Worst Show You've Ever Been To

[Maztinho 0]

I haven't been to many shows, but I did see Breaking Point, Saliva and Fuel a couple years back and Fuel should not have been the headliner. Both of the other bands just blew them out of the water with energy and skill. Fuel just faded from dissonant end to something that sorta resembled a start. Also they kept trying to sound bad ass after Saliva came out and just commanded the crowd.

 

Note to Fuel, you aren't going to out badass Saliva, not when he's talking about finding Osama bin Laden and raping him with a hot branding iron.

 

(The show was about 6 months after the 9/11 attacks)

 

Also, just saying Fuck a lot without some content behind it (like Saliva did) is really, really lame.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I don't care how many times we've had this thread.

 

The Unicorns: Feb. '04

 

I was not a fan, admittedly, but I went because 1) a bunch of my friends, including my at-the-time girlfriend, were going, 2) tickets were cheap, and 3) I had nothing better to do that night. The band came on stage quite clearly drunk and got progressively more shitfaced as their set wore on. They were barely playing—and, in some cases, standing—by the end of the night. Instead of being outraged by their intoxicated bullshit, most of the crowd seemed to be enjoying it. I would've walked out, but I was dumb enough not to have taken my own car.

[King Kamala 0]

Taste of Chaos tour: March '06

 

 

I got free tickets and being someone who never turns down free tickets, I decided to go. Just three hours of horrible noise, only specific thing I remember is Story of The Year closed with "Until The Day I Die". Just horrible I ended up with a headache for a week afterwards. It was perhaps the first time in my life I felt like an old man.

 

A close second would be some lame festival that my mom got free tickets to. It was headlined by Roseanne Cash and MCd by G.E. Smith of Hall and Oates and SNL semi-fame. We left after some Irish folk band. It was more incredibly forgettable than horrible.

 

With my luck, maybe I should start turning down free tickets.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Second worst band I've ever seen was Death by Stereo. I was not there to see them, specifically—they were opening for Mastodon—but they were jaw-droppingly terrible. Imagine Offspring with 80s hair metal guitar solos, plus a dash of Korn-level faux fury. At one point, the singer demanded of the crowd, "EVERYONE I WANT YOU TO SHOW ME YOUR MIDDLE FINGERS. I WANT TO SEE YOUR ANGER. I WANT TO SEE YOUR RAGE. I WANT TO SEE YOUR YEEEARRGH!!!!" How did these jackasses ever get on the same bill as Mastodon? Unlike the Unicorns show, a good portion of the crowd was vocal in their dislike of these morons, letting the band know this was some bullshit right here.

[Kinetic 0]

I've seen almost exclusively crap. Eve 6, Silverchair, Stone Temple Pilots, Bush, Veruca Salt, Collective Soul, Huey Lewis & The News, REO Speedwagon (twice). I just missed seeing Warrant and Nelson as a child.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I saw Debbie Gibson—I was forced to, I swear!—when I was nine, but I hardly think that counts.

[King Kamala 0]

Oh I forgot about a horrible show. SR-71/The Exies in November '02 at some shitty all-ages club. Though that was redeemed by not one but two moments of unintentional hilarity. One was The Exies steadfastly refusing to throw out their picks to the audience at the end of the set and a freaked out middle aged guy (Presumably the father of one of the many teenage girls in attendance) knocking some 14 year old mosher to the ground. The fact that someone would start a mosh pit at an SR-71 show is amusing in itself

[Kinetic 0]

I saw Blink-182, Smash Mouth, Everclear, and a bunch of other crap at DC101's chili cookoff years ago. The crowd was openly hostile toward Everclear.

[tominator89 0]

I've seen almost exclusively crap. Eve 6, Silverchair, Stone Temple Pilots, Bush, Veruca Salt, Collective Soul, Huey Lewis & The News, REO Speedwagon (twice). I just missed seeing Warrant and Nelson as a child.

 

These bands rule.

 

I saw Collective Soul and REO Speedwagon already, but I'd pay to see the rest of them.

[Mecha Mummy 0]

I was at a Rasputina show a couple of years back. Now, given that Rasputina is a cello-rock trio with a general fixation on the Victorian era, I was expecting an opener that would at least be somewhat interesting, if not good.

