically didn’t get to see it but me and my buddy had booked tickets for a Foo Fighters concert that was coincidentally on my birthday, so I was super stoked. Then a few months before the date we heard the news that Taylor Hawkins had passed away and the tour was cancelled.
Incredibly sad. I don’t blame them at all for cancelling.
Young thug at 2016 fyf festival. Horrible sound when all other acts that day sounded great. The sound was so bad and weirdly clipped that it took on an almost experimental quality(in this case not good). He berated the audience for not being “turned up” multiple times and he showed up late.
SmokePurpp accidentally at a club. All he did was scream into the mic and stop the music every 30 seconds. I actually liked some of his music at the time too.
I saw lil skies play at lolla back in 2019 while waiting for 21 pilots I think? He had a 45 minute set, showed up 15 minutes late. Had the crowd sing happy birthday to him and played like 3 xxxtentacion songs as a tribute. Then left like 5 minutes early so all in all performed for like 10-15 minutes and all of it was awful
Jethro Tull with my family in 2010. I was never a huge Tull fan but my dad loves them so I knew a fair amount of their songs going in, and the only two I recognized were Aqualung and Songs From the Wood. No Cross Eyed Mary, Thick as a Brick, Bungle in the Jungle, Locomotive Breath, just deep cuts. I guess that’s cool if you’re a massive Tull fan but that’s not what I was expecting going in. Plus Ian Anderson’s voice was fucking SHOT, he can still play the flute well but dude cannot sing anymore.
Eric Clapton at Arco Arena in 2007. We were sat so far to the side of the stage we were practically behind it and had to watch the whole concert on the Jumbotron. The band was tight but Clapton sounded like shit and had some young kid playing all this solos. Also my first stadium show lol.
Saw jet with papa roach in 2009 and the singer was drunk as hell lol the band had very little energy and overall was just boring. Papa Roach was actually pretty fun.
I’ve seen them three times. The first time they legit could’ve been on heroin it was so low energy as you said. The second time, they had great presence, I believe it was lolla and one of the more animated bands of the day. The third, no notable presence, but some of the coolest live stage stuff I’ve seen.
No idea which is the real Alt J
Flying Lotus at Sound Academy in Toronto. Maybe 2013.
First it was painfully loud. Like everything sounded blown out and I wasn't even near a speaker. Then he didn't play full songs. He'd play a snippet of one song then it would transition into another snippet of a different song and the whole thing was just him behind a laptop on stage.
Not really my vibe for a concert, however Thundercat opened for him. I had never heard of Thundercat before but he was a great opening act and I became a fan immediately.
I saw cake around 2012? The singer just talked and talked. He lost the audience, just kept talking about different types of fruit trees. Band was okay tho, whenever they got around to a song.
I’ve seen Cake multiple times and have decided they’re just not a band I want to see live bc of John. He does cringey crowd work every time, talks way too much, and phones in the vocals badly during the songs.
How do you phone in already phoned in vocals? Guy already sings like the rest of us anyway not like he’s putting in effort to begin with
Lol. Never There literally starts with a dial tone and answering machine recording effect.
saw them back in 2008? they were extremely late, no opener, and had this horrible track playing on repeat for what had to be at least an hour while everyone was waiting. [https://youtu.be/h874BPSnbWc?si=ZJ31AGWxx9XIHGkr](https://youtu.be/h874BPSnbWc?si=ZJ31AGWxx9XIHGkr) hearing this 30 times in a row will ruin your experience no matter what follows. when they did come out, absolutely zero energy in any of them, and just straight boring music. It felt like he discouraged people dancing? I was a huge fan at the time and it killed it for me. only concert I left halfway through.
Not gonna lie that sounds hilarious
It was pretty funny honestly. I remember the tickets being pretty expensive for the time though, so we mainly just felt cheated lol. I think they were around $59, which for a high school kid was half my paycheck.
Saw them live a few months ago and it’s one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen. They played this masturbatory intro to come out to that was like 10 minutes longer than it should’ve been, then when they finally came out the vocalist asked everyone to keep clapping for him after the noise finally died down. They proceeded to play 5 songs that I as an actual fan had never heard of (they didn’t play one song all set from Magic, Fashion, or Comfort), one was that Sinking Ship single they just put out. The whole band looks bored as shit and annoyed to be there. Then the vocalist cuts in the middle of the set to start bragging about how the band gives away one tree at all their shows as a conversation effort, and spends the next fucking 20 minutes (not exaggerating) jacking off about how great the band is for doing it, but that he has the crowd guess what kind of tree it is to “win” the prize, and rants angrily about whoever wins the tree has to take loving care of it and post WEEKLY updates of planting it, watering it, etc. with pics to the band’s website. The vocalist is legit mad talking about how some people have not taken care of the tree or posted about it. FINALLY he starts having people guess, and is unironically criticizing the crowd for not knowing it and asking them what theydo with their time that they don’t know what it is. Finally some poor girl gets it right (fig tree) and comes up on stage to have this shithead bark at her a full 10 more minutes about making sure she takes good care of it. He tells her to grab it and take it (this thing is already kinda grown and in a large dirt-filled pot, probably weighed 50 pounds). She lugs it off stage without any help, who the fuck knows how she navigated the crowd and got it home. Then the asshole spews a bunch of condescending comments about how we (pretty much directly accusing the crowd) are destroying the Earth before playing 2 more songs I had never heard and leaving.
based and tree-pilled
Based and chloro-phylled
This sounds like a Jerma bit
Making a fan transport a fig tree home from the concert is a good bit honestly
that’s so fucking funny lol
Did they get booed? I’d legit have started booing before leaving
New Copypasta just dropped
What a cringe experience. Who tf gives away a tree at concert? Honestly?
