Most disappointing band/musician seen live

[theDudesmummy]

I am starting this on the back of another thread about best live performances. How about bands/performers you loved and thought were going to be great live, only to be disappointed for one reason or another?

I will start:

Neil Young, Royal Albert Hall 2003. I love his music, absolute soundtrack of my later years at university, but this concert was unbelievable in its shitness. Half of it was some unlistenable concept album. Never felt the same about him after that.

Van Morrison, some concert at a stately home type of place, maybe fifteen years ago? (Have blocked out the details). The booze completely ran out before we got to the bar for the first time (and no, we weren't late, he hadnt even come on stage yet). I guess that wasn't Morrison's fault directly but you would think he would employ/contract people to make sure this doesn't happen. DH and I soberly listened to two songs then shared a look and left to find a pub.

Nina Simone, probably also Royal Albert Hall, some time in the 1990s. Sorry, I know she is dead now, and was a legend, but when you sit right over to one side of the stage, practically in the wings, for the whole show, completely hidden by the piano so only half the audience can see you, then you are going to pass off even your most ardent fans. I never even caught sight of her.

(Bob Dylan pissed me off at the Brixton Acedemy circa 1990 by never taking his hat off, so I never saw his face, but I forgave him because he is Bob Dylan, and at least I saw the rest of him).

Mcfly at Isle of Wight Festival around 10 years ago. It was full of kids but all they did was swear and ask if anyone had pooped themselves yet

Got to love Ray Davis. He's a miserable old bugger but he's not afraid to speak his mind. IMO, he's the best songwriter of the 60s and never got the fame he deserved.

I saw nThe Pogues once when Shane McGowan was so pissed he forgot the words and tune to Dirty Old Town then lay down on stage and fell asleep. He was dragged off stage, they sobered him up somehow and he came back and did quite a good show.

Heart. Small-ish venue Manchester way. Didn't play Alone or All I Wanna Do - the very reasons I'd bought the (expensive) tickets, and driven across the country ffs. 😡

@spiderlight

I went to see them a few years ago and were amazing.

Im seeing them again in October

Howard Jones at Bristol Colston Hall (probably called something else now) in the 80s. His synthesiser broke down and his whole act was ruined. The mime artist who appeared with him had no music to mime to.

Bryan Adams?! That's sad. He was the consummate professional when I saw him three years ago. I'm off to the Eden Project next week to see him again!

Passenger a few years ago. The singing was okay, but there were lots of swearing. Spoilt the evening for me - so unnescerry.

A very bad gig became an unexpected delight in this case. Will never forget it.

Badly Drawn Boy at a small festival here in Scotland about 8 years ago. It was raining hard, he was utterly pissed off and made no bones about the fact that he didn’t want to be there. He came on looking furious and started off by being rude as fuck about Scotland, which immediately caused a significant chunk of the crowd to disperse with an aye right, fuck you.

He was left with a guddle of about 200 good-natured but bemused hippies who wanted to see what would happen next. He played a couple of songs then started firing out insults to the crowd, calling us miserable cunts and laughing because it was raining and we were getting wet. He refused to play any of his better known songs (fuck off, I’m not playing that etc) and ‘jams’ on his own for a bit, pausing here and there to drink, moan about something or heckle the audience (what the fuck are you looking at?). The band and backing singers were visibly mortified. All very awkward and bizarre. It felt incredibly tense.

After about half an hour he announced he’d had enough of this shit and stopped playing. Someone shouted “how RUDE!” and the entire audience started laughing, which broke the tension. Then followed a chorus of “hooooow ROOOOD” from the crowd which was hilarious at the time.
Badly Behaved Boy didn’t like that. He knew the next act on was, of all people, Mr Motivator from GMTV. Before he stalked off stage he sneered, “I’ll leave you bunch of twats to enjoy Mr fucking Motivator. WHAT A CUNT!”

The crowd hung back, people were laughing and oh-my-godding and fucking-helling. The stage was cleared in an instant. Then oh my god, Mr Motivator appeared in lime and neon pink, grabbed the mike and with a huge grin declared, “Well, I think we all know who the cunt really is, don’t we? 1…2…3…4!”, before launching straight into a routine with a load of dancers who were running on from the wings. People were delighted! The entire crowd were instantly revived and the audience swelled and swelled. Everyone doing aerobics. Absolutely mental. An hour he was on. What a laugh. He got cheered and whistled for ages at the end of his set. It was actually brilliant.

The guy spent the rest of the night at the festival greeting people, having selfies, chatting to anyone and everyone and thoroughly enjoying himself. He was a good sport.

Mr Motivator - 1
Badly Drawn Boy - 0

Oh man that is loooong. I am sorry. It came as I remembered it.

