HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Ain't got time to think of nine more, but I can tell you that seeing Chicago soul legend Alvin Cash in '95 or '96 at a yuppie blues club in Chicago was a serious disappointment. He was working with pickup musicians and was forced to do overdone blues shuffles like "Kansas City." Me and my friend left during the first set, 'cause we had a hunch the whole show would be like that. For all we know, he could have pulled out "Twine Time," "Philly Freeze," "The Barracuda" and on down the line later in the show, but it didn't seem likely.
I had a similar experience seeing one of the guys from the Meters at a small club/bar in San Francisco years ago. Place was full of college kids, no one was really paying attention to the band, and then when he hit the stage all he played were Blues covers. No Meters tunes, nothing that even sounded like New Orleans material. Didn't stay for the whole set and left.
Ain't got time to think of nine more, but I can tell you that seeing Chicago soul legend Alvin Cash in '95 or '96 at a yuppie blues club in Chicago was a serious disappointment. He was working with pickup musicians and was forced to do overdone blues shuffles like "Kansas City." Me and my friend left during the first set, 'cause we had a hunch the whole show would be like that. For all we know, he could have pulled out "Twine Time," "Philly Freeze," "The Barracuda" and on down the line later in the show, but it didn't seem likely.
I had a similar experience seeing one of the guys from the Meters at a small club/bar in San Francisco years ago. Place was full of college kids, no one was really paying attention to the band, and then when he hit the stage all he played were Blues covers. No Meters tunes, nothing that even sounded like New Orleans material. Didn't stay for the whole set and left.
Same show: C-Rayz Walz This dude... wow. He was opening for Raekwon and I don't think anyone knew him. First off, the crowd was kind of light to begin with. Then to top it all off, they were there to see Raekwon the Chef. C-Rays obviously has NEVER been in that type of situation before, so at the end of his set he rambled off some freestyle where he made a point to diss the crowd. Oh, I forgot to mention he hopped onstage with a fake Lions jersey on with a number and name of a player who doesn't exist, talking about his cousin played on the team. I almost choked on my beer when he told that lie
One of the worst concerts I've ever been to wasn't even a concert. It was when the the first Spiderman movie came out, my girlfriend at the time and I went to go see it at either Union Square or this other place down i that area. I'm on line beforehand to get popcorn and see this short black guy with cornrows acting the fool all over the place, and his girl trying to calm him down and stuff. I'm thinking to myself "I've seen him before, who the fuck is this guy, I know I've seen him somewhere" so when he goes to run off to the bathroom I ask her when she's walking by, "Excuse me, but your man looks real familiar to..." and she politely cuts me right off with an exasperated "yes it's C-Rayz, and yes he's acting like an asshole" and keeps on walking.
I'm thinking "haha, hope he's not in my theater." So I walk to the theater to find my seats and go and sit. A few minutes later the previews wind down and it gets quiet when the lights go down...except for one girl who gets on her phone a few rows back and goes "where the fuck are you, the movie's starting dummy!!". Couple minutes later he comes walking in, now I'm thinking "Shit...this is gonna be funny or it's gonna suck, there's no middle ground". The theater is PACKED and he doesn't want to move through the row to get to his seats, so he sits in the aisle. Her: "what you doin?" Him: "I'm not moving through the people, they trying to watch" Her: "you gonna make me sit here by myself" C-Rayz at this point starts to either freestyle or spit written, I wasn't too up on his catalogue to know the lyrics he was kicking at this crowded room of people who were being treated to an impromptu concert while SpiderMan was beginning. Crowd: "SHHHHH"...never that son.
Finally the "SHHHing" overcame him or he ran out of lyrics, it was after about a minute or two, and he yelled out "C-RAYZ-WAAAAAALZ" the same way he does on his records and left the theater. If I was drinking something I would have spit it out at that point, it was perfect. His girl never left and after the movie when i walked out he was in the lobby playing video games, she went and got him and they disappeared into the night.
Ain't got time to think of nine more, but I can tell you that seeing Chicago soul legend Alvin Cash in '95 or '96 at a yuppie blues club in Chicago was a serious disappointment. He was working with pickup musicians and was forced to do overdone blues shuffles like "Kansas City." Me and my friend left during the first set, 'cause we had a hunch the whole show would be like that. For all we know, he could have pulled out "Twine Time," "Philly Freeze," "The Barracuda" and on down the line later in the show, but it didn't seem likely.
I had a similar experience seeing one of the guys from the Meters at a small club/bar in San Francisco years ago. Place was full of college kids, no one was really paying attention to the band, and then when he hit the stage all he played were Blues covers. No Meters tunes, nothing that even sounded like New Orleans material. Didn't stay for the whole set and left.