 

Instead, we got Audio Learning Center. To properly understand what they were like, since I doubt anyone has ever heard of them before and rightfully so, imagine Built to Spill, except every member of the band has been hit over the head with a shovel a few times so instead of actually playing proper songs they just sort of do the same thirty seconds of music on loop for about five minutes per song. And then go on for an hour, doing nothing but this. The crowd didn't even have the ENERGY to be hostile, they were so boring; they were just incredibly, incredibly apathetic, to the point where by the end the lead singer was finally realizing that nobody wanted them there and it was best to just end their set and get out of there, thank god.

 

Second place goes to the Trucks. If you like bands featuring members who think that wearing a dress made out of condoms is hip and witty, they're the band for you!

[Red Baron 0]

Deftones on the Summer Sanatarium tour were absolute shit. Chino was just gargling throughout the 50 minute set which dragged on and on.

 

I'd also nominate Edwin of I Mother Earth fame at the Friendship Festival in 99 I believe. Dude was so horrible, someone launched a rock at him and clocked him on the forehead, and promptly left the set.

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

No doubts on this one...

 

Red hot chili peppers.

 

They were headlining a show with STP and fishbone. Fishbone was alright...and then Scott Weilend (fresh out of another rehab) and STP blew the doors off of the place.

 

After a pretty long wait the Peppers came out and played a boring set that prompted the local paper to say the next day that "they shouldn't have taken STP on tour with them because they're going to get blown out every night."

 

The next day, while listening to a canadian radio station (before the band played in Toronto that night) I heard Flea badmouth Buffalo for not "getting" their music.

 

Oh...we got it Flea. It sucked.

 

BTW...

 

I read reviews of their Toronto show...and STP blew them off the stage that night too.

 

I guess no one gets your music, Flea...

[Red Baron 0]

Doesn't help that you know, the drums are muffled or muted in the concert and Keides voice is horrendous.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I don't care how many times we've had this thread.

 

The Unicorns: Feb. '04

 

I was not a fan, admittedly, but I went because 1) a bunch of my friends, including my at-the-time girlfriend, were going, 2) tickets were cheap, and 3) I had nothing better to do that night. The band came on stage quite clearly drunk and got progressively more shitfaced as their set wore on. They were barely playing—and, in some cases, standing—by the end of the night. Instead of being outraged by their intoxicated bullshit, most of the crowd seemed to be enjoying it. I would've walked out, but I was dumb enough not to have taken my own car.

I saw them on that same tour, end of January '04, and they were great. And I think they were sober the whole time. Maybe I hit them on the hangover night rather than the induce-a-hangover night.

 

I had to suffer through The Used opening for Andrew W.K. and Blonde Redhead opening for Interpol. I don't think I've ever seen an outright bad headliner. Radiohead and The Hold Steady probably rank as the most disappointing, though.

[SamoaRowe 0]

Skid Row in 2005. ::shudders::

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

Had to be some local punk affair, but as far as actual professional, nationally-touring bands, the two worst were The Deftones and Megadeth, in that order.

[Henry Spencer 0]

It seems like every hipster in the Kansas City area has been in some shitty IDM/electro-grindcore/abrasive noise nonsense group at some point. I've seen plenty of those, and they're pretty much universally boring shows.

 

Like Mr. Macphisto, I don't think I've ever seen a blatantly bad headliner. Saturday Looks Good To Me came the closest, but that was more due to a sense of dashed expectations rather than the band's performance. I was unaware that they had dispensed of the female singer (my favorite part of the band) prior to the show. They weren't bad for what they were, though.

 

Some of the more unbearable openers I've seen include Kristeen Young (extremely shrill, unpleasant voice), the Thrills (boring indie pop), Sons & Daughters (boring indie rock), and Dub Trio (uninspired riffing interspaced with thirty seconds of echo that I suppose was meant to constitute "dub").

[Annabelle 0]

i've seen billy talent twice.

 

god.

 

both times with death from above.

 

i was at least smart enough to walk out the second time.

[The Man in Blak 0]

 

I played the Michael Jackson's Moonwalker arcade game for the first time when we stopped at a Circle K on the way to this show. Donatello, on a keytar. A microcosm of my wasted youth.

