Following on from the thread about support acts.... who is the worst act you have seen live? I'm torn between 2 for very different reasons.
Kings of Leon at Reading in 2009 were musically perfect but had no charisma and couldn't get the crowd going the way Kaiser Chiefs had before them. Quite soon they were getting pissed off and eventually stormed off stage.
In November last year The Coral supported Courteeners and were just awful. Too many instruments all fighting for attention and it ended up as just tuneless noise for the most part. Thankfully Courteeners and The Snuts made the gig a success with blinding performances
The Farm and Primal Scream spring to mind as being particularly bad.
Christian Death at the London Astoria. We and a lot of other people were there to see Hunters Club supporting.
They played to a back drop of death camp scenes and when the singer brought his son on the chant " I am death" the audience responded with " your daddy's a ****er."
I was at that KOL gig in reading.
shocking. quite possibly the worst performance ever.
Flaming Lips at the Astoria 2 were a massive disappointment, just a terrible din.
This was before "Yoshimi", probably promoting Hit To Death in the Future Head - an album I loved, along with In A Priest Driven Ambulance.
Foo Fighters - London Wembley
Haven't listen to them again.
i saw reef just after they got famous with that sony minidisc advert. the crypt in Hastings I think.
lead singer was so drunk he kept falling off the stage.
I remember being disappointed with Midlake when I saw them live, they felt leaden and plodding. On the other hand other people who were at the same gig (O2 ABC Glasgow, 2010) have commented on this forum that they thought the gig was great, it just goes to show there's a subjective element to it all.
I saw MGMT at Barrowlands the same year and they weren't very good either. Northwind can back me up on that one.
Flaming Lips at the Astoria
I saw FL supporting the Chili Peppers and thought they were awful.
One memorable shocker was Die Toten Hosen supporting, I think, Therapy?. They didn't go down very well.
Guns N Roses once Axle got fat.
It ceased being a rock band and became the demented mewing of a stray cat that had suffered an aneurism.
My worst. a perfect circle at the Astoria 2003, think it was a pre tour or pre festival warm up gig. Performed for less than 30 mins then Maynard leaves the stage. The rest of the band just jammed for another 30 mins out of embarrassment I think.
At the time I would buy a few tickets for any gig I wanted to go to and see if any mates wanted to join me. No one did that night so I also ended up offloading the spares at a huge loss to a tout. So not only was it a shit gig but it cost me loads too.
Pitchshifter, I forget who they were supporting but they were dire.
The Pogues during Shane's 'too drunk to stand' period.
It Bites. Aylesbury Civic Centre circa 1986.
No heroes were called.
Oh man, I went to some cracking Pitchshifter gigs back in the day (late 90's), they used to generate a proper whirlwind of limbs, BO and dreadlocked lunatics.
Must have caught them on a bad night.
Also, I was persuaded to go and see Muse at Benicassim in about 2007.
My friend thought I'd like them, but I just thought it was an overblown racket with waaaaay too many notes.
Dunno if they were below their normal standard, or just always sound like that.
I saw Metronomy live at the Albert Hall a few years back.
They were atrocious. I know their style is minimal but they all looked so bored to be there and barely spoke between songs. There was no atmosphere, the live renditions of their songs weren't different in any way except being slightly less well-tuned and there was no other or new material. By the end of the gig I'm pretty sure a lot of the crowd were bored by them as well.
Saw pavement at Leeds festival just before they broke up. They were so bored and so was I.
I’ve seen the kings of Leon at a couple of festivals now. They were really underwhelming.
I saw The Fall about 15 years ago - Mark E Smith was wasted and the songs were barely recognisable, he lurched around for a bit and then mumbled ‘bleeearrrrgggh **** off’ at the end..
1981, won tickets...
John Cooper Clarke was awesome, but I wasn’t ready for 4 boys stood behind synths. So dull. I actually had a review printed in the NME, which I was very chuffed about.