Seems like someone needs a reminder that...
NEW ORLEANS IS THE HOME OF THE BLUES!!!
Seems like someone needs a reminder that even New Orleans has bad generic tourist blues.
It's hard to remember the bad shows but off the top of my head:
Camper Van Beethoven - The Ritz NYC/1986ish - I don't know why I was even at this show, but me and my friend were there and really not digging it, but it didn't occur to us to leave (we were 17 at the time and still fairly new to the concert experience), so we just stood around complaining and making fun of their fans. Finally one older guy said to us "if you hate it so much, why don't you just get out". Which we did, happily...
Necro - Brownies NYC/late 90's - A classic bad live hip-hop experience. Music on DAT, with no DJ, and of course the DAT fucked up. Chastising the soundman. 20 hypemen onstage doing nothing. Dissing the crowd for not being hyped up. It straight up sucked.
Operation Rock'N'Roll - Meadowlands Arena NJ/ 1991? - The only big arena metal show I've ever been to, because a friend worked for Sony and got a bunch of us tickets, The lineup was Dangerous Toys, Bang Tango, Motorhead, Judas Priest, and Alice Cooper (I think). We were planning to just watch Motorhead and Priest and then leave, so we got hammered in the parking lot and went in pretty sloshed. Sat around waiting for Motorhead for 5 minutes then a couple of us decided to go to the bathroom, where someone lost a ticket stub, and the overzealous security wouldn't let him back to the seats. We tried to pass him someone else's stub, which got us all busted and security threw us out just as Motorhead started playing "Ace Of Spades".
David Bowie - Giants Stadium 1987 - Bowie on the "Glass Spider" tour, with Squeeze and Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam opening (who thought up that bill?). I was as far away from the stage as you could get in the stadium, so there was a good 2 second delay between what I could see on the video screen and the sound actually reaching our seats. I will never see a concert in a football stadium again.
David Bowie - Giants Stadium 1987 - Bowie on the "Glass Spider" tour, with Squeeze and Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam opening (who thought up that bill?). I was as far away from the stage as you could get in the stadium, so there was a good 2 second delay between what I could see on the video screen and the sound actually reaching our seats. I will never see a concert in a football stadium again.
I turned down free tickets to that same tour when it hit Minneapolis. I was such a Bowie freak that I did not want to see him doing what I considered very sub-par material at the time. Your experience confirms what I suspected, that it would be a complete waste of time.
Same show: C-Rayz Walz This dude... wow. He was opening for Raekwon and I don't think anyone knew him. First off, the crowd was kind of light to begin with. Then to top it all off, they were there to see Raekwon the Chef. C-Rays obviously has NEVER been in that type of situation before, so at the end of his set he rambled off some freestyle where he made a point to diss the crowd. Oh, I forgot to mention he hopped onstage with a fake Lions jersey on with a number and name of a player who doesn't exist, talking about his cousin played on the team. I almost choked on my beer when he told that lie
One of the worst concerts I've ever been to wasn't even a concert. It was when the the first Spiderman movie came out, my girlfriend at the time and I went to go see it at either Union Square or this other place down i that area. I'm on line beforehand to get popcorn and see this short black guy with cornrows acting the fool all over the place, and his girl trying to calm him down and stuff. I'm thinking to myself "I've seen him before, who the fuck is this guy, I know I've seen him somewhere" so when he goes to run off to the bathroom I ask her when she's walking by, "Excuse me, but your man looks real familiar to..." and she politely cuts me right off with an exasperated "yes it's C-Rayz, and yes he's acting like an asshole" and keeps on walking.
I'm thinking "haha, hope he's not in my theater." So I walk to the theater to find my seats and go and sit. A few minutes later the previews wind down and it gets quiet when the lights go down...except for one girl who gets on her phone a few rows back and goes "where the fuck are you, the movie's starting dummy!!". Couple minutes later he comes walking in, now I'm thinking "Shit...this is gonna be funny or it's gonna suck, there's no middle ground". The theater is PACKED and he doesn't want to move through the row to get to his seats, so he sits in the aisle. Her: "what you doin?" Him: "I'm not moving through the people, they trying to watch" Her: "you gonna make me sit here by myself" C-Rayz at this point starts to either freestyle or spit written, I wasn't too up on his catalogue to know the lyrics he was kicking at this crowded room of people who were being treated to an impromptu concert while SpiderMan was beginning. Crowd: "SHHHHH"...never that son.
Finally the "SHHHing" overcame him or he ran out of lyrics, it was after about a minute or two, and he yelled out "C-RAYZ-WAAAAAALZ" the same way he does on his records and left the theater. If I was drinking something I would have spit it out at that point, it was perfect. His girl never left and after the movie when i walked out he was in the lobby playing video games, she went and got him and they disappeared into the night.
