What is the worst live performance you have ever seen

I have been to over 200 shows in the last 25 years. I have seen a lot of fabulous shows but I'm wondering what are the worst shows you have seen.

 

The Cars (twice)-Not because they sounded bad, they had absolutely zero interaction with the audiance. I should have stayed home and played thier albums instead.

The Temptations-At an outdoor fest in 2001. Only one original member, and it felt more like a cover/tribute band then the real thing.

Chuck Berry-in 2002. Although I knew going in it was gonna ba a train wreck, it was sad seeing how unprepared he was. Towards the end he invited some women from the audiance up on stage with him. The sight of him ogling the teenage girls that were up there was really uncomfortable...

 

Liz Phair, ca. 2003/2004. She was singing wildly out of tune and trying to be sexy and I just felt totally embarrassed for her.

 

Chuck acting creepy? Tell me it's not true!

 

On television, a lip-synched performance from Brian Wilson promoting his then-new self-titled solo album. Cringe-inducing. At the time I had no idea what demons he was battling, but he looked so uncomfortable you ached in sympathy and just wanted it to be over.

 

Toronto Peace Festival 1971 actually titled Live Peace in Toronto September 13/1969.

I expected with John Lennon, Eric Clapton well God would make an appearance and this was to be the ultimate concert. The Beatles and Cream were two of my most favourite bands. I learned two things that night. A band has to play together and rehearst to sound good. Secondly Yoko Ono should have keep the bag over her head and shut up. After Yoko was finished l truly appreciated why the Beatles broke up.

 

Newcastle Arena in 1997, Ray Charles and Van Morrison. I was so looking forward to this. We sat through what seemed like two weeks of the Ray Charles Orchestra, followed by what seemed like ten minutes of Brother Ray himself. Then after the interval appeared Grumpy Ivan who seemed oblivious that there was an audience. He rushed through the set (like that mass in 'Father Ted'), with that parrot Brian Kennedy repeating every last word in every line, and off they went. Harumph.

 

Saw Jimmy Smith a couple of years ago...played about two tunes and kept yelling at his son to bring him another cup of "tea"....terrible show by one of my favorite musicians.
Also, I saw Bonnie Raitt in about 1978 or 79 and Stephen Stills joined her on stage to play Bluebird. After the song she went into a particularly complex ballad [I wish I could remember the song!] and all Stills could manage to do was play one note over and over as he didn't know the changes. Bonnie finally went over and whispered in his ear and he stomped over to the side of the stage and stood with his arms folded glaring at her until the end ofthe show.

 

Kitty. No comparison, here.

 

I always thought this was a pretty good jam myself. Yeah, Yoko... what can you say? It is sloppy, yes, and at our two lords were lost in a heroin phase around this time. I give 'em slack.
Worst performance seen in person (and not a local artist) for me: probably Ben Folds, nothing against the guy... for some reason I just quit liking him that night. I think I liked his band (five) better. On this occasion, he was solo at a piano and I wore him like a tight baseball cap.

 

Definitely not the worst show I've ever seen, but the worst performance from a major band that I've seen would be the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing unplugged at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit back around 2000 or so.

Man, Anthony Keidis just CAN NOT sing -- and when you strip it down to just acoustic instruments, that becomes painfully obvious. Horrible, horrible set.

 

Foghat. Probably around '75 or '76. They were headlining at Cobo Hall in Detroit. They came out and machine-gunned through their set with absolutely no emotion. The entire set was 50 minutes long including the encore. It was the first concert that I attended where I admitted that I might as well have thrown my money in the gutter.

I also saw Patti Smith's shambolic concert that was a benefit for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. It was at the Punch & Judy Theater in Grosse Point, MI. It was not long after that concert that she disappeared for quite a while.

Cheers,
Chris

 

Red Hot Chili Peppers- Nashville Armory around '90 or '91. The band was terribly sloppy and appeared to be unrehearsed- awkward pauses between songs as if they needed to decide what to play, and Flea killing time by breaking into impromptu bass guitar barrages.

Anthony did one of his Iggy Pop-style contortions and supposedly pulled an abdominal muscle, so the concert was cut short.

The HIGHLIGHT of the show was when one of their roadies jumped onstage to growl out AC/DC's Back in Black. To make matters worse, I've never been to a worse SMELLING concert- it was almost as if 95% of the crowd had never worn deodorant before- yikes!

I was playing in a band at the time and was disgusted that a major-label band should have cared so little for the fans that were paying hard-earned money to come to their show. I had been in bands that were 100X tighter than they were that night. I'm sure substances had a LOT to do with this particular show........

