[dmpoole]

The year is 1976, the venue is Bingley Hall Stafford which is a cow shed and the band are The Rolling Stones. I'd been waiting ages for this gig and I'd even been offered £100 for my ticket. There were banners all around saying "The Greatest Rock And Roll Band In The World" and I couldn't wait.
We entered the cow shed with the sound of soul music blasting in our ears. The support act came on which were an all black soul band which I think were called the Trammps but I could be way off. The thing is we had another hour of soul music.
The interval music was all soul music.
The Stones then hit the stage with I think Jumping Jack Flash and I was rockin'. They then went into all their slow soul type stuff for about 30 minutes and then the stage was given to Billy Preston for 10 minutes. They continued until the hour was nearly up with slow soulful stuff and then ended with (I think) Brown Sugar. There was no encore and we left to the sounds of soul music once again. A total of two rock n roll songs all night on a bill that was supposed to be dedicated to "The Greatest Rock And Roll Band In The World".
To say I was upset was an understatement and to think I could have sold my ticket for £100.

(just like to say I grew up on soul music but I didn't expect it on this night)

Whats your worst gig?

[huwg]

a choice of :-
The Cult (87 - Electric tour)
Living Colour (92? - Times Up tour)

[TarPot]

I saw Living Colour when Stain was released and thought they were amazing.
I saw The Cult on the Ceremony tour, they were toilet.

I saw The Brian Jonestown Massacre the other week after seeing them in the film DiG! They were truly awful. Avoid.

[frozendexter]

I saw Embrace the other week in Sherwood forest, one word, ****E. The sound mix was crap so you could hardly make out the words.

Most entertaing part of the gig was a fight on the car park afterwards.

Saw Madness last year at the same place, awesome!

[TJNewton]

Slade, without Noddy Holder, Xmas Extravaganza. They even made support band Dr. and the Medics look good. Dave Hill is a right t****r!

[sbowler]

REM mcalpine stadium, mid eighties. Awesome.

[signs]

Originally Posted by dmpoole

The year is 1976, the venue is Bingley Hall Stafford which is a cow shed and the band are The Rolling Stones. I'd been waiting ages for this gig and I'd even been offered £100 for my ticket. There were banners all around saying "The Greatest Rock And Roll Band In The World" and I couldn't wait.
We entered the cow shed with the sound of soul music blasting in our ears. The support act came on which were an all black soul band which I think were called the Trammps but I could be way off. The thing is we had another hour of soul music.
The interval music was all soul music.
The Stones then hit the stage with I think Jumping Jack Flash and I was rockin'. They then went into all their slow soul type stuff for about 30 minutes and then the stage was given to Billy Preston for 10 minutes. They continued until the hour was nearly up with slow soulful stuff and then ended with (I think) Brown Sugar. There was no encore and we left to the sounds of soul music once again. A total of two rock n roll songs all night on a bill that was supposed to be dedicated to "The Greatest Rock And Roll Band In The World".
To say I was upset was an understatement and to think I could have sold my ticket for £100.

(just like to say I grew up on soul music but I didn't expect it on this night)

Whats your worst gig?

i saw rainbow there in the 80's.. and i would say calling it a cow shed is mild

[signs]

the lemon heads, rock city ...dando forgot his words ,sh*t
saying that, soul asylum (the support) were great :smashin

[unique]

apart from bands i really couldn't stand, the rolling stones at hampden in glasgow was awful. free tickets, but we were right at the back of the stadium, and the stage was setup at one end (when i saw u2 the stage was in the middle, so the furthest seats werent that far back, altho i was front row anyways) and we were at the far end, with no speakers so all the sound was bouncing about and echoing, plus the screens looked out of synch and the stones looked like ants. in fact it could have been anyone on stage for all we could see. i was closer to the stage at live 8!

i saw the lemonheads at queen margaret student union in glasgow, small club sized gig in the mid 90s and they were really great, no support either thank god. having to put up with a glaswedgian student grunge band would just have been too much. i just stood behind the soundesk, which whilst at the back, was only a few feet from the stage, the place was so small. saw evan outside before the gig too. he was suffering from food poisoning after eating some dodgy chicken (welcome to glasgow!) but still did a great show. funnily enough a few years later i bumped into him again in minneapolis outside first avenue, he was hiding from some japanese tourists/fans across the street. i wouldn'tve known who it was if they hadn't told me

