Disappointing Gigs

[Anton Grbac]

Ever gone to a gig/concert filled with expectation and for whatever reason left feeling disappointed and let down?

A few of mine:

The Powdermonkeys, The Corner Hotel 1999 - One song into the set, guitarist/vocalist Tim Hemensly calls the audience of bikers,skinheads,punks, and other various forms of social misfits "a pack of f*ckwits" and it's all downhill. The audience is seething and the band's playing is all over the shop as Hemensly does his best Liam Gallagher impersonation. Amazing how the stupid prat got of there alive. Easily the worst gig i've seen. very disappointing.

Van Halen, Melbourne Park 1998 - Admittedly i've never been their biggest fan, but the young lady i was 'courting' at the time wanted to see 'em, so......... Played poorly and their refusal to play a couple of the "classics" in preference for the new album doesn't go down too well with a large % of the audience. My companion remarks afterwards that the new singer (Gary Cherone) "doesn't really fit".

The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Broadford 1989 - Stevie Ray Vaughan's brother Jimmy and his band made some great blues albums in the 80's and flew to Oz for the 3 day event at Broadford. The band come on in the early evening and are totally disinterested. After one of the most boring sets i've seen, local legends The Giants follow 'em and proceed to blow away the memory of The Fabulous Thunderbirds with the loudest, dirtiest, and sweatiest set of blues/rock in Broadford's history.

Baby Animals, The Palais 1992 - Not so much for the band's performance, more the venue. The band were great and rocked it's ar$e off.......Suze De Marchi, what a babe. The fact you have to sit, not to mention having to go outside for a brew, doesn't make for a good rock venue. Like i said, Suze and the boys were great, it was just bloody uncomfortable.

George Thorogood And The Destroyers, The Palace 1993 - Played the exact same set as the one when i saw him at Festival Hall in 1989. The Destroyers are great fun and sensational live , but for f*ck's George, mix it up a bit son.

KISS, VFL Park 1980 - Memory a bit scratchy, but i do remember a horrendous echo around the stadium while they played and saying to my older brother "it sounds nothing like KISS". I was 12 years old, it was my first big concert and my heroes let me down, the magic was gone. Angus, Bon and the boys got my full attention after the disapponiment that was KISS.

Got any others?


-------------------------------------------------------
EFC: We Hate You Too

 

[gPhonque]

Originally posted by Wally
Baby Animals, The Palais 1992 - Not so much for the band's performance, more the venue. The band were great and rocked it's ar$e off.......Suze De Marchi, what a babe. The fact you have to sit, not to mention having to go outside for a brew, doesn't make for a good rock venue. Like i said, Suze and the boys were great, it was just bloody uncomfortable.

Funny - I was at that gig and thought exactly the same thing! It was a shame that there were only 4 people rockin' that night.

My disappointing gigs:

Any Big Day Out main-stage act for the last 4 or so years. You can't hear them. Plain and simple. Very hard to get into a performance when the loudest thing you can hear is the sound of the people around you talking about how they can't hear. I promise myself every year that I won't go the next year but end up going anyway. I think i'll stick to my promise this year.

Pearl Jam @ Tennis Centre. Can't remember the year. Jack Irons is a dud.

Run DMC @ Metro a few years ago. Lucky I didn't have to pay. Biggest joke i've ever seen. Brought their own P.A. which didn't work. Took forever to come out. We stayed for about 20mins and then left. Apparently they finished not long after that.

There's more that I'll eventually remember and post.....

 

[Macca19]

Re: Re: Disappointing Gigs

Hole @ BDO 99 - 3 songs in Courtney Love gets "bitten by one of our big flying bugs". She runs off stage to 'get some treatment'...the rest of the band are standing their in shock wondering what the hell to do. They play some cover of some Aussie band (forget who)...stand around for another 5 minutes...Slag comes back on, sings 'Celebrity Skin' then they all go off stage...but not before they are pelted with about 80 water bottles...3 of which got Slag right in the face.

Creed/Sevendust @ Entertainment Centre 2002 - Bought the ticket entirely because of Sevendust who i love to death. They cancel a week before the show, no refunds are allowed so i decide to go anyway. You know its a problem when a local Australian band who arent very big yet (i think it was Crash Palace...FIGJAM knows em) upstages one of the "biggest bands in the world".
To call Creed the most unoriginal band in the world with the most unoriginal songs would be a massive understatement. Just about every song sounded exactly the same...the same start, the same power chords, the same chorus chords and structure. The most self indulgent pathetic band in the world.

 

[S.J Rollin]

Judge Jules @ the Leederville Hotel (about 97)...ordinary!

 

[Darky]

Pearl Jam, Tennis Centre 98ish - band seemed disinterested, I certainly was.

Falls 2000 - the whole thing was crap, what a waste of time and money.

BDO 2001 - sucked big time, couldn't hear or see anything until I got drunk enough to push my way through the throng with reckless abandon, and get with about 30-40 metres of the stage during Rammstein's set. They were sensational, the rest of the day was extremely sh1thouse.

Supremacy - one of the bands supporting Edguy on their recent tour, all-chick band, they were friggen awful except the stunners standing up the front doing backing vocals.

Tool 2001 - paid $78 to sit in the tennis centre for two hours and watch a friggen video. Apparently this year's gig was exactly the bloody same!

KISS 2001 - Four fat old men who just ain't got it anymore.

 

[Anton Grbac]

Originally posted by Darky
KISS 2001

21 years and it seems some things never change.

