rockscroll

Tuesday September 25th 1973 I excitedly, patiently queued in the rain clutching my ticket to see Lou Reed. I had come under LR’s spell because of his collaboration with David Bowie. Bowie had rushed on stage during the encore of 2 previous shows on this tour to sing White Light White Heat with Lou Reed. Rumor was rife that DB was in town and, and number 3 was definitely on the cards.

The reality I’m afraid was disappointing to say the least. Whilst I trembled with anticipation and screamed my head off at the same time, the object of my devotion shambled on to the stage and proceeded to play an acoustically and very poor rendition of every single track off Transformer. The fact he was so stoned he fell off his stool twice at least punctuated the stony silences. It became obvious he didn’t really know where he was, not just because he kept forgetting the words, but because when there was some interaction with the audience he kept saying, “I love your spicy sausages, man.”???????
Needless to say DB was a no show. I went home a very sorry lad with the words of my dad ringing in my ears about forgetting this pop-star nonsense and settling down to a proper job. Suddenly it didn’t seem such a bad option...

Which band/artist has disappointed you the most... ?

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RVCA

That sounds awful

I was really excited to see Pinback and it ended up being a total bust. They played half their songs at twice the normal tempo which completely ****ed them up IMO, and did absolutely nothing in terms of stage presence beyond showing half-baked clips from old movies.

LoathsomePete

The Police back in 2007 in Oakland. It was in the stadium the Oakland A's baseball team plays and the stage was really big, like over 100 feet... for three guys. They all pretty much stood at various points of the stage and did not interact with each other for the entire night. Sting also played a lot of his solo stuff, and then they did like... 10 minute long renditions of classics like "Roxanne" that just got boring around the 5 minute mark. Worst of all the tickets were like $80, when the night before we went to see Danko Jones at a crappy little bar in the industrial district of San Francisco we only paid $20 and had as good a time as anybody underage can have at a gig in a completely different city. I swore off stadium gigs after that show, I don't care who it is, I want the show to be in a sweaty room where I can actually fight my way to the front.

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Morphinelle

I was forced to go along with my sister to see Lady Gaga yesterday. I don't like her music but the pictures from the great castle and the costumes from her show convinced me a bit. First of all, I had to pay almost 500 HUNDRED DOLLARS to get a spot at the vip area and the resellers lowered it to 90 minutes before the concert began, some were even 30. The opening acts weren't amusing at all, Lady Starlight just pressed play and started dancing around like a ****ing drunk and The Darkness were ridiculous doing their Queen imitations. Though there was 25,000 people in a 50,000 stadium they were all obsesssed 'little monsters' screaming and lifting their cellphones. You could barely hear anything because of the damned amplifiers and I could recognize just 4 songs, the rest were Born This Way rarities and some kind of LBGT anthems. Stage props were cheap looking and the backup dancers were in desperate need of gaining weight. Two hours later, Gaga pulled a bunch of crying fans to the stage and made the weirdest runway walk of all time. I came home with just one shoe, my phone and jacket lost and half deaf. I have attended several concerts with at least 80,000 people on it and suffered more than that, but they were absolutely worth it. Yesterday has reminded me why I hate so much popular music, my sister and that (lucky me) a pair of Norah Jones tickets are waiting for me

Freebase Dali

500 dollars to see a show you didn't want to see...
If you didn't involve the police in this "forcing", then it's your own fault, and you have no right to complain.
I would have f*cking left my sibling alone to fend for herself in that scenario given the choice. Admit it. You accepted this whole thing out of the goodness of your heart. The only person you have to blame is yourself.

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Urban Hat€monger ?

My worst gig is easily Guns n Roses at the Milton Keynes Bowl in 1993.

I remember being really excited because it was falling on the weekend of my birthday and it was my first time staying in London on my own. Got to the gig in plenty of time and it was a nice & sunny day. Blind Melon came on first to zero reaction. People just sat around ignoring them, when the lead singer tried a singalong I was embarrassed for him.

After that Soul Asylum came on, people got a little more excited as this was around the time they had some success with their Grave Dancers Union album so people spent their entire set waiting for them to play the only 2 songs of theirs they'd probably heard before, which they did right at the end. I used that time of indifference to make my way to the front of the stage.

The Cult came on next and rocked the place and were awesome.

Guns n Roses came on and there was initial excitement despite them coming onstage 90 minutes late when we saw that Izzy Stradlin was back in the band temporarily because Gilby Clarke had fractured his wrist in a motorcycle accident. It started off great, they really rocked the place ... for half an hour. Then we got a ballad, then another ballad, and another ballad. I was getting bored and hopped over the barrier to have a walk around the site. I thought about getting a beer but decided against paying £5 for a cup of lukewarm piss .... in 1993!!!!!!!!

Then another ballad and probably a 20 minute version of November Rain and you could see people just getting more & more bored and more and more soaked. That was followed by yet another ballad. Meanwhile it started chucking it down with rain. after about and hour of ballads & rain you could see that people weren't interested anymore and by the time they started to rock out a bit it was 10.30 and people were aware that the last train left for London at 11.00 so people were leaving in droves before they had even finished and I got on the bus back to the station with the riff from Sweet Child O Mine echoing in the night air and two thirds of the place empty.

Sitting back on the train to London I cursed myself that I didn't decide to come over to see Metallica, Megadeth, Diamond Head and The Almighty who were playing that same venue the following weekend.


Edit: The following day I went around London looking for things to do and saw the box office selling tickets for a Bill Hicks gig that night, I asked to buy a ticket and was turned down because it was a 21+ show

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Surell

Morphinelle, I saw the MSG version of Gaga's last tour, it looked terrific, did quality fall off that bad or do you just hate that bitch?

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v23oly

I was flyering for a local artist on their street team when I guy walked out and handed my friends and I four free tickets to walk in and see the Guns n roses show. Excitedly we said "why the **** not?" We went in and even though the show started 2 hours late...it wasn't worth the wait in the end. The extended solos of the guitarist with the slash top hat rip-off was silly. and if it weren't for the fireballs we would have taken nothing memorable home. The free tickets were awesome..but the show was not. Gogol Bordello on the other hand was the best show I've ever seen live.

spiderhammer

To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen a bad gig. Sure, that might sound a little 'off the wall' as a statement but I really don't think I've seen a show that didn't entertain me in some way.

Some gigs are better than others and I've played a few that didn't go right, but no, never a bad gig.

v23oly

Glass half full for sure. I like it. And you're right...there's always something good to be found in any performance.