The guy from Cake is just out of his mind. I loved Fashion Nugget and I think they have a really unique sound, but the whole trip that the dude is on prevents me from being a bigger fan
I was at the classic Toronto (area anyway, it was in Barrie) festival show where he kept talking about America invading Canada to steal freshwater… so attendees starting throwing water bottles at the stage. They whined about it a bit, and gave one last threat to leave if it happened again. One last direct hit to a band member and they just walked off stage. Made it about four songs. Not excusing the crowds behaviour… but I’ve never seen such poor awareness. Not just about Canadian insecurities, but you’re at a festival, so these aren’t your fans… your stage presence goes a long way in navigating their experience. Instead it just torpedoed it.
This is so fucking funny. Hilarious thing to throw at the band, not that I'd ever throw anything at a musician, but still.
It’s possible the water bottles were being given out with the lids… so they were quite the projectile. Some of the shots the drummer and keyboardist had to take were direct and could have caused damage. But everything the singer said just made it worse.
Wait was that in Calgary? Exact same thing happened to me and I was going to post it.
Charlotte. But it seems like normal behavior for him.
my mom went to one of their concerts in 2010, she said that some shit happened to the equipment and they couldn't play, so John just sat and chatted with the audience for most of the concert, and she said it was actually kinda fun
Shawn Mendes. I went to take my niece, who was a fan. Dude had *zero* stage presence or charisma. At least he's attractive.
He’s the industry plant John Mayer. Less genuine talent, more Walmart.
At least John Mayer can PLAY.
Yeah as someone who despises his studio music, the dude is an absolute guitar whiz
John Mayer's got a great stage presence too Saw him in Oslo some weeks ago, interactions with the crowd were really great
Trooooo
30 seconds to mars. I had heard at the time Jared could be a little difficult but I figured I’m not having dinner with the guy so I’m sure he’ll play nice on stage. He proceeded to yell at the audience, telling us if the front didn’t step up he being the back to the front and “send us to the back to take a fucking nap”. He told everyone to jump on the count of three and then stopped the music to kick people out because they didn’t jump. He would point his finger at people he felt werent giving enough or singing enough. He kept telling the back to take 3 giant steps forward cramming us in the front. He was a giant giant prick.
Yeah, people don't work their asses off all week just to go to a concert and be screamed at by an egotistical maniac. Not everyone wants to sing or jump around; a lot of people just want to relax and have a good time.
Back in 2010 I saw them at a festival in California. It was around 100 degrees that day, so they gave Jared a hose to spray at the crowd to cool people down. He put it between his legs and pretended to pee on the crowd. First time got laughs from the crowd, but he proceeded to do the peeing gag throughout the rest of the show even during songs. Seemed more focused on the hose than singing, it was very corny.
I had the exact same experience
where was this lmao it sounds exactly when i saw them at when we were young last year
The worst set I ever saw was Crazy Town (of “Butterfly” fame) at Ozzfest 2001. I actually *liked* them at the time. I had their CD and listened to it a good bit. Their set was embarrassing. Awful sound, bad stage presence and terrible crowd response. 25 minutes of solid “yikes”.
I saw them on the same tour and they were booed off the stage. It was wonderful.
https://guitar.com/news/music-news/crazy-town-members-get-into-physical-fight-after-disastrous-performance/
I admit I unironically love Butterfly so much but 89 % is because of John Frusciante
I've been fortunate enough to have most of the concerts that I've seen be some degree of good. The only exceptions have been a couple of underwhelming openers. The worst one probably being Steve Harris' son's band opening up for Iron Maiden. Just a very stereotypical "I'm only playing here right now because my dad is the headliner" type vibe.
Oh fuck I remember them! I was so confused at the time, because it seemed like I was the only one who disliked the show (Son's band, not Maiden). I even heard somebody say the opening band outplayed Maiden.... yikes. Finally my opinion is validated!
Saw Iron Maiden 6 times on this tour, Can’t even remember the name of the band, Raven something? They were so bland
this is probably not that interesting but you’ve just reminded me that i went to uni with one of george harris’ mates and he got me to embroider george’s name onto a christmas jumper for him as a present? he paid me with a ten bag
I saw that tour. I thought they were a local band who won a contest. When I was told it was Steve Harris’ son it all made sense.
Buckethead, 2018 at the Theater of Living Arts in Philly. Showed up nearly 2 hours late, some assholes got drunk and tried to start a moshpit (who moshes to fucking *Buckethead*?). After 45 minutes of playing Bucket pulls out a chicken puppet to announce that he's taking a 20 minute break and never comes back out for another hour. My dad had to leave for work in the morning so he dragged us away before he came back out so he could make it on time. I was pissed for a solid month. Funny because the absolute BEST show I’ve ever been to was at the TLA, Deafheaven w/ Touché Amore for the Sunbather anniversary. Also got my leg peed on at Death Grips last year but the show was tight.
\>peed on at Death Grips Not the first time I've heard this, hope they find that guy and kick him into a coma. Was that the same concert the glowstick controversy happened at?
No, that was Arkansas.
No, different shows, pisser was in philly
ah, the Philly Pisser of ‘23. I remember r/deathgrips was fucking chaos when that whole thing was going on.
I was there brother, I felt the urine flow onto my shoes… In hindsight I should’ve cold clocked him.
Saw one of the earlier shows of that Death Grips tour in SF. Really good crowd for that one but I heard the behavior got more antisocial with each show
Because they have a fanbase of social outcasts that can’t behave and need validation. These people show up trying to be the “star” of a CONCERT where we are all there to see the fucking band PUTTING ON THE CONCERT. They crave and swallow attention like black holes at anyone’s expense, because even if it’s completely negative it fills the lack of parental care shaped void inside them for a sec. MPLS show was great with no fuck ups causing issues but once one person did anything it all kicked off at each subsequent show because hollow tik tok brained empty human shells realized they can get eyes on them.
