You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
A thread for those of us who never went to the Hacienda, only saw Greenday after American Idiot and missed the Killers playing their student union for £4 in 2003.
Soulwax, maybe it's the fact I don't do drugs, but I somehow feel that no amount of drugs would have helped in a half empty Leadmill on a weeknight.
Kings Of Leon, I'm sure they can be amazing, but it was Reading and I suspect they overdid it the night before and just couldn't be arsed, and the crowd picked up on it and were pretty merciless.
MUSE, somewhere between it being daylight and on the upper level of a 2/3 full stadium the whole experience get's lost.
Eric Clapton, Royal Albert Hall. £30 and he didn't even play Layla.
Tony Humphries. Absolutely abysmal. Played the same track 3 times in his set
Eric Clapton is also the worst gig I've ever been to. All the stage presence of a used hanky
Bob Dylan in Liverpool a couple of years ago was terrible, made worse by the fact that I was really looking forward to seeing him.
Band sounded like they couldn't be arsed, and the classics he played were reworked as insipid rock covers. The bloke busking outside did a better Bob Dylan impression!
Lee Perry at Reading sometime in the late 90s monumental waste of ****ing time. Massive Attack at Finsbury Park similar year(love them to death) but so boring live quickly jumped across tents to see Aphex Twin & big dancing teddy bears.
U2 Joshua Tree Tour at Wembley Stadium. Supported by Spear of Destiny who totally knocked U2 into a cocked hat even though I’d never even heard of them.
Lost Prophets on an NME multi-band tour. They were shit and the singer was just a crap Mike Patton impersonator. Unfortunately, I couldn't get close enough to tell him this cos of all the young girls surrounding him (I did try). In hindsight it was worse than I thought.
MF Doom - was much more boring than I expected/hoped and it was quite an expensive gig (for me).
Nothing else comes to mind
Noah & the Whale at Leeds Cockpit. Was dragged along by the missus and her housemates, and wished I'd made my excuses and sacked it off.
the only one i can think of is Blackalicious a couple of years back. Gift of Gab is in pretty bad shape these days, basically did one tune out of every three, then sat on a chair at the side of the stage while these two hypemen did a couple of tracks of general party hiphop. Which they did pretty well, but it was still kind of depressing
oh yeah, Squarepusher, Sheffield, about 1999. Dragged my non-electronic music fan mates to the gig, which was upstairs in a pub. The support act (Stock Hausen and Walkman) played a load of fart noises and other hilarity such as a spinning a Kylie Minogue 45 backwards. Then Squarepusher came on stage, went up to his massive rig of gear, pressed play on something and came to stand in the crowd and get pissed with his mates, leaving the stage empty for his entire set.
My mates gave it about 20 mins and dragged me back out. which seemed fair enough.
Saw Squarepusher again 3 or 4 years later and he was great <shrug>
65Daysofstatic. I had tickets to see Asobi Seksu in Oxford, but someone decided they’d be better as support for 65Days..., so me and a mate went rather than lose the money. Asobi were good, but we only got thirty minutes of their set. Which is still more than we gave 65Days..., they were just boring, lots of noise and bugger-all else. Alright if you were off yer face I s’pose, but tedious otherwise.
We went to the pub down the road, had a couple, then went home.
Can’t think of any others, although there was a John Martyn gig I wish I hadn’t seen, he was completely shit-faced, barely coherent, and hugely disappointing. I’d seen him several times before, and he’d been fine. ☹️
By contrast, I’ve seen Sparklehorse, and Mark Linkous came on with a bottle of JD in his jacket pocket, which he swigged from through the set, a roadie had to catch him when he pretty much fell off the end of the stage at the end of the main set. It was a brilliant gig!
About 10 years ago I got into Bob Dylan in a big way, I went to see him at the NEC and he was really crap, I’ve not listened to him since.
Kings of Leon (at Manchester Apollo) is the only gig I’ve ever walked out of. They really were that bad. Awful. We all voted to sack it off and go to the pub next door instead of enduring any more of their half-arsed shite.
They were barely even going through the motions, didn’t engage with the audience at all and looked like they really just couldn’t be arsed and they’d rather be anywhere else rather than on stage.
Probably made worse as we’d been to see the Prodigy a week earlier at the same venue and the contrast between the quality of what was going on on stage couldn’t conceivably have been starker
****s!
Florence and the Machine at Ally Pally in the height of their hype, very painful
Can I go for the Isle of Wight festival (2007 I think)?
The whole thing. Like it was designed to crush your spirit.
Oh, I've got another one!