[signs]

Originally Posted by unique

saw evan outside before the gig too. he was suffering from (heroin) food poisoning after eating some dodgy chicken (welcome to glasgow!) but still did a great show. funnily enough a few years later i bumped into him again in minneapolis outside first avenue, he was hiding from some japanese tourists/fans across the street. i wouldn'tve known who it was if they hadn't told me

[unique]

Originally Posted by signs

LOL, probably!

that reminds me of the story about when pete docherty came to edinburgh a couple of months back when he was doing the tour of uk jails and police stations as well as a couple of normal venues, anyways there was an article in the evening news that said he left his hotel to cross the street to the newsagents and persuaded the young asian guy who worked there to drive him in his car to buy heroin, and the guy actually took him, but he didn't know anyone who sold drugs (so why go in the bloody car with a nutter! you may as well have taken osama bin liner wearing a t shirt saying "i hate bush and blair" if you wanted to get arrested)

[JohnG]

Soft Cell many many years ago at Rock City in Nottingham, and before anyone says anything, the only reason I was there was because my mate's band were supporting them
The tape machine that Soft Cell used with most of their music on broke down and eventually everyone started jeering them. Marc Almond then burst into tears on stage and the whole thing just deteriorated from then !

[karkus30]

There are three that claim equal ammounts of awfulness..


Primal Scream at the T&C leeds........awful acoustics, Bobby kept stopping 'cos people were shouting at him and was bursting into fits of rage and announcing they would walk off stage, the smoke was so dense you got high just breathing and the enterance was full of smack heads shooting up in plain sight of everyone or just lying comatose on the floor........

The Thrills at Middlesbrough......the venue did'nt seem to know when exactly the gig was supposed to start so they left people outside for about an hour and a half, when we finally got in the band were totalled and could hardly play, the guitarist did'nt even seem to know what song he was playing or where the audience were.......

and finally.....Snow Patrol at Newcastle Uni, couldn't see a thing and in the end I couldn't care anyway as it was so boring, girls swooning over their one average single was about all I could take....why did I book the tickets..oh yeah thats when I actually believed Q magazine were genuine critics, not music industry patsies.......ho,ho anyone for that 5 star Razorlight album to go with the 5 star Muse album.

[Simon6776]

David Lee Roth - Hammersmith, probably about 10 years ago. Played a whole load of new stuff no one liked, and was just plain boring.

Didn't go myself, but I would have thought that Queen + Paul Rodgers in the tent at Wembley (2005) was a contender, judging by the reports from the gig.

[cheeseywang]

Robert Cray @ Hammersmith Odeon Jan '91 I think. I'd been really looking forward to this, so when the lights went down and the band came on stage me and my mate stood up cheering and... no one else did. They all remained seated and clapped politely. Feeling a little foolish we sat down and the band started up. They were so quiet we could barely hear the music, far less the vocals. I turned to my mate and we started talking about how rubbish the sound was and the guy sitting in front of me turned round and asked us to stop talking. Is this a gig or a library?

It was a huge disappointment all round. Partly due to the undersized PA and partly due to our misconception of what the gig would be. I was expecting a rockin' soul/blues show but got a musical appreciation evening.

Still love his early albums though...

[Kenny Glasgow]

Al Stewart - Renfrew Ferry, Glasgow, a few years ago

Went with a mate who's a big AS fan and of course I knew of Year of the Cat and Across The Border (On The Border?)

Didn't know it was a solo accoustic gig and my ears were bleeding after 20 mins. Thankfully we were on the balcony next to the bar and the lager was ice cold

Can't listen to him to this day and even my mate thought it was shocking

In the early 80's saw a band called Positive Noise at Glasgow College of Technology and it was murder! So bad we walked out met some people we knew and went with them to see a "new" Irish band playing at Strathclyde Uni called U2........