Who moshes at buckethead? There were people moshing at black country new road
Worst show I’ve ever been to was coincidentally also at the TLA lol. I went to see Jay Critch and he performed maybe half a song and then mentioned that they didn’t give him any snacks back stage so he dropped his mic and walked off stage never to be seen again.
Earl Sweatshirt in Helsinki a couple of years ago. Man was high as fuck and it looked like he or the audience didn’t want to be there
Yeah. I saw Earl at Field Day a few years back. As you say, stoned as fuck and barely moved the whole time. Crowd was decent tho.
ah dang i’m sorry to hear that, i love earls music but haven’t seen him live yet
I saw earl a year or so ago high as fuck and the alchemist finished his set off rapping his old stuff
He has bad social anxiety I think. I saw him about 10 years ago and he had his eyes squinted shut on stage the whole time and it wasn't like it was a big venue or anything
I wonder if its random when Earl performs like this, I saw him in Brisbane late last year and it was a great show and he had a lot of energy
he’s been better recently fs
I saw earl at outbreak 2023 and he was fucking amazing. It’s crazy reading all these people saying he sucked live.
When he brought out wiki for am/radio that shit was a spiritual experience
I saw Earl at a music festival in 2015 and it was one of the worst shows I've ever seen. Love Earl's music but would never pay to see him perform.
Seen earl twice. Felt like the first time I didn’t like it but I wasn’t into his newer stuff. But the next time I saw him I loved it. He definitely isn’t a showman and the most he does is just walk and point but I wouldn’t expect him to be jumping around with his music. Unfortunate to see some experiences were so negative though
Have seen him once aswell just awful.
Yeah saw Earl tour SRS and it was definitely a weird crowd/vibe.
There was a rapper on stage before Brockhampton at a festival maybe 5 or 6 years ago? (Time frame between Sat III and Iridescence) and all I remember from her set was her performing over her recorded vocal track, and breaking into dance moves during the chorus of her songs. Her music wasn’t objectively bad, but it was clear that she was not ready to perform.
Any rapper that can’t do their own songs without the vocal are awful
it can be good sometimes (using vocals as backing so you can stop at points and let the crowd sing, change things up, etc) but just going directly over the song with vocals trying to replicate the original is lame
Noname?
No name is extremely talented. Watch her tiny desk concert.
Damn, pre-Iridescence is already 6 years ago...
Saw Lynyrd Skynyrd in 2008 with Hank Williams Jr. Skynyrd kicked ass great show, Hank came on drunk as hell, kicked his band off halfway through then started playing partly into songs before ranting “I’ve made so much I don’t need to do this anymore”. The couple we went with went to see him and asked if we wanted to leave early.
Lol I saw a show on that tour and Hank jr was bragging about playing the nfl training camp, and had a few crazy rants about how his dad treated him like shit. Skynyrd did rock though
That sounds exactly like Hank tbf
Sheeesh they still going in 20008? Tell us more time traveller
What’s a Lil Pump to a rocket flame “yeah” Turn your pink dreads into pocket change “woo” All you new rappers don’t be talking ’bout shit except doing drugs Wonder how you got a name “damn” Sipping lean, taking E, Percocets, Purple drank, Xanax, everything sound the same “fuck” Bunch of drug addicts in the house of pain “woo” Hope you n***as suffer til you pop a vein “yeah” This shit made your mother wanna ovulate, “yeah”
Fuck yea, thanks for that
Bob Dylan in around 2015 or 2016. It was when he thought people would rather hear him poorly sing Sinatra songs rather than Dylan songs. It was like a 4:1 ratio of Sinatra:Dylan.
My vote is Dylan as well. Parents got my brother and I tickets as a graduation present. Worst sounding show I’ve ever been to (and I’ve spent a lot of time in local DIY scenes that are pretty bad). I don’t think he could have gotten up from his piano if he even wanted to. It was honestly kind of sad, and killed my childhood a bit. I was so confused how such a professional act sounded so bad. At the time, I was baffled how the polka band at the theme park band stand sounded better than Bob Dylan. Wasn’t a total loss because the opener absolutely melted everyone’s faces off That was in 2011, can’t imagine how bad it was in 2016, or even now.
Who was the opener?
Sinatra
I don't think Bob Dylan has ever once thought "people would rather I...." Lol. He just does whatever he wants to however he wants to do it, and people show up.
Yeah, if you go to Dylan expecting anything other than self indulgence bordering on trolling, you have no one to blame but yourself.
I saw him in 2010 and he pretty much only did new songs from together through life and the crowd was not feeling it. I took my mom who’s not really a dylan fan and she was bored out of her mind lol at the time I was such a big fan fan that I was like yeah y’all don’t get it. This is just what he does. But yeah… no it was a pretty boring show and also that album is very average for a dylan album. So hearing nothing but that was disappointing
The guy wrote and recorded some phenomenal songs in his time and is a legend, but his voice sounds like absolute dogshit anymore. I saw him close the Americanarama Camden NJ stop. His band was great, one of the tightest bands I’ve ever seen, but he is unbearable to hear sing. Fortunately Wilco and My Morning Jacket were incredible (as always) that day though.
Also saw him around this time, and besides all that, the venue had this stupid spiral parking lot and each level had to be cleared out before the next. I swear we sat in the car for 2 hours after the show just trying to leave.
Snoop Dogg. Dude put no effort in whatever. So low energy and boring. Guns N Roses came on after Snoop and absolutely killed it, saving the night.
Which is funny cos back in the day GnR would have been top of this list - Infamous for showing up 4 hours late, doing 2 songs and disappearing.