Saw them on the Mercury Prize show - they were giving it some and looked pretty exciting, so I looked em up and they were playing fairly locally. bought 2 tickets. In the end, my girlfriend at the time couldn't go, so I dragged myself out. Got lost on the way, really annoyed by the time I got there.. then, jeezuz the most awful jazz/math rock, up it's arse, bunch of shit I've ever suffered 20 minutes of, spending most of the time texting my mate how shit they were.
Black ****ing Midi.
Since found out the "learned their craft" by attending some fancy music/arts/celebrity school, no wonder, pretentious arseholes.
Stereophonics, twice (more fool me).
I could describe why but this sums it up nicely
hey were barely even going through the motions, didn’t engage with the audience at all and looked like they really just couldn’t be arsed and they’d rather be anywhere else rather than on stage.
Lauren Hill, was utter gash. Half the “set” was a DJ (who was also abysmal) left early to go for a pint.
Oasis when they headlined Reading. It wasn't just that they were rubbish- though they were, absolutely phoned it in. It was also that there'd been so many articles about how much they were getting paid to do it that you could think "Liam just got paid £10000 to spit water over that cameraman" I don't mind Oasis normally but this was just a total abortion of a show. Funnilly enough Rage Against The Machine played that year and also blatantly couldn't be arsed. Daphne and Celeste put more effort into it than either of these.
It worked out OK though because we sacked it off and went to see Muse in a tent, which we wouldn't have otherwise, and they were absolutely awesome- first of a load of great Muse gigs I saw, which were followed by a few not-great Muse gigs.
Leonard Cohen at Brum Arena, he was kin awful but I couldn't mention it because of the cost of the ticket which I hadn't paid for.
Bob Dylan - Wembley Arena
Counting Crows - Shepherds Bush Empire
Aztec Camera - Dominion Tottenham Court Road,
but the Bobster wins for lacking the most lustre.
Madonna at Murrayfield. . What a horrible gig, I only went when my wife's pal bailed after car broke. A thoroughly listless performance preceeded by a beardy guy trying to snog me when we were waiting to get in. Worst of all, the warm up act was avicii.
#1 Primal Scream - Cambridge Corn exchange approx 10 years ago.
Band rolled onto stage, played through 4 or 5 songs, hearts not in it, no crowd interaction, not even a hello or thanks for coming. Atmosphere was horrible, someone bunged the arse end of a pint at the stage. Gilespie stroped off after a few choice words, then Manny too, in fact I recall to this day he said "you are ALL C****". 20-30 minutes later they came back out to play a few more, but we left shortly after.
#2 GnR Olympic stadium. Worst venue ever, turns out I know surprisingly few GnR tracks and sometimes bands are just past their heydays.
#3 Air Cambridge Corn-exchange - it's just not that interesting live!
I'm shocked that someone mentioned Leonard Cohen - his concerts were absolutely stunning. Mind you, I guess if you're not a fan, or don't 'get' him .....
Hot Chip at Southampton Guildhall. All the muso press hyping the band and their performances it was dire. Crowd thought it was awful and as they got less and less interested started winding up the keyboard player chucking water in his direction. Which he didn't find amusing.
Oasis at cardiff international arena.. just awful.
Guns and Roses Headline at Reading Festival...turned up 2 hours late...then got cut off at midnight and threw an almighty tantrum.
The Buzzcocks possibly at Glastonbury sometime in the early nineties. Bunch of old guys in golfing jumpers failing miserably to recapture their glory days.
Most of the bands I ever saw in the Leadmill because the sound was generally ****.
Bunch of old guys in golfing jumpers failing miserably to recapture their glory days.
It's what the punters want!! :'-)
Bjork at G-MEX in January 96, was freezing cold, lack lustre performance and disinterested crowd, went to the pub before the end.
Oh and the Orb at Band on the Wall last year, I knew it was going to be two blokes with laptops playing stems of their tracks, but I went along with some friends for old times sake anyway, it was pretty tedious really.
prodigy in plymouth pavilions about 10yrs ago. half-assed set, started late, finished early, acoustics were awful.
reef - about a week before they got famous with that sony minidisc advert. saw them in the crypt in hastings. lead singer was so drunk he kept falling off the stage.
Primal Scream in Birmingham somewhere, I don't care to remember where.
John Butler Trio at Brixton Academy. The venue was full of people talking loudly who had no interest in seeing the band (to be fair, neither did I but it was a free ticket). I got sick of the noise and left after one pint.
Orbital were really underwhelming too, but I was sober while the rest of the crowd were gurning. So not unexpected really.