 

I saw Foghat about 15 years ago at a nightclub in So Cal. I think they played the same set you saw at Cobo Hall.

 

Judy Collins at Western Michigan University sometime around 94'. She was 40 minutes late, out of breath and sang off key accompanied by a Piano player who played like he was at a different performance.:thumbsdn:

 

I friend of mine dragged me to see Smashmouth and Third Eye Blind (are either bands still around???) at Ohio Northern University in 1998. To be honest, TEB didn't do too bad, but Smashmouth was horrible, the lead singer was rude. Just a bad night that after this I hope to forget about ... again!

 

well

i saw the stones at earls court on the black and blue tour..the echo throughout was so bad you could not tell what songs they were playing at any point so instead i just watched ron wood and keef chain smoking throughout and each time they finished a cigarette they just flicked the lighted stub out into the audience...it was heart warming stuff
i saw the who at the rainbow i think it was the first gig without moonie...it was like a wall of noise...yet again hard to make out what song was which...horrible stuff
Bert Janch at the cambridge folk festival in the seventies...it was pouring down outside the tent and he'd obviously been pouring it down his neck all afternoon in his trailer because he was totally smashed...he got through about two numbers..but not the same two numbers his poor old rhythme section were playing...before dropping his guitar and stumbling off...
Anderson Wakerman Bruford and Howe at wembley..front row tckets.....i used to love yes so to see this shambles broke my heart...Howe bored and wandering off stage half the time, wakeman shrilling away on his dreadful polymmogs...the genius Bruford sounding like a disco convention warming up on his electronic drum kit and anderson away with the fairies, poor old tony levin might have well stayed in bed because he was non existant in the live mix......it was the end
Rick Wakeman Wembley King Arthur On Ice....they did some stuff from Six Wives then the whole of journey to the centre of the earth , then the whole of king arthur then as an encore the whoile of journey again.....the skaters fell over constantly, the vocalists were so out of tune it hurt, the orchestra were lost...it was like being at a disney show and totally underwhelming spectical.......i would have loved it if i was eight but at eighteen i just squirmed with embarrisment from start to eventual finish

 

I saw them in the mid-1980's and what a disappointment to hear the songs sound like product to be rushed through. It took me ten years before I could fully enjoy their music again!

 

Uriah Heep/ Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Cobo Hall, mid-70s

Earth Band opened, & did an amazing set. Great playing, & they used the lighting to great effect.
Headliner Heep came on the stage 30 minutes late & it was pretty obvious that singer Byron was 3 sheets + to the wind. He'd actually drop his arm with the mic
in it right over the stage monitors so it would begin this horribly loud feedback, & had no clue what was causing it. He fell down on the stage several times, and finally the roadies came out & dragged him off & they stopped.

Luckily I'd gone for the Earth Band

 

If I may stick up for the RHCP.....in 2000 Anthony was coming off of about 5 years without seriously performing. He has improved a lot since then because of singing a lot more often...those who saw their recent tour could attest to that. As for their 1990-91 performances, I thought they were outstanding. The band had so much more energy, especially John.

 

Dylan at the Warner Theater in 2004 was a disaster - but that seems to be par for the course with Dylan these days... :thumbsdn:

 

1997 - David Sanborn/George Benson - Merriweather Post Pavillion, Columbia MD

Sanborn was absolutely fantastic. He played with reckless abandon and his band was absolutely magnificent. So far so good.

Then, Benson hit the stage. His playing wasn't bad. That wasn't the problem when he played. The problem was how absolutely full of himself he was. He just wouldn't stop talking. He kept going on and on about the places he'd played and who he'd played with. It was so annoying that I left 20 minutes into his set.

Ed

 

She's nothing but a rock critic's hype.It's no wonder that she's crap live!

 

The band formerly known as The Beach Boys, sometime around 1981 or 1982.

Mike Love sang "Imagine" in that nasal, faux-teenager voice, and he pantomimed almost all the lyrics: "Imagine there's no heaven (solemnly shakes his head). No hell below us (points his fingers downward to the stage), above us only sky (thrusts his thumbs skyward)..."

As God is my witness, when he got to the line about "no greed or hunger" he pantomimed eating a burger or a sandwich or something.

All I could think was, 'Would someone please give this man a tambourine or a pair of sandblocks?"

 

All this reminds me of Jon Anderson, a man equally guilty of such things (and a peculiar 'mid-Atlantic' accent which appeared from somewhere).