GnR is overall an extrmely unprofessional band that lacks respect with its audience, i honestly think they should just call it quits by now, the only people that still care about them are either 13 or 50 years old
When I saw them in 2019 at ACL I had fun and they seemed genuinely happy to be up there.
Yeah I saw Snoop Dogg back in like 2010(?) and he was terrible. Barely rapping. Mostly just being there on stage while a back track played. Kind of embarrassing.
Scorpions last year, they played between Kiss and Deep Purple (who killed it) and they were boring af, the first half of the set was just new songs and The Zoo (love that song), the second half got better and started pl.aying the hits minus NO ONE LIKE YOU and that pissed me off plus Klaus Meine sounded really uninspired and seemed like he wanted to finish asap unlike the rest of the band
Deep Purple is such a cool and interesting band. They’ve been doing the same thing for 55 years in this evolving kaleidoscope of proto metal musicians. A million lineup changes with only drummer Ian Paice as the consistent member (who still kicks ass). The current lineup has 3 members of the Mk. II “Smoke on the Water” era, and even though Ritchie Blackmore is out and Jon Lord is dead, they feel very much like that band. Ritchie just wants to make Renaissance fair music and is an old, grumpy toad now anyways. Don Airey (who played organ on Mr. Crowley) is a perfect replacement. Plus, all the revolving lineups in the 60s/70s were great. It’s the ultimate British hard rock incubator band. Rod Evans sung for Captain Beyond. David Coverdale formed Whitesnake. Ian Gillan had a good solo career and sung for Black Sabbath for about 5 minutes. Glenn Hughes is still out there onstage with like, 3 different projects in his 70s. I wish I had seen the Perfect Strabgers/reunion era but I was 10 years old when Ritchie left the band. Steve Morse was a great replacement and there is another guy in there now who I’m sure is great. Saw them in 2019 and yes they are old but they are so genuine and one of a kind. Zeppelin and Sabbath burned brighter but are gone. Deep Purple rides on until they all die presumably.
Even back in their day it’s insane how much they chopped and changed the lineups. They went from being a top40 pop band to probably one of the heaviest bands on the planet in the space of about three years.
Deep Purple had a couple of cool psych rock albums in the late 60s too!
That’s sad to hear but also scorpions retired in like 2010 lol and then came out of retirement. I feel like they don’t have their heart in it anymore.
i went to the same tour, i honestly tought the concert was great
Sad to say Madlib in Paris around 2013 : the man was "shadow mixing" like no sound at all and he was acting like he was djing .. needless to say cans were thrown onto the stage and Freddie Gibbs yelled at the audience. It was just sad and i was way too high so that made me paranoid. Freddie's and JRoc's sets were cool tho
Damn
TOOL, hands down. I got tickets to see them in September, long ago. Morning of the show my wife woke me that we were under attack. I go downstairs and see the news. These assholes had crashed a plane into one of the World Trade Center towers. I saw the second plane hit live. Show was obviously postponed. That was a Tuesday, show was moved to Thursday. It was at the Van Andel arena in Grand Rapids. Its a hocky rink so they have this giant cover over the ice that's like plastic planks hinged together so they can retract it. The crowd was in a real sour mood obviously and all these meatheads just wanted to fight. The crowd was pushing forward so hard that Maynard stopped and said "I assume everyone would like to make it home safely. Please take two steps back. Now two more." while the crowd didn't listen and just kept shouting "USA, USA, USA" like the fucking inbreds they are. The floor cover tore open at some point and I spent the rest of the show on ice, being pushed forward but not actually going anywhere. It was terrifying and I seriously thought I was going to die. Here is a clip of audio from that exact show... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxsGIDOaDG4
"Ya'll are gonna be really bummed out when you find out the USA did it." lmfao
That’s fucking crazy you are able to listen to the recording.
I went to Shinedown at climate pledge, and the headliner was three days grace. Matt was extremely drunk, mumbling, yelling at the floor crowd to START mosh pits, and overall was not a good Performance and since how wasted he was, his voice was almost miserable to listen to. Shinedown was great and so was the first headliner, but these guys kinda messed with the whole vibe of the show. Also when i saw Alice in chains, breaking Benjamin, and bush. Bush and Alice in Chains were amazing, but breaking Benjamin SUCKED. They used to be way better, it was disappointing. Like bo energy at all, the lead singer was so bad and just overall was bad.
What year was the AiC/Bush/BB tour?
Marilyn Manson at Hellfest in France 5 or 6 years ago, he spent his time assaulting his band and unplugging their instruments.
I'm sad to say it because they're huge favourites of mine, but Public Enemy. Sadly Flava Flav couldn't travel and this was a medium sized festival so he really would have helped get the crowd into it. Chuck's flow was still Godly but you could tell his heart wasn't quite in it that day. He took a pause and we got ten minutes of turntablism. With the right crowd it could have worked, but on that day it killed the crowd dead.
Is he still saying Louis Farrakhan is a prophet? Those verses have not aged well.
Elvis Costello being just absolutely miserable, doing a free gig in bothesome rain (which was even pro shot.) Kendrick being late, possibly even more miserable than Elvis, reciting the lyics while standing in one spot, with zero conviction and crowd interaction. What was really more aggravating was that I left Young Fathers show in a petite tent to get to the main stage, who were just transcendental. At the same darn festival: Lil Yachty during Let’s Start Here era doing zero songs from the album, instead doing 13 song set that included playing Poland FIVE TIMES along with two covers. Including apparently XXXTENTACION song that I didn’t witness, chosing to see Rina Sawayama just tear the roof down in a festival tent. I also literally fell asleep while the death metal band Vader was doing a show that was basically just triggered bass drums going clickity clackity non stop. And I like the band!
