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Worst band you've ever seen?

#403
Signalsdrone said:
I saw Hole at a place called The Electric Banana in London ON. Courtney Love's screeching was God awful!!!

I walked out part way through and waited outside for my buddies, couldn't stand the noise anymore. I'd rather listen to cats fighting.
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+1 for Hole. My girlfriend at the time dragged me out to see them and Avril fn Lavigne on the same bill back in the early 2000s (that horrible bill happened). Avril is tone-deaf but she's kinda cool. Courtney is awful across the board, but as a frontwoman, she truly is the drizzling *****..
 
#404
There’s loud where it’s boomy and muddy and you can’t make out much of anything.

And there’s loud like The Fixx, at the Winnipeg Arena, about 1983. Sounded like blackface Fender guitar amps, bright switches engaged, treble maxed, of course blasted thru the PA. Excruciatingly bright, 4 of us had to walk out 4-5 songs in. Wasn’t the worst show I ever saw, loved the music, but...140db of top end was just head splitting.

Same era, same venue, friend and I were pretty big Billy Squier fans. We skipped the opener, got loaded across the parking lot at ChiChi’s. Timed it just right, Billy came prancing out in his purple silk PJ outfit...it really wasn’t what we were expecting. We put up with it for about 3 songs and headed back to ChiChi’s very disappointed.
 
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#405
Hotblack said:
Pantera - They were piss drunk and Phil kept going on and on about how they were the "kings of metal". Such a disappointment
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I can kind of get that, from what I have seen of their live performances. Towards the end, Phil was out of his mind on Lemmy-knows-what and his performance went down the toilet. Dime though? By most accounts, that dude played better the drunker he was..
 
#406
Lukc said:
I work as a sound technician, and a few weeks ago a friend of mine held a gig at my school. I had heard him play guitar, and he was awesome so I imediatly signed up to work that day at the bar. Before sound check I went to greet the band and talked to the bassist a bit. He seemed to know his stuff, and so did the rest of the band. So I assumed they all played well. We were behind schedule, so we couldn't sound check them. Immediatly as they start playing, the following things happen:
-The bassist was playing all notes wrong. I have no clue if his bass was ultra untuned or he was just playing it completely wrong, but he was on tempo but wrong notes.
-drummer was always off tempo.
-singer forgot the lyrics half way...
My friend was the only one playing right, and he quit the band after that. Now we have a running joke in the band:
No matter how bad we play, we will never be Elevendust.
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My band before I joined :)

Nah, really though, there's a group called "Sexual Steavo and The Neighborhood Scum" that played before us one time in Fresno. They were horrible. And, I like GG Allen/gutterpunk stuff. But, they take trash to a whole new level. Great name though.
 
#407
Wulfensteiner said:
I can kind of get that, from what I have seen of their live performances. Towards the end, Phil was out of his mind on Lemmy-knows-what and his performance went down the toilet. Dime though? By most accounts, that dude played better the drunker he was..
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They were all crap. It was purely a “this note goes after that note. Once we play all the notes we can put down these instruments and collect a cheque.” Total garbage. I was sooo hyped to see them, as they were opening for Black Sabbath, and I was sooooo disappointed.
 
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#408
Hotblack said:
They were all crap. It was purely a “this note goes after that note. Once we play all the notes we can put down these instruments and collect a cheque.” Total garbage. I was sooo hyped to see them, as they were opening for Black Sabbath, and I was sooooo disappointed.
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On paper, that sounds like a gig you just couldn't beat. The disappointment is palpable. Sorry you had to endure that. I'd feel cheated too.
 
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#411
ggoat!!! said:
Not the worst, but DEFINITELY the most boring, and the most surprising due to the realization of how damn bored I was which truly I did NOT expect. A few years ago I went to see Steve Vai at the House of Blues in New Orleans as a last minute seat of the pants idea...I knew he would be accompanied by Billy Sheehan and Tony MacAlpine. Sounds pretty interesting, right?

That was the most mind-numbingly boring concert I have EVER attended. It was like being slowly roasted in hell. Sure, Sheehan was great...but not even his virtuosity could save me from the absolute horrid abyss that is Steve Vai's music. Oh God.

Mr. Vai played well, much smoother and controlled than when I saw him in 1986 with David Lee Roth (Vai sucked live then), but his diva delivery-with a fan on him at all times to blow his hair mind you-made me want to punch a dwarf. Not that I dislike dwarves. But I was so damn bored I could feel my toenails growing.

Vai's originals are the musical equivalent of reading a 14 volume insurance seminar's word-by-word detailing of a 1973 cost analysis of the dangers of performing corporate flood risk assessments as they pertain to operations in Yugoslavia vs. Trinidad and Tobago written in Latin.

