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Worst band you've ever seen?

#190
DelRider said:
There was this one band at a battle of the bands. All in, horns and all. Horn players were decked out in these garrish outfits. The drummer was obviously out of it. After waiting, the guitar player came out in pink tutu and funkey mask, hit this power cord, and the drummer collapsed across his kit. They fumbled around a bit. I remember it started to get better, but I'm a little fuzzy after that,,,
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I have to say I'm quite disappointed that no one seemed to have gotten this reference :)

selassie1 said:
Deftones in 95 when they opened for Bad Brains. The sound was unbearable because of the guitar tone! The guitarist was playing through a single 4x12 cab and the 2.5k "ice pick in your ear" frequency was overpowering everything. Had to walk out a few times to give my ears a break.

When they switched to the Bad Brains setup, the roadies pulled the sheets off the back line and BAM! There were two full Marshall stacks staring us in the face. I was sure the guitar would drown out the bassist's SVT with single 8x10 cab but I was completely wrong. Their sound mix and tones were so good, it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It was breathtaking - full, rich, clear and powerful. I've never heard another rock band sound that good.
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Saw the Deftones in 99 with Pantera and Black Sabbath on their reunion tour. They sound was was so bad that they sounded like a bad garage band playing out of a broken P.A. system. But as soon as Pantera came out, the sound was so incredible that the Deftones lack of sound had to have been a purposeful screw over by the venue. Unfortuntely they used the bad sound as an excuse to play like ****.
 
#192
The most dissapointing was Bob Dylan. I am a huge Dylan fan and was so stoked to be there (there was a chemical component to this) The show was at a minor league ball park but Willie Nelson sounded pretty great. Dylan appeared to be phoning it in and his voice was shot to hell. The only good song was when Willie joined him for one song.

The most boring - Roxy Music with opening act Art in America.

Two horrible guitarists hitting audible wrong notes were the Fixx and New Order.

Most gratingly bad - Night Ranger. They opened for Kiss on the Creatures of The Night Tour. Two clearly drunken guitarists taking turns to "shred" for forty minutes. Yes "you can still rock in America" but some people simply shouldn't

I have seen ton's of great shows including the Pixies, The Cramps, Neil Young, Rev. Horton Heat, Prince, Deke Dickerson Peter Gabriel... I will say that the good ones out of the hundreds of bands I have seen out weighed the bad by a long shot.
 
#193
PaulMacCnj said:
At a Clash concert in the early 1980s, the opening act was Pulsallama, an all girl percussion band. Mid-way through the first song, the booing starting. They were that bad.
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Pulsallam was Ann Magnuson's band. Shr was the singer in Bongwater. She is also an actress. I actually liked Pulsallam's "hit" called The Devil Lives in My Husbands Body but it definitely eas a novelty song at best and could see them being pretty awful live.
 
#194
Musicphan said:
I have to add... They Might Be Giants... few years back before the kido stuff.. AWFUL - half the crowd left about 20 minutes into their set.
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When I was in grad school I worked at Tower Records and we had them play a short acoustic set. The larger of the two John's was a total Dhead and on a total star trip. I had actally enjoyed TCBG, Flood and Lincoln but my impression of him was so bad that I have never bothered with anything after Appollo and thought that bit the big one. The nicest guy that did an instore while I was there was Evan Dando. He hung out with us before he played and played some cover tunes that we were joking about including the theme from Charles in Charge.
 
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#196
The shaggs are not even a band. Frank wasn't the only one joking. If they were looking for what their name implies then they were more than just frustrated 'musicians' lol.
Oh well it proves that even manufactured bands need some talent. If anyone wants to sample a drum intro at least you know you wont be sued for stealing someones music.
 
#197
rubbadubdub said:
The shaggs are not even a band. Frank wasn't the only one joking. If they were looking for what their name implies then they were more than just frustrated 'musicians' lol.
Oh well it proves that even manufactured bands need some talent. If anyone wants to sample a drum intro at least you know you wont be sued for stealing someones music.
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Not sure you listened to their tracks or know of the band... :eyebrow:

It's a very interesting story if you take the time to read it. Three home schooled girls with absolutely no talent or even rhythm got real airplay and were known by some of the top names in music history and are still talked about 40 years later.
Reportedly, during the recording sessions the band would occasionally stop playing, claiming one of them had made a mistake and that they needed to start over, leaving the sound engineers to wonder how the girls could tell when a mistake had been made.
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In 1980 Rolling Stone Mag gave them the "Comeback of the Year" award. Their CD got a review in the Wall Street Journal on release day. Someone even made a tribute album called "Better Than The Beatles" which was Franks Zappa's assessment of them. He called them the #3 band of all time.
http://www.musicianguide.com/biographies/1608003981/The-Shaggs.html
 
#199
When I was in high school, my friend and I always ended up going to concerts at this little punk record shop that was setup in an old convenience store. A small part of the store front was the record store, the whole back was a big concrete cube that was setup as a concert hall. Some real good punk bands from all over the world played there.

Anyway, one Saturday afternoon, there was this big extravaganza where like 8 bands were going to play. All Canadian, mostly from Quebec and Ontario. The first two acts were really just filler. And, those might be two of the top three worst bands I have ever seen.

the first act was a solo act of a guy with an acoustic guitar. You might ask, what does a guy with an acoustic guitar have to do with a punk concert in the mid 90s? Well, this guy would strum his guitar and scream into a mic and end every single song hitting himself in the face quite violently with said microphone, so I guess that was punk enough.

The second act was a duo. A guy on drums, well a very very limited drum set, and a guy on guitar. I guess you could call their style very hardcore punk. Mostly screaming and bashing their instruments. But, this is where it gets interesting. On every song, the guitarist would break at least one string, by the end of their limited set he had none left. And, the drummer would bash his drums so much that his stool would break, and all his drums would disintegrate, he would end every song lying on the floor banging on drums and cymbals that had fallen on the floor at that point. They actually had a "roadie" that would help them reset the drums after every song.

Now, the third worst band I ever saw was at the same venue. It was a band from Vancouver which consisted of two Rastafarians and two blond girls. The girls sang, the two dudes played guitars, maybe the bass too, don't remember that whole night very clearly. But, they had a drum machine going, a really cheesy sounding one. And, each of the vocalists and guitarists had guitar case sized pedalboards. It was mostly just noise. The performance started out with like maybe 10 people in the audience, everyone aside from my friend and I walked out in the middle of the first song. We stuck it out until the end. The owner of the store came to apologize to my friend and I when we finally left.

Good times, good times...
 
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