There have been others, usually ones picked by friends 😉 eg. Embrace: christ almighty, its A GIG, not a bloody singalong! The Coral were pretty bad when they decided to go off on a 20minute jam session, tedious.
oh, and I’ve mentioned Lost Prophets before: they were shit and the paedo’s Mike Patton impersonation was so bad I went down the front to shout abuse at him when they finished, but I couldn’t get close enough as he was surrounded by clueless kids autograph hunting. Most of them girls, which would be sickening, but they were probably too old for the sick bastard.
Can you pop pickers remember this band's scandal? 😆
I saw the strokes supporting Foo Fighters in Manchester and thought they were awful. Some guy in a Chinese takeaway after wanted to fight me because I said they were shit.
Chilli peppers weren't great and man city's ground either, they kind of lost the audience when flea started saying people shouldn't have boo'd the support act, which was some all girl rock bamd that just kept banging on about politics and we're really shit. James Brown was the other support act though an he was ****ing awesome!!
Can you pop pickers remember this band’s scandal?
Of course, but surely it was only a scandal if you actually cared about them.
Tool, at Milton Keynes. No interaction whatsoever, no interesting playing or Events, just the band hiding in the corners, Maynard in his pants standing up t he back of the stage facing away from the crowd for the entire show. It was technically excellent of course but you might as well have just put on the CD and put some cardboard cutouts on the stage, at least they might have blown over or something to add some interest. I've seen less capable performances of course but never a worse gig.
First time I saw Biffy, I thought they were the shittest thing I've ever seen. It's not often I'll actually take the piss while a band's still on stage, even if I don't like it I can usually at least appreciate musicianship or whatever. But when they did Hope For An Angel I almost died laughing. Oh it's gone really quiet, there'll be a loud bit, wait for it, wait for it... AND there it is. AAAARGH AAAARGH AAAAAARGh AAAAARGH DUR DUR DUR DUR, DUR DUR DUR DUR, AAAAAARGH AAAAARGH AAAAARGH AAAAAARGH. A year and 4 more gigs later and I was getting a biffy tattoo... seen them more than any other band and they're at least 2 or 3 of the best gigs I've ever seen. So I guess I was a bit off on that one.
I'm just refusing to believe in a bad Pitchshifter show tbh.
ChrisL
Full MemberI saw MGMT at Barrowlands the same year and they weren’t very good either. Northwind can back me up on that one.
My favourite bit was when I said "This is shite, I'm off to get some chips" and all of you lot plus a bunch of other bystanders went "**** yeah, chips" and walked out. I am a leader of men, as long as I'm leading them away from boredom towards junk food.
+1 for Pitchshifter gigs!!!!
I saw Ian Brown at glasto many years ago
It was amzaing, he managed not to hit a single correct note on any song
it sounded worse in person
@ads678 I was at that gig. Was it Dixie Chicks? They were rubbish, totally lost the crowd and I remember the Chili Peppers struggled. Although I also remember James Brown not being that good. Seemed to be half an hour of the MC shouting 'JAMES BROWN!!! ' repeatedly, and not much music!
Also been very disappointed by Kings of Leon, once at a VFestival, once a couple of years later at Hammersmith Apollo.
I saw Pitchshifter live in about 1993. One of the most intense gigs I've been too.
Saw Nirvana in 1991 and they were just dull (I liked Nirvana at the time too)
I saw Sigue Sigue Sputnik in Queens Mary’s college London on their first ever tour. Top gig full of incident, breasts and blood.
I saw them 5 years back in the Queen Victoria in Swindon. Two fat old men miming to an ipod. It was so terrible we stayed to the end just aghast at how terrible it was.
Oasis, Man City ground (new one).
B o r i n g
Deftones. Just a drunken noisy mess and Chino's voice was awful. Honestly worse than the kids in the metal bands at the local music project.
Tool. Crushingly boring and uninvolving. No surprise or spontaneity, like listening to a CD as stated above.
Marilyn Manson. I was so excited for this as I was a young kid at one of my first gigs and Mechanical Animals had just came out. Turns out the band was a bunch of wasted goths who clearly couldn't be bothered and it was the first time I was really miffed by a live performance.