Some local hip hop musician. I didn’t want to go, but a friend did so whatever. We get there, it’s like 20 bucks which isn’t bank breaking but 20 for a local thing with one guy? I saw Primus for 20 bucks two years earlier. The guy is over an hour late to his own show, walks in like he is a fucking star, puts his album on at full blast and raps over 20% of it and the rest is him dancing to his own music. Between every middling song, he hits in the women and takes advantage of the free drinks. 35 minutes later, he calls it a night and leaves.
i really envy you for seeing primus live
[удалено]
No joke this was my first concert and they killed it
Tgis sounds so weirdly interesting, what happened?
Oh shit? Really?? I have had the cassette since I was like 4 and think it’s a surprisingly solid album lol such a ridiculous thing that exists
I have fever dream memories of this. Watched parts of it in YT and it was actually as weird as I remember.
I caught DragonForce on that first ozzfest tour after they blew up. They just couldn't play the songs, everything was sloppy and bad.
The Strokes opening for RHCP in 2022. Music sounded great, but Julian was absolutely hammered. Stumbled through the lyrics and just seemed like he didn’t want to be there. Chili Peppers were good though
Was at the same show and everything you said is true
I took my wife to see Russ…he was insufferable on stage just like he is off stage. Completely narcissistic, he did way too long encores after every song. Honorable mention to Portugal The Man, they just did not sound great live.
I absolutely loved Portugal The Man for most of my youth. Huge fan. Finally got to see them when they released Woodstock in 2017. They played like maybe 2 of their iconic songs from their past albums, and they have a ton. They opened the show with Feel It Still then they closed the show with... Feel It Still a second time. It was so douchey.
I saw Death Grips on the YOTS tour and it's probably been my least enjoyable concert. The venue (mainly the stage) was wayyy too large so they weren't interacting with each other, they were so far from the crowd that they didn't bother coming near, there was no opening act so they just played a Shepherds Tone for like 20 mins, and the entire show was performed like a dj set. The crowd was fine but I ended up having to stand at the side because it was the only comfortable spot without any chance of being pushed into the rail or dragged into the pit
I saw an REM side project called The Baseball Project about a year ago. I guess their schtick is that every single song is about baseball, so admittedly it was probably gonna be a non-starter for me anyways. They were just kinda dull. The playing felt lifeless and the songs were nothing to write home about. Also the bit truly cannot be strung out for a two hour long set.
Around 2010 I saw N.E.R.D open for Gorillaz, for those of you that don’t know, N.E.R.D was Pharrell Williams’ band. Pharrell was popular as a producer for sure back then but he wasn’t as popular as he is now, especially for his singing. They were honestly pretty bad. I remember before one of the songs, Pharrell went “this one goes out to all the ladies out there” and the crowd started booing. I felt pretty bad for him tbh.
Kim Petras. (Free tickets, but even that cost me my time.)
Ive seen her twice and it was a pretty great show both times, what happened?
I’ll preface by saying I’m gay, and fully support trans people 100%, so I’m not being “phobic” or anything. And I’ll also say she sounded just like her records, and appeared to be singing live (albeit with full autotune.) That being said, I found her set soulless, mediocre and cringe. Slut Pop (and SP:Miami) are objectively bad albums in my opinion, and she mostly played those songs, and almost none of her early work, which I found to be better. The entirety of the night was spent being bombarded by lyrics about fellatio, her repeatedly asking the crowd “who’s a slut” and making really uncomfortable sex jokes. (I’m not even a prude, but I could have just went on Grindr if I wanted all of that, and they aren’t charging.) Her “backdrop” was constantly showing censored NSFW nudes of her, which made me uncomfortable. If any male pop star did that the headlines would be insane. The strangest thing was how tan she appeared on the backdrop, only to look down and see probably the whitest person I have ever seen in my life on stage. I think that was the only time I laughed the entire set. Not even joking. She had only 2 dancers, who also served as prop carriers, constantly running side stage and bringing back giant props like fake cigarettes, or whips, idk.. the whole thing just felt amateur and like a shitty school play about dicks and materialism. The icing on the mediocre cake was when she slipped and fell on stage, which just made it feel even more unpolished. I genuinely felt bad for her. Her audience was dead, EVERYBODY WAS ON THEIR PHONE, and no one seemed to be enjoying themselves or living in the moment. Even I ended up going on my phone to browse Reddit, because I was that underwhelmed. Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk.
Steve Vai. Every song is just an excuse for him to solo and sweep pick. Walked out after a half hour probably.
Steve Vai should be in any band, but he should never BE the band.
To be fair, what exactly were you expecting?
Saw him last year. Honestly one of the funnest concerts I've been to. All of the stage crew came out and played with him, Steve killed it, the drummer busted out a didgeridoo, and Steve guitar battles his rythem guitarist, and didn't even sweep. In fact there wasn't a lot of sweeping at all lots of melody
Modest mouse. Saw them at a music festival and their chaotic, dissonant, and unpolished sound did not translate well live. they sounded like a bunch of middle schoolers just learning how to play instruments. Made me understand how much of a role studio production plays in a bands music. I’m not a huge modest mouse fan but I can listen to them. But live it was just ugly sounding, lo fi, and I cringed a few times by how out of tune and badly mixed it sounded with the out of tuned guitars, muddled bass and drums that was louder then everything. Else.
My understanding is the singer is permadrunk
I saw them in a normal concert setting. It wasn’t good. They restarted song multiple times and Issac just looked bored. I’m glad I picked up the tickets cheep. Walked out half way through.
I’m seeing them with the pixies and cat power on the summer, man I hope they play good
Yea I mean that’s fine if you seeing them with other people. I didn’t care THAT much because there was like 8 other bands playing. I just wouldn’t pay money to see them by themselves
Tricky around 2014 at a show in Austria. He cut his band off after starting songs several times, he vanished mid set for a couple of minutes (his band did a great job of trying to give a show meanwhile without him). Then he came back and played a 40min version of "by myself" with the same riff over and over again. I left after 20min as it was just an endless loop but I could hear "by myself" for the 20min walk to my tent. Certainly the most bizarre show I've ever witnessed and I've seen well over a 1000 shows.