Kayne West in 2004 at Rhode Island College, all the dude was talk about how much he get for a beat and i think he changed three times for that show. Went to see a hiphop show and Kayne gave us a fashion show. Thank god Dilated Peoples open for him and killed it.
Wilco - between summer teeth / being there - tickets were freebies so we went down. Venue was no smokin but the band proceeded to pretend to chain smoke all night (ie light up..take one puff put it i nthe headstock...repeat). Tweedy did the "woah im sooooo wasted" fooolishness will the band looked bored as fuck and went through the motions. crowd ate it like breakfast.. dreaded doods jizz face geetar solos were cheered ...
Peaches - left before she even played the opening acts were THAT bad
Tortoise - we opened for them before their first record came out... AWFUL
Metallica - black albm tour.. i knew they were done.. but whats an 18 year old to do but go??
almost forgot - Guided By Voices - i was already kinda done with this band (they had just dropped the ocassek turd)... i have NEVER been able to listen to this band since... ATROCIOUS
Same show: C-Rayz Walz This dude... wow. He was opening for Raekwon and I don't think anyone knew him. First off, the crowd was kind of light to begin with. Then to top it all off, they were there to see Raekwon the Chef. C-Rays obviously has NEVER been in that type of situation before, so at the end of his set he rambled off some freestyle where he made a point to diss the crowd. Oh, I forgot to mention he hopped onstage with a fake Lions jersey on with a number and name of a player who doesn't exist, talking about his cousin played on the team. I almost choked on my beer when he told that lie
One of the worst concerts I've ever been to wasn't even a concert. It was when the the first Spiderman movie came out, my girlfriend at the time and I went to go see it at either Union Square or this other place down i that area. I'm on line beforehand to get popcorn and see this short black guy with cornrows acting the fool all over the place, and his girl trying to calm him down and stuff. I'm thinking to myself "I've seen him before, who the fuck is this guy, I know I've seen him somewhere" so when he goes to run off to the bathroom I ask her when she's walking by, "Excuse me, but your man looks real familiar to..." and she politely cuts me right off with an exasperated "yes it's C-Rayz, and yes he's acting like an asshole" and keeps on walking.
I'm thinking "haha, hope he's not in my theater." So I walk to the theater to find my seats and go and sit. A few minutes later the previews wind down and it gets quiet when the lights go down...except for one girl who gets on her phone a few rows back and goes "where the fuck are you, the movie's starting dummy!!". Couple minutes later he comes walking in, now I'm thinking "Shit...this is gonna be funny or it's gonna suck, there's no middle ground". The theater is PACKED and he doesn't want to move through the row to get to his seats, so he sits in the aisle. Her: "what you doin?" Him: "I'm not moving through the people, they trying to watch" Her: "you gonna make me sit here by myself" C-Rayz at this point starts to either freestyle or spit written, I wasn't too up on his catalogue to know the lyrics he was kicking at this crowded room of people who were being treated to an impromptu concert while SpiderMan was beginning. Crowd: "SHHHHH"...never that son.
Finally the "SHHHing" overcame him or he ran out of lyrics, it was after about a minute or two, and he yelled out "C-RAYZ-WAAAAAALZ" the same way he does on his records and left the theater. If I was drinking something I would have spit it out at that point, it was perfect. His girl never left and after the movie when i walked out he was in the lobby playing video games, she went and got him and they disappeared into the night.
It's A Beautiful Day - I guess it was around 72. The to leads of the group had been married but they were breaking up (David LaFlame and whats her face). They sang with their backs to each other and kept trying to push the other off the center of the stage. They were opening for...
Elephants Memory - They were hot because they had just backed up John Lennon. Turns out they sucked.
Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon tour. Largo Arena (Capitol Center). They had a surround sound system all along the top of the arena. My seats were all the way at the top and too the side. I could only see half the stage (not that they do any thing on stage). They would swirl the sound around the room. When the speakers over my head were going it was unbareable loud (and I was only 16) and when they were on the other side of the room I could barely hear them. The people on the floor seemed to think it was cool.
George Harrison - At Largo again. Ravi Shankar was a no show. George was pretty good but at the end he was like every one come up front and dance. My buddy and me were the first ones down on the floor. We hit a wall of security and then a wall of people hit our backs. I was lifted off my feet and nearly sufficated.
Commandor Cody - Cains Ballroom Tulsa OK. Post Lost Planet Airmen, he had a hit song about shoplifting at the 7-11. I got hit on the head with a bottle at the end of the show. That hurts.
Grateful Dead - American University about 1972. Need I saw more.
