AIBU to ask who is the worst performer/group you've seen live?

[Weston14]

Following on from a (very late-to-the-party) discussion about this year's Glasto with some friends over dinner tonight, where we all decided Lauryn Hill was an absolute let down, who is the worst performer or group you've ever seen live? Especially thinking of people you really liked who let you down here, not just "was dragged to see Take That with DSis and they were shite"

If you're not much of a music fan I suppose this stretches to comedians, actors, poets...anyone who gets up on stage and does a turn.

Rihanna - terrible. Seemed to mime most of it and when she did sing, was terrible

Kim Wilde in Hamburg. Truly awful.

Haim at Glastonbury. Awful singing and the music just sounds terrible live - definitely better on the album.

Milton Jones, saw him at a small venue in Wolverhampton and he was so bad that my boyfriend at the time apologised to me as we left the gig since we alternated gigs/shows and it was his choice to see him.
He spent the whole second half of his set doing some "befuddled old man" character who was just boring and felt like we were just being encouraged to laugh at the elderly.

My next pick was Pendulum who were incredible.

Oh mrs Kitty that Martin Daniels Clip made me laugh so much

Basically him building flat pack furniture and then waving through it! Hilarious!

Marus Brigstock - totally misread the crowd. About as funny as a fart in a lift.

Dodgy were TERRIBLE. I saw them perform at a Volkswagen show that's been going since 1983, attendance is usually around the 15-20k mark, it's a BIG show. They claimed the 'trend' for classic VWs was started by them in the late 90s when they put a camper in their video. Safe to say that went down like a lead balloon...

I was also at the RHCP gig at Murrayfield mentioned by a PP. I adored them at the time and because it was a time in my life when I was utterly skint, on the bare bones of my arse, I borrowed the money for tickets to take DH to the gig for his birthday and then saved like crazy, going without food at some points to pay the money back. What a bloody let down. As already mentioned, they were aloof and just didn't want to be there and made some really nasty comments about Scotland. I recall there was some massive England football game happening the same weekend and Anthony referred to it as "your team" at one point to a chorus of boos. I did think that Ash were good as support though, but NERD were awful.

Also similarly to other posters, Badly Drawn Boy would be on my list. This was when he was riding high with the About a Boy soundtrack. DH was working evenings as a security officer for extra money so was able to get me on the guest list to gigs at certain venues. I'm just glad I didn't pay for the BDB tickets and feel sorry for those that did. He came on stage, muttered and swore at the audience, forgot the words about half-way through three separate songs then eventually had a tantrum, saying that he had written so many songs in his life that he couldn't possibly be expected to remember them all. Then he walked off and didn't return.

I mean, he could have rehearsed his set list??? It also doesn't seem to a problem for music legends with career spanning decades.

@FactoryEmblem

Autocucumber

Love this typo

DP took me to the theatre on a second date. He'd been given the tickets.

It was some kind of "interpretive dance" to someone singing covers of Rolling Stones songs. All dancers looked like they were wearing nude bandages?

Was very odd and very shit.

We left before the interval !

The Fratellis around 10 years ago. Start time was 7pm - appreciate these things don't start on time but after a couple of support acts and long waits they came on around 9pm for less than an hour and were shite. It was a standing only concert and my feet were killing me by the end.

I saw BDB last year (as a support act to the band I see) and thought he was pretty good

Nothing terrible until recently although the acoustics ruined a Mary J Blige gig at Earls Court.
Worst ever has to be Imagination at a free festival in Brockwell Park London a couple of weeks ago. Leeeeeeee John (now 62) was always a vain bugger but constantly twirling/spinning around and doing crucifix style poses at the end of songs like MJ in his heyday had everyone cringing. All the ‘hits’ rearranged to the point they were barely recognised, got his biggest/only crowd response by singing a medley of other people’s hits. The thing is everyone wanted to enjoy it and the mood had been fab until then, he killed any chance of selling a reunion tour. Dire.

Worst comedian was Ruby Wax. She was the compère/speaker at an awards ceremony and was truly shocking. She read from a piece of paper, didn't make eye contact with anyone, mumbled and left early. Later found out she'd gone through a period of depression. But she shouldn't have accepted the gig.

Saddest gig I've been to was the Lemonheads a few years ago. Seen them quite s few times back in the day and they are one of my favourite bands. Evan Dando was clearly on drugs and although sounded as beautiful as ever, he didn't interact with the audience at all. Just looked like he was in a drug fuelled trance.