Texas at Radio 2 in Hyde Park. They were on early, did a new song and everyone sat down. Sharleen then swore at us! Ken Bruce had to apologise. Smokey Robinson was awful, so
plastic, mouth barely moved, I’m sure he was miming. Another year Rod Stewart was dreadful, didn’t play his hits so we left and went for a curry!
Fell in love with James Blunt there though, he knows how to work a crowd!

@MissAtomicBomb1
The Manic Street Preachers were a bit of a disappointment. They refused to play Australia despite the crowd chanting it in between every song. Felt like they were trying to prove a point.

I highly doubt it. Though it was one of their biggest commercial hits, they rarely play it on their own tours nowadays. Any band that has a dozen + albums of material (not to mention b-sides etc) cannot keep everything fresh and ready for live performance. They may not have played it for about five years so couldn’t just pull it out of the bag (especially as a support act for the Killers?). That’s not how it works.

re. Muse complaints. They were awesome live when I saw them breaking through at Glastonbury in ‘98. Though that era was their peak for me, before they went OTT operatic rock.

My two biggest disappointments were probably Oasis and the Strokes, though it was more a case of their wall of guitar sound just not translating as well to live performance. On the records they can get the levels just right, but it’s tougher live, and they’re bands whose sounds I like for 30 minutes but become monotonous over 90 minutes.

Offspring, Glastonbury 1995/6 was one my most memorable gigs of all time. I hadn't meant to see them, I just fell into the field and they blew me away. Maybe you saw them on a bad day, how dissapointing.

Worst = The Cult on the Electric Tour 1987. I left half way through. Went to see them again... Still terrible.

Ian Brown - had to leave he was so bad.
Bob Dylan - sat it out but he was a disgrace, no respect for his audience at all. He raced through his songs so they were barely intelligible. He was just there for the money. I felt abused.
Queen at Mcr Apollo in the seventies - recorded music. What use is that?

Fair play Mr Motivator - what a legend!

Eurythmics- Annie Lennox stopped mid song and told some people in the front row to stop talking to each other and listen to her, like actually shouting at them.. it was awful!

Red Hot chilli peppers, no rapport with the audience, was gutted!

Meatloaf- how dare he have a heart attack mid set! 😅

@Georgeskitchen I went to that tour, but in London, David Cassidy was so awful he got booed, so he got arsey with the audience which just made them boo him even more😆

Also Roxy music were bloody awful when I saw them.

I was at the Milton Keynes Bowl gig. Agree that Axl looked like he'd had enough. Didn't help that we were kept waiting for at least an hour in the pouring rain before they graced us with their presence. It was worth being there for Slash, Duff and Izzy only.

Mine were some classical ones. One with some really poor musicians and the other with some really poor choices of repertoire. These were the only two performances I have exited from (discreetly). To be honest, the latter was my fault, because I didn't like the composer, but I still went because it was a 'world-first premiere'. I now only go to concerts I am actually interested in, and know something about the performers, regardless if amateur or professional. And I only go if the tickets are reasonably priced. That way, if I regret going, I won't have wasted too much money.

I see Bob Dylan has come up a lot - he's mine too. So disappointed, he sounded like shit and couldn't have cared less.

Guns and Roses, Reading 2010. 2 hours late, arrogant and fucking awful. The traditional bottles of piss were flying through the air and well and truly deserved.

The Libertines, also Reading 2010. Pete looked glazed over and ill. Not unexpected but sad to see nonetheless.

Elton John. It was a tour to promote an orchestral album he'd done, and that was all he played. We don't know one single song, and when the audience seemed to click, there was a really weird atmosphere. He had a hissy at one of the crew, and was just so disappointing. It was a really special occasion for us as we had young DC, had had to blackmail family to babysit and we'd paid £150 each for the tickets. We left before the end to get home before the car park queues, and honestly felt robbed.

I saw the Human League back in the 80s at the height of their fame, and it was very apparent that neither female singer could actually sing................they murdered every single note.

LCD Soundsystem at Sonar - James Murphy was absolutely blind drunk and could barely stand up.

Le Tigre, also at Sonar (same year)- arrived really late (not really ok at a festival). Then stropped about the “shitty sound crew” (nobody else had had problems). Then they stropped off stage. I can’t remember if they ever came back, pretty much the entire crowd went off to see somebody else. They seemed to think everyone there was a die-hard fan and they were doing us a favour even turning up, when in fact they were just the warm up for Jeff Mills

Kings of Leon at liberty stadium. Sound was dreadful and was full of pissheads.
Terence Trent D'arby at Newport leisure centre but apparently he wasn't well.

Ryan, not Bryan. I hope so anyway. Bryan seems much nicer