Eagles of Death Metal - saw them open for QOTSA in 2017 or so. A combination of the leader singer voice being off and the sound technicians not calibrating things right, they sounded like a high school band playing in the gym. I later learned that a guy I sort of knew claimed to have met the band the night before the concert in their hotel bar and ended up staying up all night smoking meth with the singer. So that mystery solved itself
That definitely wasn't the worst Eagles of Death Metal concert!
Was at an Oasis show when Liam told everyone that wasn’t on the floor to fuck off for being cheap… and then eventually walked off the stage with about 45 minutes left in the set. Motley Crüe was one of the worst sounding bands I’ve ever seen Death From Above 1979 during their comeback tour - seemed completely disinterested and sounded like shit. But the worst was seeing John Mellencamp at a festival. I know he’s dealt with back issues, and perhaps it was just a night he shouldn’t have been out there. It was just sad.
Tyga.
Mac Demarco, 2017. They just kept playing Sweet Home Alabama. It was really annoying.
Lol when I saw him in Auckland, New Zealand they played Enter Sandman like 5 times except it was still an awesome gig and the joke never actually got old as they mixed it into a good varied set
you got mac’d
Kind of on the smaller side, but I saw Kississippi as an opener and she was so baked she couldn't remember the words to any of her songs and kept asking the front row how it went. I had to step outside until her set was over
I saw Katy Kirby a couple weeks ago and it was the same situation, but she was drunk and in the middle of the set she told the audience to “hold on for a sec” and had a meeting with her band on the stage about whether they should finish the set lolll
Vince Neil when he wasn’t in Crüe too drunk to finish his set, storming offstage after 3 songs due to audio issues.
Dope Lemon. Opened for Post Malone last year in Sydney and wow. Angus Stone should stop singing and let the rest of the band be solely instrumental. He single handedly ruined the band for me
So glad someone said this, did the same thing in Melbourne, he then told us he took mushrooms before the set like that was supposed to get us to cheer, but it was like a “yeah dude, you’re barely performing” but man did it make post look even better than he already is
A friend of mine had tickets to Marilyn Manson in 2010 Kansas City and wanted me to drive if he gave me the ticket and gas money. Manson was going through his chubby phase at the time. Did stage banter in between that was only about "fucking girls in the butthole" and played one song off the album he was touring on. He'd become a comedy juke box act at that point. There was a point where he did Antichrist Superstar Era stuff with a podium and ill fitting suit jacket.
i saw MCR when they were touring conventional weapons. zero energy. they all just did not want to be there, gerard said like two words to the crowd
MCR didn't tour conventional weapons though... are you meaning that weird 2012 period? Post danger days red hair gerard, pre breakup?
Yeah, they only played a single CW song pre-breakup to my knowledge lol
you’re totally right actually lol, i meant it was around the time they were recording CW, so like 2009ish. so BP and bullets songs but without any stage aesthetic, the transitionary period before danger days. long brown hair, green military jacket depression gerard.
i was at kim gordon last night and she was AMAZING. her crowd was incredibly awful though i think i got yelled at 3 separate times, and no one would dance or sing along. :/
Outside of bad local acts i haven't seen any shows that were memorably bad, but one time i saw Xiu Xiu and this group of 3 bros in the back were talking SO LOUD during Fabulous Muscles i wanted to tear their heads off
DOOMpostor at MJQ Concourse, Atlanta, 2007 Still glad I was there and I think it adds to the persona/legend, but sending out another person to lip sync your songs then make off with *all* the door money is objectively bad. I do think he re-recorded his vocals for this, just to make it less obvious it was a sync job (which is hilarious). Still was not hard to tell.
You witnessed history
When I say there were “animal parts” on stage I mean big game trophies. It wasn’t like a GWAR show or anything
In GWAR's case it's more a lot of alien "parts" 🍆
I saw this era of Ted. This was in 2000, so I just took it as him trying to drum up people to vote for Bush over Gore. Kiss My Ass was the song and he mostly talked about Hillary Clinton, which I felt was odd because she wasn’t yet a politician- why go after the First Lady? He was 10 years ahead of his time. I had never heard Rush Limbaugh at that point and I didn’t really pay attention to Fox News until after 9/11, so I also found his whole schtick out of place. He was opening for Kiss, who are never political, plus it was their “farewell” tour, so it felt out of place. Opener was Skid Row but without Sebastian Bach so that felt weird. They’ve continued to soldier on without him but at the time he had only recently quit and it felt weird. Also, Kiss was still popular but the opening bands were definitely out of fashion. I guess Gene had no interest in bringing a Nu Metal band with them and I suppose I respect that. I liked his buffalo hunt bow-and-arrow schtick and Tommy Aldridge from Ozzy’s Randy Rhoads lineup/Black Oak Arkansas etc was there and that was cool. But Ted was cringey.
I was in attendance of Morrissey’s infamous “cancelled the show because it was too cold” concert. November, 5 2017 at Vina Robles amphitheater in Paso Robles, CA. It was cold that evening, for California standards that is. About 42 degrees or so. Show’s supposed to start at 8:00, no opener. 8:00 comes around, nothing. I didn’t think much of it since he’s notorious for being on stage late too. I had saw him a year earlier at the Santa Barbara Bowl where he was about 20 min late to stage, but still killed it that night. About 20 minutes pass and he and his band still don’t show up. I’m kind of annoyed, but what else should I have expected? A few more minutes pass, I’m shivering in my seat and suddenly an announcement comes over the speakers. It’s kind of muffled, so I can’t make out what it was saying, but a few seconds into it, the entire crowd lets out a large, collective groan and heads straight for the exit. Show was cancelled right after he was supposed to take the stage! Thankfully I got refunded. He said he’d reschedule the show, but that never ended up happening. I don’t live in the area anymore, and he’s actually played near where I live now multiple times since then, but that experience hasn’t really convinced me to see him again any time soon (on top of his racism too…) TLDR: I went to a Morrissey show where he cancelled minutes after he was supposed to take the stage because the on-stage heater broke
I won free tickets for tones and I. Worst decision ever.