@thirstyformore saw the Lemonheads earlier this year and they were on good form, my sister saw them later the same tour and said it wasn't as good..

Also saw Kate Smurthwaite who was billed as a feminist comedian. Absolutely dire, Kept referring to a piece of paper to see what she was talking about next. Did not get many laughs. There was another woman on before her who was introduced as new to comedy. I think it might have been her first gig, she was very visibly nervous but was very funny.

Depends what you mean by worst. I saw OMD at festival last year. They were quite out of tune, but giving it everything and they really got the crowd going. By contrast, when I saw Bryan Ferry, he was perfectly in tune but so obviously bored and dialling it in. I'd go for singing-flat-but-fun over Bored Bryan any day.

Comedian - Dylan Moran, who I loved in Black Books. But live, he was drunk (properly drunk, not a couple of beers to take the edge off drunk) and unfunny. He radiated contempt for the audience

The who at Leeds years ago.

They'd either just released or were about to release some new stuff for the first time in years and they just played a set full of songs nobody knew or cared about when the crowd just wanted the classics.

The flaming lips made up for it though, they were incredible.

@Oberonunder Oooh! Very excited now. Im off to hunt down my leg warmers, fluorescent tutu and lace fingerless gloves!

I've been quite lucky in that all the concerts I've been to have been great, by and large. The only time I have been slightly disappointed, and only slightly, was Christine McVie and Lindsay Buckingham dong 'Songbird' as the encore when we saw Fleetwood Mac a few years ago. It seemed a bit of a strange song to have as the encore IMO. The rest of the concert was fab however.

The worse live performance that I have ever seen though, wasn't a concert, but a theatre performance - Cliff Richard in 'Heathcliffe'. An aging Cliff with hair extensions was something to behold and the songs were dreadful. Mind you, you could have put any one of the big West End leading men into that show and they would still have struggled with it, it was that dire.

Even worse, whilst queuing for the ladies in the interval, there were loads of women saying 'ooh isn't it lovely, what a performance, I've been crying' etc..... I was nearly crying because it was so shit.

We went with DH's sister, who was a huge Cliff fan, and her friends who were a married couple. If it had been just me and DH we would have walked out within about 10 mins of it starting, but as we were taking the others home we had to sit it out. The husband said, as we came out 'well it wasn't quite what I expected' which I think was the worse thing he could think of to say, without insulting anyone or swearing (he was that type of chap).

We still say to this day that was the worse thing that either of us have seen.

Rhianna at T in the park. Waited ages to see her come on - she was headlining and late - and she was utter shit. Gyrating about, stroking her crotch doing not much singing and the singing she did do was shit.

The worst was Anthony Wozza Thompson he was so bored (mine are not as exciting as others) and Steven Mulhern at Butlin's was brilliant really really good!

Madonna, Elton John, Simple Minds

Plan B we saw him at Camden roundhouse in 2012 I think he was brilliant really put his all into it, and his warm up act was awesome he also had Delilah there too

Hmm, it's a tricky one, I've seen a fair few mediocre but not many truly bad.

50 Cent at Leeds stands out, it's the first time I've ever seen someone camping stooled off a stage (it probably didn't help that he was on immediately before Green Day and 70,000 Green Day fans weren't down with the hood so to speak)

Elton John was pretty ropey about 12 years ago, saw him in Darlington and he just dialed it in. It was around the time of his money troubles so had clearly been shoved out on the road and didn't want to be there.

Sometimes bands can be bad and fantastic at the same time. Saw The Pixies at Leeds in 2006 (I think). Kim Deal forgot the baseline to Gigantic twice and stopped the song halfway through but they were still excellent.

@MarchionessOfCholmondeley those aren't bottles of pop they are throwing around

Eric Clapton - boring, no audience participation . Would have enjoyed putting on his CD more.
Radiohead - I'm only a casual fan but do enjoy their music. But God, they are incredibly up themselves and serious live as are their fans.
Amy Winehouse - loved her music but it was excrutiatingly obvious she needed help when I saw her - all the audience felt uncomfortable watching her and just wanted to help her.
Unlike another poster, I found Elton John really engaging with the audience when I saw him about 5 years ago. He mentioned a few things of local significance including dedicating a song to a local lad who had bought his whole family tickets for Christmas but in the meantime sadly died. I heard he also wrote them a letter afterwards.