Seatrain - American University about the same time. The fiddler (Jay Unger?) had left and they replaced him with a flute player (maybe the guy from Blues Project). All around lame show.
James White and the Blacks - Louie's La Bamba, Portland. Short lackluster set followed by the announcement that "James White does not do encores". Not like we wanted to hear more, we just wanted our moneys worth.
Africa Bambatta - Some underage sewer in the International District Seattle about '84. I paid top dollar for tickets to see what I thought would be a grand Zulu Nation show. Got there and they were letting people in at the door for $2.00 or something. Some guy djed for hours and hours and every one was going where is Bam accept the kids who paid $2 who didn't care. Then someone else came out and played Time's Jungle Love for about 30 minutes. Turned out that was Bam and that was the show. The promotor left town after that I think.
Lightnin' Hopkins - Cains Ballroom, Tulsa OK. Great seeing a legend, even if they should be a nursing home and not touring. The bass player and drummer appeared to be on heroin. LH gave them each a solo every song, but they were just doing a monotonic thump and never noticed that they were supposed to be soloing. They fat ladies in the red dress kept yelling for Little Red Rooster, but I don't think he ever played it.
pat bentatar last row at the spectrun in Philly. A girlfriend brought me with her. YAWN
Pat Benetar was one of the better shows I saw when I was a kid. My dad would take me to see shows at the Ector County Colosseum in Odessa (TX) when they weren't having monster truck shows or animal shows (where people show off their best sheep and cows). We were on a real roll having seen ZZ Top (How do three guys sound like 5?) , Foreigner (Nice Lasers!), Pat Benetar (just remember the drummer has all red drums and cymbals and did a solo standing on the stool).
But then we went to see Loverboy at the Midland College Gymnasium. If it was any indication of what was to follow, The Hooters were the opening band. 20 years later still haven't seen a show that bad (or loud).
The second best/worst show might have been Warrant in Lubbock. Three songs in they play "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and someone zings a baseball cap at Jamie Warrant and hits him in the forehead. He leaves the stage, most likely crying. The band does an impromptu jam for about 5 minutes before some greasy guy comes on stage and says "Jamie went to the hospital. See ya next time folks". Then the lights come up. Boos all around. But while I lost 25 bucks on that one it was no doubt a turning point to say what the fuck am I doing at a Warrant concert? Wherever that hat throwing dude is, I salute him.
I haven't been to a ton of live shows (usually too loud and obnoxious for me), but the worst by far was "Bob Dylan and his Band" at the Paso Robles mid-state fair. He didn't sing, wasn't facing the audience, never said a single word (I don't even think he had a mic), and wasn't even playing guitar! Dude was banging it out on a keyboard. Yeah, I paid to see Bob Dylan play the keyboard.
Oh well, I hear his recent live shows aren't that great anyway.
One of my worst shows is definitely Thievery Corporation in Montreal at the Rialto around 2001-2002. The restored Rialto is a beautiful room, but it was filled with the sort of would-be hip young professionals and, for lack of a better word, douchetards that you see on that strut classic Donovan from San Francisco website. These people were there because Thievery Corporation is the soundtrack to their lounging and shopping and boutique hotel loitering, which is pretty reasonable since that's all Thievery Corp is good for, but it made for a absurdly pretentious and vapid scene. Lots of posturing and primping and general idiocy. Thievery Corps put on an video show that was ethnic cliche after cliche and it would have been offensive if it wasn't so stupid. The two guys twiddled nobs and stood around while a sitar player added noodled (last time I complained about the sitar player he appeared on the board and yelled at me, so ) and some dancers contorted themselves. I remember being so frustrated with the vacuousness of it all that I left after 30 minutes, which gave me enough time to buy some kick ass rugelach up the street. I was getting into enough shows for free back then that I could afford to decide not to waste my time and at the worthless ones.
I was holding off writing this up, because I didn???t have a good reason, but this thread is as good as any.
So: a girl I was dating, J***** called me on being able to get free concert tickets as the hip hop director at the local college radio station. She asked if I would be able to get us into Atmosphere. I wasn???t planning on going, but there are a few old songs of theirs that I like, and I???ve always liked Ant???s production, so I checked it out and was able to get guest plus 1.
Night of the show: she makes some pasta for us, we eat up, we eat some weed cookies, we roll to the show.
At the door: I'm not on the list. While I'm stoned and arguing with the door woman, J****** gets pulls out $20 and pays to get in. So I say fuck it, pull out my $20, and get inside.
We head over to the bar to avoid the high-schoolish crowd, and after a couple minutes J***** leaves to go to the bathroom. I'm standing there staring through a sea of baseball caps nodding to Grayskull, who are rocking some generic sounding beat with so much reverb in the room that I can't pick out any of the words. About par for an underground hip hop show. But then I start to get dizzy...