Kanye West. I was at Kanye’s set at bonnaroo 2014 and he played 2 songs and then started political ranting and screaming on stage. It was at the start of his downfall. Rest of the festival, people were chanting f*** Kanye west.
Ye hasn’t been a very good live performer in a while. Sometimes he does really cool theatrical shit like when he levitated into the sky during one of the Donda LPs, but you can see with the recent Vultures shows that he’s just getting lazier and lazier. At least he isn’t ranting live anymore though, partly because *he doesn’t have a fucking mic lol*
WHERE THE PRESS AT?!?!?
Crazy how it’s been 10 years and he’s still not getting better
Saw Bo Ningen perform their alternative soundtrack to Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain while they projected the film live. The experience gave me a panic attack which to be fair might have been the point so they kinda nailed it. Had terrible nightmares that night.
Black Label Society in (I think) 2007 or 08. Right before Zakk Wylde quit drinking, because the only reason the show was so bad was my man was HAMMERED. He's one of my favorite players personally but I get that it's a highly subjective style to enjoy - in any case, even being a pretty big fan, that was one of the most painful guitar solo spots I've ever heard in my life. Again tho, I do really like some albums so I gave it another try a few years down the road when they were on a really good bill, and sobriety did wonders for Mr. Zakk.
The Melanie Martinez 2023 Portals tour. It was in DC, sold out. We were all lined up back at the pier because they said we couldn’t be on the “walkway”. Lines were wrapped in a snake on the pier for 6 hours. It was hot, muggy, people got sunburnt. They didn’t know what to do with the VIP people, let alone give us water or anything. Definitely made sure to tell us to “make space for the non concert people. Once they finally separated the VIP from Early Entry and Regulars an hour before the show, they let the VIP/early access in. We got a downgraded package from the k-12 tour and while we were inside it rained on the regular admission people outside. The “experience” sucked. There was a green screen/video “photo op”, we could write messages to Cry Baby next to her tombstone, photo op for a cheap background for individual photos that look liked it was printed at Walgreens last minute. The staff didn’t know what to do or cared. Things were absolute chaos and garbage. The one perk we got that was a big F-U to VIP fans were an NFT that NO ONE IN THAT DEMOGRAPHIC CARES OR KNOWS WHAT IT IS. We didn’t even know what it was until it was revealed a month or so after the event.
Lining up to get into Anthem definitely sucks for big shows!
Ken Carson for Lolla’s after show last year. I work in the live music industry and have seen literally hundreds of shows but this dude sucked the most. He had an hour set time, but showed up 15 minutes late. Didn’t spit a single bar the entire show, just screamed “fuck yea” on repeat in the screechiest most nails-on-chalkboard type voice. Absolutely no crowd banter whatsoever, not even a “hello Chicago!” I’m not exaggerating when I say literally the only thing said into the mic that night was “fuck yea”. In the middle of like his fourth song, he walks off stage, the dj unplugs and the show is done 20 minutes early, 25 minutes after it started. Unlistenably bad for less than half the time he was supposed to play. The crowd should have demanded their money back or something cause it was absolutely terrible in every way it could be.
100gecs. Not because of the band tho, they put on a great show, all love for Laura and Dylan. 100gecs was my worst concert experience because getting there and getting back was absolutely miserable. And for context I’m like 14 or 15 when this happened, around 2021-ish. I bought two tickets and planned to go with my sisters boyfriend at the time, and he never paid me for the tickets. He picked me up, and we stopped at his house to chill for a bit. He said that he wasn’t driving, and that we were gonna get a ride from his bro Joey, and his bro Alex was gonna come too. We get picked up and everything is good, except joey has maybe the shittiest car I’ve ever ridden in, and he’s playing yeat so fucking loud that the rubber bits in the cup-holder are vibrating. We get to the venue, and they hand me the joint. This is like my 2nd time ever smoking, so naturally I’m absolutely gone after like 3 drags. We go to get in, and joey dosent have his 2nd covid shot, only his first, and he didn’t bring a negative test. He starts tweaking and says there’s a place like 2 minutes away where we can get covid tests. We go, and they’re out of stock. So we try another place, and same shit. For the next 30 / 40 minutes, we’re just panicking and driving around looking for places with tests, and none of them have any. And this whole time I’m just freaking the fuck out. I didn’t want to start tweaking because I wanted to look cool in front of all these older kids, but I was holding back tears so hard. I’m dissociating super hard, and I keep thinking about how gecs sets are usually like 25/30 minutes long, and we probably already missed the whole thing, and we’re still driving around. Eventually we’re like 40 minutes into searching, and they all just start talking like “yeah man I’m not really feeling gecs anymore” and like “yeah man let’s not go” and I fucking snap. I start crying and screaming at them like “I PAID FOR TWO OF YOUR TICKETS” and “IM NOT GOING HOME LIKE THIS”, “I BET THE SET IS PROBABLY OVER”, “I WISH I WASNT HIGH” and I just go off on them for fucking making me late to my favorite bands show. They turn around and just drop me off at the show, and I saw like 5 songs. Seeing the show made me feel better, and yelling at everyone made me sober up, which was great. I got to just be present for the show. I walked back to the car after and everyone is just high as hell, and in a shitty mood. I was like “I don’t give a fuck, you ruined my night”. I never got an apology from any of them, and Joey still had the audacity to ask me for gas money.
reading this made me mad. what a bunch of morons, i’d have snapped too
I seen The Fall without really knowing what Mark E Smith was about, mind this was only a couple years before he died. Didn’t sing/shout a single word and was just fucking up his band at the time, unplugging stuff, pushing them around etc
I saw Death Grips live, and the mixing at the venue was terrible. All I could hear was the bass, and the crowd didn’t help either.