Lost Prophets. Calculated nu-metal, cash-in designed to be big on Kerrrang TV. Brand new clean skating outfits, edgy haircuts and coordinated jumping around. An Aldi own brand Linkin Park. It was like watching a mildly angry boyband. Not sure what ever happened to them.
I'll stick up for Pitchshifter though. Saw the in Newcastle and they were mint.
Seems a concensus among people who've seen KoL is that they are not performers....
The Pixies. Saw them in Minneapolis in 1992. They sucked.
Easy, Ramones @ Barrowlands circa 1985 - so stoned they could barely play and threatened to walk-off if the spitting and flying beer cups didn't stop - sadly, despite the audience's efforts they stayed on stage and inflicted their turgid music upon us.
About the same time, The Fall - they were pretty awful too.
Ironically, I saw the Pogues a couple of times and despite Sean McGowan's attempts at getting paralytic, they we're that bad.
Massive Attack have been both one of the best bands I've ever seen live, and one of the worst.
Saw them in Birmingham. Absolutely amazing. Horace Andy on stage with them. Epic night. Amazing atmosphere. I even danced a bit, and I never dance.
Saw them at Brixton Academy a few years later. Just really rubbish. Didn't seem like they were in any way interested in being there. Just endless political slogans projected. Boring as hell and no atmosphere.
MGMT. Boring.
The Fall (saw about 5 times early 80s. No idea why.
Police - after they'd had some success but before their run of no.1s. Full of themselves ****s.
I could go on...
I'd second Massive Attack. Saw them at Brixton, thought it was cos I was one of the few not stoned that I found it really dull.
And Oasis at the old Wembley. Well boring.
Couldn't name them but I recall chatting with a sound engineer whose band was playing later while a local band was soundchecking in the front bar. The way he stopped mid-sentence, his face a rictus of utter horror and incredulity at what we were hearing, will stay with me forever.
Somewhat gratified to see people piling in with me to defend the good name of Pitchshifter.
🙂
Sex Pistols
Phoenix Festival mid 90s filthy lucre tour. I was clearly naive but they were awful on every level
Regarding MGMT...
Northwind Full Member
My favourite bit was when I said “This is shite, I’m off to get some chips” and all of you lot plus a bunch of other bystanders went “**** yeah, chips” and walked out. I am a leader of men, as long as I’m leading them away from boredom towards junk food.
I remember waiting until the final song of the encore, just in case they finally managed to pull something good out of the bag for it. They didn't, so at that point I was easily persuaded to head out with you and the other guy we'd gone to the gig with.
My diary entry for the gig is not very kind to MGMT. I remember that the average age of the crowd was very young and we felt bad for anyone who was experiencing this as their first ever gig.
PWEI, saw them a lot in their early days, always utter rubbish.
Tackhead disco - almost left the gig before the headliners
Guns N Roses once Axle got fat.
It ceased being a rock band and became the demented mewing of a stray cat that had suffered an aneurism.
I went to see the "new G'n'R" headline Reading with an old mate a few years ago. He'd made a special trip specifically to see them with me. He got quite annoyed at me and the other several thousand people that Booed the Elton John impersonator that waddled on late and warbled out of tune in Axel's place... On the plus side I'd really enjoyed Gogol Bordello earlier that day...
Saw Enter Shikari at last year's Reading, Jesus Christ they're shite...
Somewhat gratified to see people piling in with me to defend the good name of Pitchshifter.
May have been an off night I saw them but we re-named them Shitshifter.
Stone roses '96 Reading festival.
Shocking.
Slash and the conspirators in Birmingham. Musically note perfect, the band are fab and Myles Kennedy is a rock god but the sound was shite and Slash just didn't engage at all. It was just showboating (we know he's incredible but 10+ min self absorbed solos are dull)
Airbourne supporting Maiden. Bit meh, wouldn't pay to see them. The singer was so hardcore, downing a bottle of white wine 😂
Considering Maiden's standard with their own performances I was surprised
Band I would love to see/have seen live would be Mötley Crüe, now that would be a show if nothing else... At least it would have been in c1986
