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Not Good Live Bands

I saw Tool and the Flecktones on this list? Wha wha??? I was blown away by both of those guys. I didn't even like Tool until I saw 'em play back in 93. I was converted. Went back and saw 'em a few more times. So powerful. Saw the Flecktones too a few months ago and while I always liked thier recordings, the live set was a whole other animal. Just amazing.
 
I was really disappointed by The Fabulous Thunderbirds when I caught them at an outdoor festival a couple summers ago. Terrible mix, flat uninspired playing, zero stage presence by anyone in the band and then about 5 songs in the lead singer lauched into this harmonica solo that went on and on. Nothing underneath, just him wanking on the harmonica with the rest of the band offstage. At about the 7-minute mark the wife and I picked up our chairs and headed to the parking lot (along with many others), and by the time we got to our car 10 minutes later he was STILL going.
 
Saw Humble Pie in 1982 or 1983 - yeah I'm old. That stands out as the single sloppiest show I ever saw.

More recently, 2006-2007 or so, I saw 10 Years as an opener for Mudvayne. I was predisposed to like them because I enjoyed "The Autumn Effect" but they were the most lifeless live act I can ever recall seeing.
 
I worked as a janitor in a theater for a while and would often step in to catch a few minutes here and there of the shows. One night, Third Eye Blind was playing and closed their set with a cover of Stairway to Heaven.

It's one of those moments that makes me wish Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind was real.
 
Incubus sounded bad when I saw them last year. Didn't seem into the (angst) songs they wrote over a decade or 2 ago and seemed they played out of obligation (Drive) inspite of knowing how lame it was. The sound wasn't that great either, although the guitar and bass tone were sweet.
 
I recently saw Cake perform live. To say the least, I found them incredibly boring. It didn't seem like any of them wanted to even be on stage despite there being a crowd of at least 5,000+ people.
 
I recently saw Cake perform live. To say the least, I found them incredibly boring. It didn't seem like any of them wanted to even be on stage despite there being a crowd of at least 5,000+ people.


Did Cake forget to bring the "vibra-slap" on stage during that particular show?

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Worst I ever saw, REM, way back in the 80's. They opened for the Police. Absolutely horrific. I remember thinking these guys are going nowhere. Can't sing, can't play, no groove, just a bunch of nerdy white guys with horrible songs that you couldn't even tap your foot too.

That shows you what I know.
 
Worst band I ever heard live was Led Zeppelin for thier "Houses of the Holy" tour. Plant, Page and Bonham.....inexcusable, drunken slop. If Jonesy was drunk he did a good job of not showing it in his playing. Fact is, he was the one who held what could be held together that night.

We all have bad nights, but there was no excuse for this. It's the only major concert that I walked out of half way thru. In fact, years later I found out that two friends of mine who were there also left early because it was so bad.
 
It was this big festival show in either 81 or 82. Opened with UFO...awesome half hour set. Firefall was next, and you couldn't even hear them. Blue Oyster Cult, whom I had seen less than a year ago and were awesome, stunk up the joint even worse. The drummer, who was spot on at the last show I saw, seemed wasted and was literally throwing sticks at his drums and cymbals, and the rest of the band phoned it in. Heart was not great, either. They had just fired Roger Fisher for breaking up with Nancy Wilson. Howard Leese played lead, and he was OK but just OK, and they sounded competent but really uninspired. Fortunately, Cheap Trick saved the day with a blistering set the day after Robin Zander got arrested for assaulting a female police officer. It was as if they were the only ones taking the show seriously.

3 bands out of a 5 band show sucked pretty bad.