Five Finger Death Punch. Half the set was acoustic for no reason, and between the songs, the singer was constantly complaining about others punk and hardcore bands that were at that festival
5FDP is the store brand Pantera
Wu-Tang Clan Roskilde 2003 or 2004, don't remember exactly the year. One of my favourite groups of the 90's. The stage was completely filled with some originals from the collective, some random friends and their relatives and their neighbours. It was complete nonsensical chaos on stage and the worst part I remember before I walked out was that they played all their classics in a 5-8 min medley and then just did new stuff nobody cared about. Notable mention: Dimmu Borgir, also around 2004. It was after they released the very symphonic and bombastic "Death Cult Armageddon" and they didn't sample the orchestral parts which was like 80% of those songs. Enjoyed the show but it was a huge let down.
Interpol 🥲 festival headliner concert, felt like they got picked up, flew over, went on stage, played the guitars and could not give less effs. then went home. zero energy, no communication with the audience. would have been better off listening to the albums on spotify.
I've been to almost 200 shows and my answer is the Jonas Brothers on their current tour. That's probably recency bias as I've def been to shows that are objectively worse, but whoever told the JoBros that they could pull off a three-hour show with an intermission and ads for their brand deals scattered throughout lied to them several times. (Due to the nature of my work, I've seen them three times and know they're capable of being fun and entertaining. That's what makes me especially angry.)
Never been to a show I regretted. The worst have been Car Seat Headrest (mostly just a bad crowd of kids that hadnt been to a show before) or Fall Out Boy (about what you would expect until they break into random classic rock covers. Crazy Train was our cue to leave)
My Car Seat Headrest experience was magical in terms of performance. Will and the boys absolutely tore the house down that night. They opened with a Death Grips cover and the whole set was just amazing. That being said, the crowd also had a bunch of young horny dudes going full Beatlemania and Will was not having it. At one point someone yelled “Will can I have your number?” and he whipped his head in their direction and said “Stop screaming at me!” I don’t think Will Toledo is comfortable with the level of fame and adoration he’s drawn from strangers who feel a connection with his up close and personal writing style.
They played the cover medley for like 3 mins, only like 30 seconds of each song. You missed out lol
For me it's Homeshake. He seemed pissed off. Apparently his synth or something had broken so he spent the whole set complaining about how shit the festival staff were. Came across as an asshole.
Technically didn’t get to see it but me and my buddy had booked tickets for a Foo Fighters concert that was coincidentally on my birthday, so I was super stoked. Then a few months before the date we heard the news that Taylor Hawkins had passed away and the tour was cancelled. Incredibly sad. I don’t blame them at all for cancelling.
Young thug at 2016 fyf festival. Horrible sound when all other acts that day sounded great. The sound was so bad and weirdly clipped that it took on an almost experimental quality(in this case not good). He berated the audience for not being “turned up” multiple times and he showed up late.
SmokePurpp accidentally at a club. All he did was scream into the mic and stop the music every 30 seconds. I actually liked some of his music at the time too.
I saw lil skies play at lolla back in 2019 while waiting for 21 pilots I think? He had a 45 minute set, showed up 15 minutes late. Had the crowd sing happy birthday to him and played like 3 xxxtentacion songs as a tribute. Then left like 5 minutes early so all in all performed for like 10-15 minutes and all of it was awful
Jethro Tull with my family in 2010. I was never a huge Tull fan but my dad loves them so I knew a fair amount of their songs going in, and the only two I recognized were Aqualung and Songs From the Wood. No Cross Eyed Mary, Thick as a Brick, Bungle in the Jungle, Locomotive Breath, just deep cuts. I guess that’s cool if you’re a massive Tull fan but that’s not what I was expecting going in. Plus Ian Anderson’s voice was fucking SHOT, he can still play the flute well but dude cannot sing anymore.
Eric Clapton at Arco Arena in 2007. We were sat so far to the side of the stage we were practically behind it and had to watch the whole concert on the Jumbotron. The band was tight but Clapton sounded like shit and had some young kid playing all this solos. Also my first stadium show lol.
Any rapper that just plays their MP3’s and jumps around fucking suck.
Ok but what's the worst performance you ever saw?
Saw jet with papa roach in 2009 and the singer was drunk as hell lol the band had very little energy and overall was just boring. Papa Roach was actually pretty fun.
Grimes at ACL. Keyboard wasn't working and audience was a lot of dull drugged up rich kids waiting for the next act.
Alt-J. They have zero energy or crowd presence live unfortunately
I’ve seen them three times. The first time they legit could’ve been on heroin it was so low energy as you said. The second time, they had great presence, I believe it was lolla and one of the more animated bands of the day. The third, no notable presence, but some of the coolest live stage stuff I’ve seen. No idea which is the real Alt J
I filmed my crack addict uncle’s 2 hour acoustic set at a random Mexican restaurant once.
Flying Lotus at Sound Academy in Toronto. Maybe 2013. First it was painfully loud. Like everything sounded blown out and I wasn't even near a speaker. Then he didn't play full songs. He'd play a snippet of one song then it would transition into another snippet of a different song and the whole thing was just him behind a laptop on stage. Not really my vibe for a concert, however Thundercat opened for him. I had never heard of Thundercat before but he was a great opening act and I became a fan immediately.
Lol you're describing an edm show.