Talking of going through the motions - Underworld on one of those anniversary, play the album deals. Was a shit venue, Brighton Dome (ceiling too high, sound gets lost) and only Karl Hyde was there, cos Rick was ill, so they had a stand-in (was someone pretty famous, but that made no difference). And it was just boring, which was gutting cos we'd been to quite a few absolutely awesome Underworld gigs before. I almost got into a fight with 2 pricks behind us too, who just talked about their Miele appliances and Tarquin's babysitter until I told them to shut the **** up.
And I got done for (accidentally) going through a red light on the way home!
GnR Olympic stadium. Worst venue ever, turns out I know surprisingly few GnR tracks and sometimes bands are just past their heydays.
I think there comes a point in a band's lifecycle where your fans use their phones to set reminders to take their drugs rather than using them to phone a dealer and they don't care about the album you've spent 20 years arguing over. They just want to hear those 5 songs from their teenage years and reminisce about getting shitfaced and having sex in cars rather than having to plan 3 days ahead, make a trip to the chemist and hope the wife was till in the mood when they got back.
Most of the bands I ever saw in the Leadmill because the sound was generally ****.
On the positive side for the leadmill as a venue, you're never more than a few meters form the stage, on the negative's neither is the back wall.
One of those venue's which is actually really good as long as the sound engineer doesn't turn it upto 11.
Counting Crows - The Armadillo, Glasgow, very late 90's I think. Not good, Felt like i was an extra in an episode of Friends or something. They were just running through their hits, I ended up sitting for most of the gig. Couldn't even bother showing much enthusiasm trying to impress the girl I was with and very much smitten with at the time.
Edit: Just found the setlist, turns out they played 8 tracks from their new album at the time, which was pretty poor, that's probably why I was so disinterested
I went to the Underworld - Dubnobasswithmyheadman album anniversary gig somewhere in London. The sound was terrible and we were upstairs in a seated bit. It should have been a recipe for a terrible night, but it turned out to be really fun. It might have helped that I was there with a lovely young lady and we had split an E between us though.
Hole, paid only about 10 quid for the ticket at Brixton Academy but wasn't worth that and I love the records
Motley Crue, Vince Neil was shockingly bad vocally and bloated
Maybe contentious, but I'm going to say Knebworth.
We were so far from the stage that you had to watch the performance on the screens, but the sound had so far to travel, everything was out of sync.
Bob Dylan and Van Morrison at the Phoenix festival, 1995, totally overblown and mumbly in equal measure.
The highlight of the weekend however was Spiritualized and everyone shouting 'you fat bastard' at Ice T. I've just looked up the band list on Wikipedia and I don't remember half of them (I may have been a little socially confused).
Dez is going to love both of mine 🙂 …
Fleetwood Mac at the Manchester Arena; started off with The Chain, which was good and I'm thinking "blimey, I'm sitting here watching Fleetwood Mac play The Chain". It went rapidly downhill from there. Talk about self-absorbed, at one point Stevie Nicks had been waffling on for so long about some tape or other with a song on that she'd lost I thought "bugger this" and went to the loo and the bar. It took me ages to find the loos, then ages at the bar and to get back to find the Mrs again in the arena, and she was still going. They didn't even play that well, Go Your Own Way was a shambles.
Bon Jovi at the Ricoh in Coventry last year; having previously seen them a few years previously in Manchester, we though we'd go to see them again as they were massively cheesey but put on a fantastic show (plus the Mrs and her mate are a bit in love with JBJ). Unfortunately this time Mr Jovi had clearly lost his voice, couldn't sing a note, to the point where they pretty much faded his mic out. Somewhat ironically they were supported by the Manics, who I normally can't stand, but who were actually very good.
Dire Straits.
Technically brilliant. Fantastic sound.
All the charisma of a bit of limp seaweed.
They were more exciting when they were still playing the pubs.
Thurston Moore at the Hebden Bridge Trades Club a couple of years ago. I'm quite the fan of Sonic Youth and Mr Moore's solo output, so I was expecting a good night.
Initially I was somewhat bemused by there support act, which comprised of a lady with a trombone and a chap with a sampler. However, it turns out that it was an impressively accurate lead into the main performance itself, which was pure unadulterated 'art rock'. As in, no discernible structure. Or tune. Or rhythm.
I'm told that some people believe they witnessed something really special that evening. It must've been within the last hour, though, 'cos my wife and I had legged it long before then.
I did get to meet him first though. Which was nice.
Ooh - thought of another one!
Evan Dando at The Duchess in York, 2008-ish. A then relatively new Frank Turner as support was the highlight of the entire gig. Dando himself looked and sounded like he wasn't sure where he was, who he was, or what he was doing. No conversation, no stage presence, no apparent desire or happiness to be there, just going through the motions.