[haws bah gawd 0]

I've only been to a handful of shows. I saw Nightwish and Paradise Lost at the Masquerade in Atlanta back in November. Nightwish kicked fucking ass, even though it took them over an hour after Paradise Lost finished, to get on the stage. Paradise Lost sucked the Devil's cock. I don't know if their sound set-up was bad or what, but you couldn't understand anything Nick Holmes said or sang, and the music in general was pretty rough.

 

I also fault the staff of the Masquerade for making the night kind of miserable. The Heaven Room was kept at a balmy 100+ degrees throughout the show, with the air conditioners only turned on while Nightwish's crew set-up their equipment. A few people passed out from overheating during Paradise Lost's set.

[1234-5678 0]

Tool in October of '06.

[SamoaRowe 0]

Tool in October of '06.

 

That's funny. I saw Tool in October of 2006 and they were awesome (ditto for when I saw them in 2002 and 2001). Just not a Tool fan or used to enjoy them and don't like the newer stuff?

[Guest Smues]

I saw Creed in 2002. Ahh the stupid things we do for love. As one might expect they were terrible, and the opening band 'Stereo Fuse' was pretty awful as well. I only remember their name because they reminded us that they were Stereo Fuse after every song. The 2nd band was Our Lady Peace, so at least there was something decent to listen to that evening.

 

Besides how shitty their music was there were other lowlights of the Creed show. Scott was trying so hard to balance being a 'rocker' and being a Christian, and it ended up being quite hilarious. The best was probably when he was talking about something and yells "AND GOD DAMNIT...OH SHIT I'M SORRY!" and then crosses himself on stage. Another moment that made me laugh was:

 

Scott: My memory is a little hazy. Did we try to play here once and cancelled?

Crowd: Boooooooooooooooooooooo

Scott: And then did we reschedule and then cancel again?

Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Scott: Well this next song speaks my fuckin' mind

Crowd: HE SAID FUCK! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

 

Oh and I can't forget Scott finding some 5 year old kid in the crowd who was dying from cancer, and he told the kid that it was all right because he believed in god. Not because god would help the kid, or anything like that, but because Scott Stapp personally believes in god the kid will be ok. Okie dokey.

 

 

[snuffbox 0]

Filter in 2002.

[River City Rocker 0]

I haven't been to many concerts at all, so by default (and I hate to say this), the worst show I've ever seen was a live Jandek performance in Indianapolis at the end of 2006.

 

The show was completely improvised, and one of the backing musicians, who was described as "a local improviser" after the fact, largely stopped contributing two-thirds of the way into the performance. He was originally alternating between flute and xylophone, but spent the last 45 minutes of the show walking around the stage as if to say "When is this gonna be over?"

 

I also heard that aside from Jandek, only the bass player seemed like he was really enjoying himself. The other musicians? Not so much.

[NoCalMike 0]

UnderOath - my friend sold me big time, I guess he really liked their first album, but after that shitfest of the show my friend asked the lead singer about their new sound and the guy straight up told him they were going for a more "emo" sound. This was back when people thought it was hip to be emo I guess

 

Profressional Murder Music - well this is a runner up because I really came to see the opening act "My Ruin" but decided to stick around, and man did I ever regret it......I should have known better when a guy I was waiting in line to get in with said "yeah man this is like my favorite new band out there other than TAPROOT" :spits out beer:

[Jorge Gorgeous 0]

I saw Blink-182, Smash Mouth, Everclear, and a bunch of other crap at DC101's chili cookoff years ago. The crowd was openly hostile toward Everclear.

 

I'd love to see this concert.

[Garth 0]

Maximo Park in Cardiff a while back. They were supported by Art Brut who are clearly good news, all of Maximo Park's stuff just blended together to form one hour long wall of bland.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Tool. 'Nuff said. I've already ranted and raved about it, but Tool is the absolute worst show I've EVER seen.

 

A close second would be Lamb of God on the Unholy Alliance tour, and then Children of Bodom on the same night. Lamb of God just because they're horrible, and Bodom because Alexi must've been pretty hammered and missed most of his cues and was just fucking the timing up entirely.

[Steviekick 0]

Lamb of God is never fun to watch. My friends and I call it the Lamb of God Effect when they play second to last, and kill all your ambition to watch the headliner.