My vision gets blurry, and the world starts looking like a choppy youtube video that is taxing my old computer's processing. Then I feel some menacing vibrations like Hunter Thompson and then...
I don't know where I am. Am I in bed, am in Pittsburgh, am I back home in Massachusetts? Who is this bald man that is speaking to me. I realize there is a concert going on in the distance behind some hoodies. Oh shit...I passed out at the concert.
"Are you okay?"
I try to respond, but instead nod off again. I come to again sitting in a chair five feet away. I get conscious enough to assure them that I'll be okay. They ask if I'm with anyone. Oh shit???I look around and pull out a skinny white girl from the crowd. She shakes her head -- oops, wrong one. Then luckily J****** gets back from the bathroom, and steps in to help me out. One of the bouncers shows us to the door.
The bouncer stays with us outside, grilling me as I'm trying to pull my mind back together. "Did you eat anything today?" First question. J***** tells him that we had some pasta. ???Are you sure???? I???m thinking ???what the fuck???. Then I notice that two rental cops for the concert are standing right behind the bouncer.
???Uhh, I have low blood pressure, and have a history of passing out before. I stubbed my toe before and passed out once.??? I slur a bunch of other bullshit like this to the bouncer, and he seems unconvinced.
???It was probably the smoke inside.??? Says J******.
Then two casual clothes dressed men come up to the police officers. They have a quick huddle and the officers tell the men to follow a crowd that just walked by. The two men roll out to follow the suspicious group. Undercover policemen ??? I???m starting to bug out.
As paranoia is setting in, the bouncer gets bored and leaves us alone. J***** notices that I???m missing my hat and glasses. They fell off in the middle of the crowd. She goes back inside to find them, and I sit outside trying not to make eye contact with the police officers that are staring at me.
J****** returns with both hat and glasses. The hat looks decent, and the glasses only half fucked up. But, the whole scene is too much to deal with. I tell her it???s best if we leave. On the way home she gets lost, and I???m having paranoid delusions. At one point I was convinced that everything in the world was conspiring to kill me, and that I had to make peace with my impending death.
10:30pm, J****** drops me off at my apartment and I pass out hoping that I???ll have regained my sanity by the morning.
We caught about 5 minutes of a shitty Grayskull performance for $20 apiece. I???m not eating any kind of baked THC again for a long while. Meanwhile J******, who weighs about 70 pounds less than me was only a little phased. She went and played darts at the neighborhood bar after dropping me off. Yesterday she told me that she just wants to be friends???This whole story makes me feel like such a losing nerd???
numero uno: Mobb deep,twin gambino,alchemist.... that's my worst concert ever. Even if i wus into mobb deep 2 first albums, i use to like early alchemist stuffs, but that gig was
Second :bad brains last sunday,......singer was on another planet,mumbling, stand still like a pole ,hands in is pockets with a big scarf on is face. Music was good but i'll expected more energy.....i know,i know...it's to late for bad brains...good concert was in the 80's.
Yesterday she told me that she just wants to be friends…This whole story makes me feel like such a losing nerd…
I don't want to laugh at you, but then again I do. hahaha..
Here's my worst:
311 - Local festival. Enthusiastic losers. Some girl made me go.
Hemlock/Jimmys chicken shack - Same local festival. These are some shitty local acts.
DJ SHADOW - House of blues. I'd rather watch paint peel.
DREDG - Heard alot of good things about them. Didn't understand why after.
Weezer - Can I be the one to say there songs all sound the same? White thing?
Le tigre - This one was absurdly bad. Hairy armpits galore.
Ja rule - Went to see DMX, Method man and Jarule at Thomas and Mack. Ja rule was the worst one and DMX had an asthma attack. Ja rule didn't even rap he let the audience sing the songs, and he walked around like Rafi getting the little kids to sing Mary had a little lamb.
Lady Sovergn - left during first song.
Rakim - @ freestylesession 7. Never have I felt this bad for an artist. Dude was high and couldn't remember any of his lyrics. He karoake'd to himself rapping incoherently.
MC HAMMER - @4th of july festival. Mc hammer without the gold pants, only 1 backupdancer. Doing all new material. DJ didn't know how to use the Ipod. They had to wait a couple minutes between each song while he fumbled around.
I swear Mc hammer was crying during 2 legit to quit.
worst show hand downs was Madlib, Egon, and Peanut butter wolf at silk city in philly around 2003-04.