Why didn't I just leave, you ask? Well...

I was next to the soundboard, and I saw "Shyboy" written on the setlist a few songs from the end of the show. It was one of the only songs I knew on the list, so I figured I'd stay for that. So, I waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. And waited. And started to look for a dwarf to maul. And waited. And waited. Waited a bit more...

THEM F*CKERS NEVER PLAYED SHYBOY!!!

Turns out they f'n skipped the ONLY song I had an inkling to even want to hear!!!

I was so pissed, I'm even gettin' a 'lil pissed just thinkin' 'bout it. Here I waited what seemed like 9 hours to hear the only redeeming song on the setlist, and the bastards skipped it.

As much as I love Sheehan...I'm SOOOOO glad there wasn't a 'lil dwarf man at that show. I'd be in jail right now.
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You nailed my feelings on Via and Satriani.
 
#413
As far as bar bands I have seen so many band bands either due to bad musicianship, bad sound system, bad stage presence, terrible song choices or all four. It's my pet peeve. Why bar owners keep hiring these bands is beyond me. OTOH I've witnessed sloppy musicians with a great stage show, Not so good singers with great musicians and a well thought out song mix, etc. But for the first list I can't figure out if these band just don't care or don't know any better. Do they figure it's just not worth being top notch for $60 each? Are they old and done with going the extra mile for nothing? Are they stupid? We followed and absolutely terrible Beatles cover band in a real popular bar in a real popular party area of town. Everything about them was just terrible, musicianship, vocals, sound system, looks, etc. The bar owner said yeah they are embarrassingly bad but for some reason people like them and they have a great following. We got to know them and our drummer actually filled in with them a few times. He said that they packed the place. WTH?
 
#414
''Twas a long long time ago at Pasadena City College. I came out of a math class and listened for a while to the worst band ever. The singer was screechy awful, the guitar was screechy loud and awful, the bass player was just playing another tune altogether, and the drummer was on a different planet. Most awful noise you ever heard. A year later they were known as Van Halen.
 
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#416
Many, many local, or smaller acts.

For larger acts (in no particular order):
Poison - Donnington Monsters of Rock festival. Just no.
Accept - What a load of old tosh! Possibly the same gig, but I'm probably projecting...or something.
Def Leppard - To be fair, I think I was at the gig that was featured in the terrible biopic film. The one where it all fell apart.
Wicked Wisdom - Jada Pinkett-Smith's "Black Metal" band. Absolute noise.
Frankie Miller - It's all fun and games until someone can't even stand up, let alone tune his guitar.
AIIZ - Nope. I think I saw them support UFO or some such. Possibly Black Sabbath.
The Tubes - WITHOUT Fee Waybill. Early 90s. Not big. Not clever. Seen them a lot of times, and this was my only disappointment.
 
#419
keto said:
There’s loud where it’s boomy and muddy and you can’t make out much of anything.

And there’s loud like The Fixx, at the Winnipeg Arena, about 1983. Sounded like blackface Fender guitar amps, bright switches engaged, treble maxed, of course blasted thru the PA. Excruciatingly bright, 4 of us had to walk out 4-5 songs in. Wasn’t the worst show I ever saw, loved the music, but...140db of top end was just head splitting.

Same era, same venue, friend and I were pretty big Billy Squier fans. We skipped the opener, got loaded across the parking lot at ChiChi’s. Timed it just right, Billy came prancing out in his purple silk PJ outfit...it really wasn’t what we were expecting. We put up with it for about 3 songs and headed back to ChiChi’s very disappointed.
Click to expand...
The Fixx was the first show that I ever saw, some time in '80, I think. I was working at my uncle's concession stand at the AZ state fair, after I finished, I went and checked out the show. It was held in the old Veteran's Memorial Coliseum (Madhouse on McDowell). I thought the show was pretty good; the sound wasn't too bad but I didn't stick around for the whole show since I only knew a couple of songs when they started playing songs that I didn't recognize, I left.
Can't remember who opened, though.
 
#420
I've only walked out on two concerts. One was Jethro Tull. Saw them on a bill with ELP. Seperate stages and sound systems. ELP opened and sounded awesome. Great set. Tull sounded like doo-doo. Horrible mix, bad song selection. About halfway through their set, roadies brought out some ugly furniture that looked like it was picked up from a curb somewhere while Anderson announced they would now sit around and do acoustic versions of the guitar players solo album....buh-bye! The other was Robin Trower back in the day. (@1976) Montrose was supposed to open but cancelled last minute. Starcastle filled in and they were freaking amazing! Then Trower came out so stoned he could barely stand. No lights, no "show", just going through the motions....buh-bye!
 

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