Paul Weller, on numerous occasions.
Dez is going to love both of mine
Never heard of them
Hugh Cornwell at The Sage in Gateshead; truly dreadful.
Judas Priest, 1980.They were poor to say the least. However, their support band was rather good..... Iron Maiden
Tackead disco, absolutely terrible gig, worst I ever went to, left early iirc.
cant say as i wish i hadnt seen a particular gig, cos even crap gigs are still worth going to, just to find out theyre crap, but the only one ive walked out of halfway was a few months ago, the macc lads at lincoln engine shed.
on reflection i shouldnt have gone, times change, bands long past their sell-by date, seemed a good idea at the time to get tickets so me and me mate went along. oh dear....did i really use to like these? :-/
incidentally, guy martin was also there, hed expected something totally different and also walked out 😀
U2 Joshua Tree Tour at Wembley Stadium. Supported by Spear of Destiny who totally knocked U2 into a cocked hat even though I’d never even heard of them.
I was at that - Pretenders and World Party too IIRC, who were also better than U2.
I did a lot of clubbing mid 90's. I have no idea which DJs i have seen and those i have not. I did most of it in Cream but also various Manchester clubs including the Hacienda and Sankeys.
I saw Derrik May in Sankeys - remember that one as Carl Cox had failed to show so May did a 4 hour set.
I would have known the rest at the time although it was always a bit vague on the night as to who had turned up and when they were on. Cream had two rooms so you also never knew which rooms were which DJs, they were never announced. I would love to know some of the names - especially Cream as I was there through possibly the heigh point of that club. The Hacienda was rough as **** by the mid 90's.
U2 Joshua Tree Tour at Wembley Stadium. Supported by Spear of Destiny who totally knocked U2 into a cocked hat even though I’d never even heard of them.
First gig I went to was Spear of Destiny in around 85
I went to the other U2 Joshua Tree gig at Wembley, Lou Reed, Pogues and Lone Justice supported, all, including U2 were fantastic.
The Buzzcocks possibly at Glastonbury sometime in the early nineties. Bunch of old guys in golfing jumpers failing miserably to recapture their glory days.
I thought the same seeing them at Brixton Academy (or Town & Country Club) in early 1990s, very disappointing.
Saw The Ramones the same year and that is still one of the best gigs I've ever seen.
Other disappiontments...
Velvet Underground reunion at Wembley Arena mid-90s. Horrible setting, barely going through motions, warm Carling.
The Flaming Lips at Astoria 2, mid or late 90s - before they got famous with Yoshimi.
Abysmal sound, just an incoherent murky din rather than the sharp, melodic noise rock from albums like In A Priest Driven Ambulance.
coldplay - V2000 (possibly) utter gash, still not a fan
prodigy - i think liam had just left.
paul van dyke - gatecrasher sheffield (tom wainwright was djing a blinder upstairs)
tony di vit - bit of a bellend.
dj Sy - a lot of a bellend
struggling to remember anymore realy bad ones
i saw hotchip around launch 2nd album, and they were awesome, another time - average
U2
I went to a U2 gig on the PopMart tour. I felt a bit flu like on the walk down to the venue, enough to stop at a pharmacist and get something to make me feel a bit better.
At about the time the opening band played their first bars I had to excuse myself as I was starting to feel distinctly unwell. My overriding memory of that gig is being inside a portaloo as my body attempted to turn itself inside out via my arse, while angry people in the queue that formed between acts banged on the door. Added bonus, no bog roll so I had to tear strips off my boxer shorts to attempt to clean myself up with (using them all at once was high risk). Then a walk past the angry mob before finding a quiet corner to lie down in and attempt not to die while I waited for the gig to finish. Spent the next three days operating as a straight through pipe. Water in, brown water out in about 30 seconds.
So yeah. Could have done without that one.
Pretty much anyone once they're past their creative peak - the Creative Peak Rule!
Two really stand out for me:
Bjork earlier this year, tickets bought for Mrs Tyred's birthday. Holy hell that was awful. We both like Bjork (not in a buy-every-album way admittedly) but despite that and the high ticket cost, left before the midway point. I struggle to describe how terrible it was.
Many years earlier, seeing Suicide (pre Alan Vega's death obv) at the opening of an arts venue in Glasgow. I'm a huge fan of their first album so, despite the obvious flouting of the CPR, was quite keen for it. I am not afraid of the avant garde, but it was avant shite. Only the most pretentious audience members were able to give the impression they were enjoying it.
There's been several more, but it's often the venue that's played the decisive note, rather than the band.