My roommate and this kid we used to chill with decide to roll down there (2 hr drive) to see these dudes. We get down to Philly and the bouncer only would let me and my roommate in and not this other kid. He waits in the car while me and my roommate get trashed. Halfway through the set Egon blows an amp and everyone is outside for an hour. We go back in and get really really trashed and this kid makes us drive home just as madlib was getting on (whole reason i went). Before we leave, i took a piss right in public with a bunch of cops around in the park that rocky ran through. I blacked out the whole ride back and me and that dude didnt speak much after that. Also my roommate lost his debit card somehow.
Comments
Seems like someone needs a reminder that...
NEW ORLEANS IS THE HOME OF THE BLUES!!!
Nah...Memphis
One of the worst concerts I've ever been to wasn't even a concert. It was when the the first Spiderman movie came out, my girlfriend at the time and I went to go see it at either Union Square or this other place down i that area. I'm on line beforehand to get popcorn and see this short black guy with cornrows acting the fool all over the place, and his girl trying to calm him down and stuff. I'm thinking to myself "I've seen him before, who the fuck is this guy, I know I've seen him somewhere" so when he goes to run off to the bathroom I ask her when she's walking by, "Excuse me, but your man looks real familiar to..." and she politely cuts me right off with an exasperated "yes it's C-Rayz, and yes he's acting like an asshole" and keeps on walking.
I'm thinking "haha, hope he's not in my theater." So I walk to the theater to find my seats and go and sit. A few minutes later the previews wind down and it gets quiet when the lights go down...except for one girl who gets on her phone a few rows back and goes "where the fuck are you, the movie's starting dummy!!". Couple minutes later he comes walking in, now I'm thinking "Shit...this is gonna be funny or it's gonna suck, there's no middle ground". The theater is PACKED and he doesn't want to move through the row to get to his seats, so he sits in the aisle. Her: "what you doin?" Him: "I'm not moving through the people, they trying to watch" Her: "you gonna make me sit here by myself" C-Rayz at this point starts to either freestyle or spit written, I wasn't too up on his catalogue to know the lyrics he was kicking at this crowded room of people who were being treated to an impromptu concert while SpiderMan was beginning. Crowd: "SHHHHH"...never that son.
Finally the "SHHHing" overcame him or he ran out of lyrics, it was after about a minute or two, and he yelled out "C-RAYZ-WAAAAAALZ" the same way he does on his records and left the theater. If I was drinking something I would have spit it out at that point, it was perfect. His girl never left and after the movie when i walked out he was in the lobby playing video games, she went and got him and they disappeared into the night.
Seems like someone needs a reminder that even New Orleans has bad generic tourist blues.
Camper Van Beethoven - The Ritz NYC/1986ish - I don't know why I was even at this show, but me and my friend were there and really not digging it, but it didn't occur to us to leave (we were 17 at the time and still fairly new to the concert experience), so we just stood around complaining and making fun of their fans. Finally one older guy said to us "if you hate it so much, why don't you just get out". Which we did, happily...
Necro - Brownies NYC/late 90's - A classic bad live hip-hop experience. Music on DAT, with no DJ, and of course the DAT fucked up. Chastising the soundman. 20 hypemen onstage doing nothing. Dissing the crowd for not being hyped up. It straight up sucked.
Operation Rock'N'Roll - Meadowlands Arena NJ/ 1991? - The only big arena metal show I've ever been to, because a friend worked for Sony and got a bunch of us tickets, The lineup was Dangerous Toys, Bang Tango, Motorhead, Judas Priest, and Alice Cooper (I think). We were planning to just watch Motorhead and Priest and then leave, so we got hammered in the parking lot and went in pretty sloshed. Sat around waiting for Motorhead for 5 minutes then a couple of us decided to go to the bathroom, where someone lost a ticket stub, and the overzealous security wouldn't let him back to the seats. We tried to pass him someone else's stub, which got us all busted and security threw us out just as Motorhead started playing "Ace Of Spades".
David Bowie - Giants Stadium 1987 - Bowie on the "Glass Spider" tour, with Squeeze and Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam opening (who thought up that bill?). I was as far away from the stage as you could get in the stadium, so there was a good 2 second delay between what I could see on the video screen and the sound actually reaching our seats. I will never see a concert in a football stadium again.
I turned down free tickets to that same tour when it hit Minneapolis. I was such a Bowie freak that I did not want to see him doing what I considered very sub-par material at the time. Your experience confirms what I suspected, that it would be a complete waste of time.
best thing ever
Yea but in hindsight....does it really matter? You got to see Tribe in 1990...things could be worse.
Ha, I was at that show. She did like her 3 hits and then said "peace and I'm out!" My wife and I still quote that when leaving the house.
Wasn't this the same year Fugees played and Lauren sounded terrible.
true.
I went to high school with them so it was no big deal.
And what were you wearing?
Patchouli & Clogs: Episode II
LOL.