[russ123]

Prince at Wembley in I think 94 or squiggle as he was known then. Did not play anything that anyone knew and was probably playing what turned out to be the Gold Experience album which although I think is not a bad album just sounded rubbish live not knowing it. Was a major disappointment given it was the first time I saw him and had been led to expect he was amazing. I've never seen so many people walk out after the main set and not wait for an ancore

[Simon6776]

I think the best gigs are always when an act has no new material to promote, then they tend to rummage in the archives for more interesting stuff that we know, but hasn't been played live for a while. Thunder are great for this, and often play some nice surprises. There's nothing worse than a gig where a band playes nothing but new material, especially if it hasn't been released yet, then a token couple of older songs at the end. The last Genesis tours were guilty of this. They played far too much new material, when the fans want the old songs. When you have paid about £50 to see a band, you want them to play what you want to hear!

[unique]

Originally Posted by russ123

Prince at Wembley in I think 94 or squiggle as he was known then. Did not play anything that anyone knew and was probably playing what turned out to be the Gold Experience album which although I think is not a bad album just sounded rubbish live not knowing it. Was a major disappointment given it was the first time I saw him and had been led to expect he was amazing. I've never seen so many people walk out after the main set and not wait for an ancore

that was one of his best tours (1995), for the fans at least, who all knew the lyrics to all the songs, even tho none of them had been released. he killed off his hits on the previous tour, so for the average joe bloggs the set list was probably a bit too much (no kiss, purple rain, etc). wembley arena is a crap venue to see prince in tho. he also did a few aftershows, with chaka khan and george benson guesting on one of the london ones. to this day most of the fans still think that 94/95 period was his best

i suppose its a bit like the two radiohead gigs i saw in the tent in glasgow before kid a came out. the fans knew the lyrics already for that and the following album, but the majority of punters expected the follow up to ok computer to be more like it, but looked amazed when they did electronic doodlings onstage instead. i remember afterwards someone saying that it was the worst concert they had ever been to in thier life. i suppose it was like going to see dylan play his accoustic folk in the 60s and he plugged his guitar in

[overkill]

This will upset a few people I know, but Iron Maiden 81'.Totally awful. Naff sound, cliched to death, boring repetitive tracks, lousy set. Only gig I've ever left the venue before the end.

After that UB40 Wembley 84(ish), who were utter, and total rubbish, and Dr and the medics early 90's supporting Alice Cooper. The latter were so bad I had to get a beer (this is wembley arena we're are talking here!) and prop up the bar til' they'd finished. So, not were they crap, but the cost me a fortune in overpriced, foamy, gnats wee as well!

[pmc]

Primal Scream in New York a few years ago. I can't remember the venue but it was an old theater, all seated and we were sitting in the upper tier. First and last time I'll go to a gig and sit down. Sound was pretty poor up there as well.

Just to top it off a loud Yank was sitting a few rows behind us and kept shouting 'play stuff from the first album'. He clearly meant Screamadelica, clueless eejit.

[Timmy C]

Maybe not the worst gig I've seen but GBH tonight at the Mean Fiddler weren't what I hoped for. I'm sure no one on here give's a **** but they were the the first punk band I got into and seeing them tonight wasn't great.

I doubt it but did anyone else go?

[unique]

Originally Posted by pmc

Primal Scream in New York a few years ago. I can't remember the venue but it was an old theater, all seated and we were sitting in the upper tier. First and last time I'll go to a gig and sit down. Sound was pretty poor up there as well.

Just to top it off a loud Yank was sitting a few rows behind us and kept shouting 'play stuff from the first album'. He clearly meant Screamadelica, clueless eejit.

ive seen primal scream 2 or 3 times, and i must say the show at the barrowlands had awful sound, i thought it was cuz i was at the front too close to the speakers, but i get the impression the guy who mixes it is perhaps a bit drunk or wasted come show time. when i saw them at gig on the green they sounded okay tho, maybe cuz it wasn't thier own gear and someone else mixed it, and it was a bit earlier in the day. they do tend to overdo it on "full on" noise

[Mindcrime]

I have been to many, many gigs and I've only ever been bored with one and that was Butch Walker at The Mod Club, Toronto. It was sometime last year; I've erased the date from memory. I was really looking ofrward to hearing his upbeat solo stuff as well as some great songs from his Marvellous 3 days, maybe even throw in a Southgang song for good measure.