I have been to see Lee 'Scratch' Perry dozens of times. Each gig was either excellent or terrible - never mediocre or middling. I think it might depend on what he's been smoking.
Once he came on hours late, stood stock still and muttered into the mic. On another occasion he wouldn't have the strobe turn off, which made everyone sick after about 10 minutes.
However, I've also seen him when he's been absolutely magnetic, when nobody could take their eyes off him, where he's played for hours and people still wanted more. And once he gave me his hat!
I wish there was a way of telling which version you're going to get - but I guess I'll take the bad with the good.
Zodiac Mindwarp - somewhere in Brum late ‘80’s I think - I remember literally nothing about the gig but my god the amount of tequila and some other substances that were consumed that night have entered into legend in my, admittedly dodgy, memory!
The Streets at the Academy, Manchester. Bunch of pissed blokes that had forgotten why they were on stage...
Dreadful.
Many years earlier, seeing Suicide (pre Alan Vega’s death obv) at the opening of an arts venue in Glasgow. I’m a huge fan of their first album so, despite the obvious flouting of the CPR, was quite keen for it. I am not afraid of the avant garde, but it was avant shite. Only the most pretentious audience members were able to give the impression they were enjoying it.
I saw them playing Hammersmith, definitely not enjoyable but it was quite remarkable as the most immense wall of noise I've ever heard. And I've heard a few.
Probably helped that they were supporting Iggy & The Stooges so I could treat it as a curiosity before the (excellent) main event.
There's an act that broke your rule.
Zodiac Mindwarp
Saw him supporting somebody, he was rubbish but tbh he was a joke, manufactured image from the start so lived up to expectations
Imelda May, 2 years ago.
I'd seen her and the band probably 10 times over the previous 5 years. They were a great tight band.
Then she divorced her husband, the bands guitarist. Unknown to us, the rest of the band was sacked too, and she had a bunch of young lads playing with her.
She put effort in, but it was very false and wasnt any good, it was more of a 'look at me' show rather then her fronting a great band.
We had heard previously that she was a bit of a diva who wanted everything her own way, and it looks like she got it, but lost a great band in the process.
Mark Knopfler at the secc or whatever it's called, it was a wee bit boring with folk constantly either to the bog or buying expensive beer out a tin,maybe one Dire Straits track but can't remember, no encore. Chucked out at 9.30 still daylight
I saw MGMT at the Barrowlands when they were touring their second album. That was pretty poor. I hung on until the encore hoping that they'd pull something out for that but no, so me (also Northwind and another mate) didn't hang around to the bitter end.
The same year I saw Midlake at the ABC at Glasgow. I have since spoken to at least one other person who went and enjoyed it but I found it a bit flat and dull. Not as bad as MGMT but underwhelming.
I saw the Red Hot Chilli Peppers at Murrayfield. I had a headache and I was up in the stands so miles from the stage. It led me to conclude that stadium gigs are not for me.
Radiohead at Tredegar House on their Kid A tour. Was really into them right up until that gig, utter crap.
Another Kings of Leon victim here, this time at Benicassim in 2007. It didn't help that they were following The Hives on the line up, who had just done one of their "we're the greatest live band in the world" performances so the contrast couldn't have been much starker. They may have said the name of a few of the songs in between mechanically playing their songs while not looking at the crowd, I can't remember as I may have dozed off mid-set. Good lord was it boring.
Closely followed by The Strokes at Leeds Fest in 2011. Another phone it in job, managed to beat Kings of Leon in "we'd like you all to know we'd rather be somewhere else" stakes but only saved by playing some half decent songs.
Guns and roses at Milton Keynes bowl in the early 90s, they played an "acoustic" set, I wish I hadn't heard it
Went to see Biffy Clyro last summer, they had two support acts on. The first lot, Fatherson, were excellent. Stuck in the corner of the stage but had so much presence and played so well it felt like they took up the whole stage.
The second act, Ghost Poet, was absolutely appalling. Lead singer/rapper/whatever gave the impression he just didn't want to be there and they were just going through the motions. Most of the crowd lost interest after a couple of minutes and went to the bar.
Thankfully Biffy made up for it with a really good, enjoyable set (and I'm not really a fan, just tagged along with a couple of mates).
Massive Attack - O2 Arena London last year - so dull
neds atomic dustbin at the QMU in glasgow. Just awful, what made it worse is that someone offered me £20 for my ticket when I was standing in the queue . I should have taken the money.
Onslaught at the barras, it was after sy keeler had left so they had a new singer, some guy with a bon jovi haircut. I had seen them before at the venue and they where brilliant, this time not so much.
Leftover crack at rockers. Not really the band, sound was just bad.