------------------------------------------------------
EFC: We Hate You Too

 

[Blues_Brat]

Originally posted by Darky
KISS 2001 - Four fat old men who just ain't got it anymore.

What made that worse was they were playing videos from the 70s of them in action, until then you were able to get away with the illusion that they hadn't changed too much. Ace can barely stand.

A terrible concert in comparison the reunion show in 1997.

 

[Blues_Brat]

Sweet 1993, total crap. It was Andy Scott and some of his fat mates (the Late Show were pretty close, I'm sure whoever wrote that skecth went along). I knew Brian Connolly was no longer with them but that was a lie referring to them as 'Sweet'. More a cover band, a bit like the aforemention Kiss these days.

 

[Captain Random]

Originally posted by Blues_Brat
Sweet 1993, total crap. It was Andy Scott and some of his fat mates (the Late Show were pretty close, I'm sure whoever wrote that skecth went along).

Heh. "Mick?" "We don't have a Mick." "Alright fellas. Let's GO!"

 

[Mooster7]

I've never been to a bad show. I thought this was going to be about our own gigs. I've never had any true nightmares there either. To me, a bad gig is where you don't pick up a chick from the audience.

One night I was broken up with my regular girlfriend - again. I had scheduled some time with a 'sure thing' who is really a pretty girl, but annoyingly stupid. I got a call to sit in with some folks to play a two hour set of slow improv blues. The gig was at a VFW Hall. Cool. Those places hold 3-500 folks. Good odds. I bagged on the girl. I think I told her my ma was in the hospital or something like that.

Well, we set up early and I spend the next hour and a half drinking beer in the back lawn while sitting on a Navy Anti-Aircraft gun (VFW = Veterans of Foreign Wars). I come in at show time, take a quick leak and hit the stage. To my shock and horror it was the actual VFW constituency sponsoring the show, and not just someone renting the hall. Nothing but a bunch of gomers. Blue-haired women with false teeth and one foot in the grave.

......they told me I played very nice.

 

[GOALden Hawk]

Smashing Pumpkins 1998 at Tennis Centre.

We missed Jebediah, so the night was off to a bad start already.

Then the Pumpkins played 3 hours, but it was 3 hours of the most self-indulgent crap I've ever heard. For some reason they had a 7 piece band. The version of Bullet with Butterfly Wings was a disgrace. At one stage the power went out completely. All it was was feedback the rest of the time.

And at the end he was eventually talked into Zero by the crowd, but stopped half way through saying "he'd forgotten how to play it"

Very disappointing, especially after their previous tour was so good from all reports.

Oh, and Blink 182 at the Palace. Very ordinary live. D*ck jokes are OK, but not when you can't back it up with a live performance. Thoroughly embarrassed by Unwritten Law and Bodyjar they were.

Eskimo Joe at the Punters Club (RIP). Back after a 12 month absence after 2 excellent EP's, we were all looking forward to it. Knew we were in trouble when they introduced a new member with only an acoustic guitar for "the new stuff".....proceded to play half a dozen country folk tunes to stunned silence, before telling us "the band had matured and they hoped we had as well"

 

[WoD]

blink 182, 2001, - i had bought the ticket in 200 thinking they were coming in november when i was a fan, but travis got sick so he couldnt play so they came back in may i think it was 2001 and i was totally over them by then so the show was boring to me

 

[meg]

When you have a massive superstar like Michael Jackson coming to tour, it's hard to find a place which will fit all of the people that want to come and watch, so the fact that his last Dangerous tour was on at the MCG kind of ruined the whole thing, since
a) you couldn't see unless you were in the first few rows
b) you couldn't hear anything
c) you have drunk middle aged women flashing their boobs at Michael saying they wanted to have his baby
Still, I enjoyed just being at a Michael Jackson show, even though I was only about 12.

 

[scmods]

Dire Straits, early 90's at Subi Oval.

It was very early in the tour, and they sounded already like they were just going through the motions and weren't really interested.

A lot of the songs were played note-for-note EXACTLY like the live versions on Alchemy in 1986.

And most of the audience seemed to be there to talk to each other rather than to listen to the band.

Paul Kelly - Belvoir Amphitheatre, 1998ish.

Paul was probably pretty good (he usually is), but again most of the audience weren't interested in listening. I had a really crap time trying to enjoy the show among all the people comparing notes on the fabulous wine they were drinking, walking in and out getting ice creams, etc etc.

 

[bragg]

BDO 95 .. Hole finishes Courtney Love rushes over to the next stage and screams " this band is the worst f#@king band in the world .." as the Offspring take the stage ...and what do you know she was right ..!!!

 

[Stealth bomber]

I had to endure Mr. Big opening for Rush in 1992. Complete bogan passe mullet hair-band power ballad leopard-skin trouser wearing rubbish.

At one point, the bass player brought out a cordless electirc drill and started playing his bass with it. It was the best sounding thing any of them did the whole set.

I missed Rush's next tour when they had CANDLEBOX open for them. Apparently that was worse.

 

[Dogwatcher]

I gotta say I was most disappointed with the Prodj's visit to the BDO this year.
I knew it would be sad, because they've had nothing released since their last BDO appearance which was at the peak of their fame.
However, I went along in he hope something new would pop up but nothing realy came to light.
Although I still love their stuff it was just a huge disappointment.
The boys didn't seem to have the same enrgy or edge as they had back in the day. They weren't doing it 4 real anymore.
It was like an oldies reunion tour that you see so often, but about 20 years too early. Sad.