Peaches - left before she even played the opening acts were THAT bad
Tortoise - we opened for them before their first record came out... AWFUL
Metallica - black albm tour.. i knew they were done.. but whats an 18 year old to do but go??
almost forgot - Guided By Voices - i was already kinda done with this band (they had just dropped the ocassek turd)... i have NEVER been able to listen to this band since... ATROCIOUS
Freaking awful. I swear the keyboardist was doing lines off his synthesizer. We stayed all of 3 or 4 songs.
Elephants Memory - They were hot because they had just backed up John Lennon. Turns out they sucked.
Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon tour. Largo Arena (Capitol Center). They had a surround sound system all along the top of the arena. My seats were all the way at the top and too the side. I could only see half the stage (not that they do any thing on stage). They would swirl the sound around the room. When the speakers over my head were going it was unbareable loud (and I was only 16) and when they were on the other side of the room I could barely hear them. The people on the floor seemed to think it was cool.
George Harrison - At Largo again. Ravi Shankar was a no show. George was pretty good but at the end he was like every one come up front and dance. My buddy and me were the first ones down on the floor. We hit a wall of security and then a wall of people hit our backs. I was lifted off my feet and nearly sufficated.
Commandor Cody - Cains Ballroom Tulsa OK. Post Lost Planet Airmen, he had a hit song about shoplifting at the 7-11. I got hit on the head with a bottle at the end of the show. That hurts.
Grateful Dead - American University about 1972. Need I saw more.
Seatrain - American University about the same time. The fiddler (Jay Unger?) had left and they replaced him with a flute player (maybe the guy from Blues Project). All around lame show.
James White and the Blacks - Louie's La Bamba, Portland. Short lackluster set followed by the announcement that "James White does not do encores". Not like we wanted to hear more, we just wanted our moneys worth.
Africa Bambatta - Some underage sewer in the International District Seattle about '84. I paid top dollar for tickets to see what I thought would be a grand Zulu Nation show. Got there and they were letting people in at the door for $2.00 or something. Some guy djed for hours and hours and every one was going where is Bam accept the kids who paid $2 who didn't care. Then someone else came out and played Time's Jungle Love for about 30 minutes. Turned out that was Bam and that was the show. The promotor left town after that I think.
Lightnin' Hopkins - Cains Ballroom, Tulsa OK. Great seeing a legend, even if they should be a nursing home and not touring. The bass player and drummer appeared to be on heroin. LH gave them each a solo every song, but they were just doing a monotonic thump and never noticed that they were supposed to be soloing. They fat ladies in the red dress kept yelling for Little Red Rooster, but I don't think he ever played it.
Pat Benetar was one of the better shows I saw when I was a kid. My dad would take me to see shows at the Ector County Colosseum in Odessa (TX) when they weren't having monster truck shows or animal shows (where people show off their best sheep and cows). We were on a real roll having seen ZZ Top (How do three guys sound like 5?) , Foreigner (Nice Lasers!), Pat Benetar (just remember the drummer has all red drums and cymbals and did a solo standing on the stool).
But then we went to see Loverboy at the Midland College Gymnasium. If it was any indication of what was to follow, The Hooters were the opening band. 20 years later still haven't seen a show that bad (or loud).
The second best/worst show might have been Warrant in Lubbock. Three songs in they play "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and someone zings a baseball cap at Jamie Warrant and hits him in the forehead. He leaves the stage, most likely crying. The band does an impromptu jam for about 5 minutes before some greasy guy comes on stage and says "Jamie went to the hospital. See ya next time folks". Then the lights come up. Boos all around. But while I lost 25 bucks on that one it was no doubt a turning point to say what the fuck am I doing at a Warrant concert? Wherever that hat throwing dude is, I salute him.
Oh well, I hear his recent live shows aren't that great anyway.
I was holding off writing this up, because I didn???t have a good reason, but this thread is as good as any.
So: a girl I was dating, J***** called me on being able to get free concert tickets as the hip hop director at the local college radio station. She asked if I would be able to get us into Atmosphere. I wasn???t planning on going, but there are a few old songs of theirs that I like, and I???ve always liked Ant???s production, so I checked it out and was able to get guest plus 1.
Night of the show: she makes some pasta for us, we eat up, we eat some weed cookies, we roll to the show.
At the door: I'm not on the list. While I'm stoned and arguing with the door woman, J****** gets pulls out $20 and pays to get in. So I say fuck it, pull out my $20, and get inside.
We head over to the bar to avoid the high-schoolish crowd, and after a couple minutes J***** leaves to go to the bathroom. I'm standing there staring through a sea of baseball caps nodding to Grayskull, who are rocking some generic sounding beat with so much reverb in the room that I can't pick out any of the words. About par for an underground hip hop show. But then I start to get dizzy...