Jeez, it was like pulling teeth. Now, I have every album he's done and still didn't recognise anything he played coz he totally rearranged the music part of the songs and just absolutely butchered everything. Towards the end of the gig, he leapt from the stage and sat in the middle of the floor wailing away. I should have left there and then but I was still holding out hope of hearing something recognizable. I have never ever left a gig feeling so deflated. At least it only cost me $17.

[Tom Tom]

Worst was at hammersmith appolo and I saw Dream Theatre. After the first 50 mins of mindless widdling it sounded all the same.
I know thats what they are like but went with friends who love them and I just could not get into it.
I like a few album tracks but even after a while thats boring.
Foo Fighters at Wembly were cool
Feeder at MancUnion were spot on. (98 I think)

Best was probably Aerosmith for the toxic twin towers ball with Three Colours Red, Black Crowes, Stereophonics, Lenny Kravitz and Aerosmith. That was a good day out

[Simon6776]

Originally Posted by Tom Tom

Worst was at hammersmith appolo and I saw Dream Theatre. After the first 50 mins of mindless widdling it sounded all the same.

Mindless widdling??!! Open your ears, sir! That widdling is certainly not mindless, but is indeed, the product of four GREAT minds, and the ultimate unison of four of the most skilled and dexterous rock musicians you will hear!

To be fair, if you haven't heard much of Dream Theater before, to go and see them live is a slight baptism of fire. They are one of the best rock acts currently on the scene, and their albums are full of great songwriting and consummate musicianship. Check out Metropolis Pt 2: Scenes From A Memory, and then come back and tell me you weren't impressed!

[Donnacha]

Originally Posted by Tom Tom

Best was probably Aerosmith for the toxic twin towers ball with Three Colours Red, Black Crowes, Stereophonics, Lenny Kravitz and Aerosmith. That was a good day out

Agree with you on that - a smashing day all round. Lenny was awesome I thought!!

[s70rmp]

Aerosmith on the Nine Lives tour, was expecting this to be off of the best gigs ever and I was bored, so bored.

Went to Rockworld after the show and had a much better time.

[cabstar]

Oh so easy for me this one

Stereophonics at Hull Arena a couple of years ago I think it was the JEEP tour, jesus what ****e. played the hits in the first half hour & I mean every hit even the encore was a b side, guess it was good if you was a fan, this was also one of the first gigs without Stuart Cable on drums & they just seemed so disjointed & couldn't care less.

Shame to see some one slag of Slade without Noddy, should have took it for what it was, just a bit of nostolgia from memory lane, been to see them twice with the old lead singer & the new one who toured with the medics & really enjoyed the show.

regards

Gary

[Tom Tom]

Originally Posted by Simon6776

Mindless widdling??!! Open your ears, sir! That widdling is certainly not mindless, but is indeed, the product of four GREAT minds, and the ultimate unison of four of the most skilled and dexterous rock musicians you will hear!

To be fair, if you haven't heard much of Dream Theater before, to go and see them live is a slight baptism of fire. They are one of the best rock acts currently on the scene, and their albums are full of great songwriting and consummate musicianship. Check out Metropolis Pt 2: Scenes From A Memory, and then come back and tell me you weren't impressed!

I own this album as well as many others including Liquid Tension Experiment part one and 2 and appreciate the musicians. However after a while it does lose its appeal. I know you can play fast and its great but it does start to sound the same.
Some of there album music is great. I love Hollow Years, Take away my Pain, but just find the other stuff less accessable on a longevity listen.
And the show was not the enjoyable (except Portnoy) but petrucci just stood there playing technical stuff but with no soul IMHO.

Sorry and Its not that I think they are bad musicians but just not the best live act around. If you are diehard fan then great but one of the bands (like Satriani) that are not accessable if you dont know anything.

I saw Feeder not knowing who they were, came out loving the gig and now have all the albums. I would not have done that from Dream Theatre.