My vision gets blurry, and the world starts looking like a choppy youtube video that is taxing my old computer's processing. Then I feel some menacing vibrations like Hunter Thompson and then...
I don't know where I am. Am I in bed, am in Pittsburgh, am I back home in Massachusetts? Who is this bald man that is speaking to me. I realize there is a concert going on in the distance behind some hoodies. Oh shit...I passed out at the concert.
"Are you okay?"
I try to respond, but instead nod off again. I come to again sitting in a chair five feet away. I get conscious enough to assure them that I'll be okay. They ask if I'm with anyone. Oh shit???I look around and pull out a skinny white girl from the crowd. She shakes her head -- oops, wrong one. Then luckily J****** gets back from the bathroom, and steps in to help me out. One of the bouncers shows us to the door.
The bouncer stays with us outside, grilling me as I'm trying to pull my mind back together. "Did you eat anything today?" First question. J***** tells him that we had some pasta. ???Are you sure???? I???m thinking ???what the fuck???. Then I notice that two rental cops for the concert are standing right behind the bouncer.
???Uhh, I have low blood pressure, and have a history of passing out before. I stubbed my toe before and passed out once.??? I slur a bunch of other bullshit like this to the bouncer, and he seems unconvinced.
???It was probably the smoke inside.??? Says J******.
Then two casual clothes dressed men come up to the police officers. They have a quick huddle and the officers tell the men to follow a crowd that just walked by. The two men roll out to follow the suspicious group. Undercover policemen ??? I???m starting to bug out.
As paranoia is setting in, the bouncer gets bored and leaves us alone. J***** notices that I???m missing my hat and glasses. They fell off in the middle of the crowd. She goes back inside to find them, and I sit outside trying not to make eye contact with the police officers that are staring at me.
J****** returns with both hat and glasses. The hat looks decent, and the glasses only half fucked up. But, the whole scene is too much to deal with. I tell her it???s best if we leave. On the way home she gets lost, and I???m having paranoid delusions. At one point I was convinced that everything in the world was conspiring to kill me, and that I had to make peace with my impending death.
10:30pm, J****** drops me off at my apartment and I pass out hoping that I???ll have regained my sanity by the morning.
We caught about 5 minutes of a shitty Grayskull performance for $20 apiece. I???m not eating any kind of baked THC again for a long while. Meanwhile J******, who weighs about 70 pounds less than me was only a little phased. She went and played darts at the neighborhood bar after dropping me off. Yesterday she told me that she just wants to be friends???This whole story makes me feel like such a losing nerd???
Second :bad brains last sunday,......singer was on another planet,mumbling, stand still like a pole ,hands in is pockets with a big scarf on is face.
Music was good but i'll expected more energy.....i know,i know...it's to late for bad brains...good concert was in the 80's.
I don't want to laugh at you, but then again I do. hahaha..
Here's my worst:
311 - Local festival. Enthusiastic losers. Some girl made me go.
Hemlock/Jimmys chicken shack - Same local festival. These are some shitty local acts.
DJ SHADOW - House of blues. I'd rather watch paint peel.
DREDG - Heard alot of good things about them. Didn't understand why after.
Weezer - Can I be the one to say there songs all sound the same? White thing?
Le tigre - This one was absurdly bad. Hairy armpits galore.
Ja rule - Went to see DMX, Method man and Jarule at Thomas and Mack. Ja rule was the worst one and DMX had an asthma attack. Ja rule didn't even rap he let the audience sing the songs, and he walked around like Rafi getting the little kids to sing Mary had a little lamb.
Lady Sovergn - left during first song.
Rakim - @ freestylesession 7. Never have I felt this bad for an artist. Dude was high and couldn't remember any of his lyrics. He karoake'd to himself rapping incoherently.
MC HAMMER - @4th of july festival. Mc hammer without the gold pants, only 1 backupdancer. Doing all new material. DJ didn't know how to use the Ipod. They had to wait a couple minutes between each song while he fumbled around.
I swear Mc hammer was crying during 2 legit to quit.
- spidey
My roommate and this kid we used to chill with decide to roll down there (2 hr drive) to see these dudes. We get down to Philly and the bouncer only would let me and my roommate in and not this other kid. He waits in the car while me and my roommate get trashed. Halfway through the set Egon blows an amp and everyone is outside for an hour. We go back in and get really really trashed and this kid makes us drive home just as madlib was getting on (whole reason i went). Before we leave, i took a piss right in public with a bunch of cops around in the park that rocky ran through. I blacked out the whole ride back and me and that dude didnt speak much after that. Also my roommate lost his debit card somehow.