who has been the best and worst that you have seen live!

[emsybrady]

i have to say george michael was amazing and so has pink, josh groban and o.m.d i've seen some amazing acts but christina aguilara was completely pathetic. she was over an hour late didnt dance, couldnt walk the stage without help from her dancers and was completely half assed

Best:

Biffy Clyro
The Cooper Temple Clause (at Leeds Met)

Worst:

Kasabian, years ago when they were supporting TCTC. Absolutely crap and I can't listen to their music now without remembering how crap they were

upahill I'm so pleased you said HIM were crap. I guess I could say that was my worst gig ever. Booked the tickets, then the date changed. Went to look up directions the day before and found dh had written the wrong date on the calendar...gig had already started and we were over an hour away so we didn't go

Snorbs; you are wrong wrong wrong about the Sisters of Mercy. Very ordinary recording artists, I think. But fantastic live.

At least they were the last time I saw them. About 1987 I think. Ahem.

REM have a few mentions, and yes I liked them when I saw them a few times in smallish halls/clubs (three times twixt 83 and 88). I wouldn't fancy a stadium gig though. And they were always good, but not earth shatteringly so.

But the Wedding Present are, and remain my favourites. Even if they are now superannuated I love 'em.

(times is hard for David Gedge of TWP, it seems. I note that the band website is offering his flat as a holiday let whilst he is on tour. Would Bono do that, d'you think??)

Which brings me to worst. U2. Fucking awful. Saw them in the early 80s when they still pretended to be cool.

The most boring? Everything But he Girl. Yawntastic, and not just because Tracy Thorn looks as though she has run face first into a wall at speed.

...and I need to speak in defence of the Bunnymen.

Seen then three times and they were always splendid. Loud, but splendid.

However the most recent of those gigs was 25 years ago....

retired: I saw them about 3 years ago.

It was about three years since I saw Echo..... Huge dissapointment.

The Him gig - well what can I say - Ville Valo didn't even look at the audience or engage in any way. To cap it all at 10 past 10 they took a break. The gig was due to finish at 10.30 and they didn't come on until 9.00pm. DH was going' What the hell. Is is health and bloody safety regs going on or what!!!?

In 32 years of going gigs it is the one and only time that I left early. In the same week I saw Gossip and Beth Ditto was bloody marvellous!!

I saw the bunnymen 26 years ago - perhaps they had an off night.

I can imagine the p spree would be fab - they were great on the rock n roll hall of fame thing on tv doing sgt pepper.

The cure and clash were both brilliant.

Kid creole were about the best I have ever seen weirdly.

Another good/ bad gig we went to see was Hawkwind.

Went to see them at KGH in Blackburn and they were great went to see them about 18 months later in Bolton and they were crap and I lost interest. (not as bad as Echo and the Bunnymen or Him though)

Best band, The Flaming Lips at Leeds Met

Worst, Ryan Adams at Manchester Apollo

In defence of The Bunnymen....they are my band of adolescent moodydom

Seen the original band (Pre Death of drummer Pete), they were fantastic

Seen Ian McCulloch solo, good but distracted, saw him on the 2nd album tour and he was awful

Seen Macless Bunnymen 3 times, never let me down

Seen Electrafiction, Truly wonderful, dark, rocking and Mac was smiling post gig

Reformed Bunnymen. Sublime (even with Mac's wisdom tooth problem.

Haven't seen them post Les, I may have grown out of them.

Trouble is I feel it depends on what mood Mr Echo is in, that can really swing stuff

Best- Robert Plant, Morrissey and the Fun Lovin'Criminals

Worst- Ian Brown

Best -

Bruce Springsteen, Hampden Park, Glasgow, July 2010.
U2, Murrayfield Stadium, 1997 or so.
REM, Balloch Country Park about 2004, maybe later
Oasis, Glasgow Green 2000

Kinda got thing about outdoor gigs.

Worst -

Supertramp - NEC about 1986 or so.

Also Crosby Stills and Nash last summer at Edinburgh Castle - looked forward to this so much, but it wasn't so much bad, as just disappointing.

Best - Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Kasabian, The Stranglers, The Who. But I had the most sweaty fun seeing The Pogues.
Worst - Moody Blues- I was mind numbingly bored
ditto The Sutherland Brothers. Ooh and Stiff Little Fingers in Cardiff's Top Rank. They were fab, but there'd been a rumour about bombs so we all got searched by scary police.

Oh Zippy I'm glad you liked the FLC. I've been thinking of going to see them.
They are on at Preston and Holmfirth so I could go to either gig.

Best - Pulp in 1994 at Middlesborough Town Hall, closely followed by Oasis at same venue in 1995.

Worst - Happy Mondays a couple of months ago. Sean Ryder was very out of tune, some bird called Julie who was never in The Happy Mondays did 90% of the singing and Bez apparantly couldn't be arse to come. I was looking forward to Bez the most.

Best - Pulp, Tears for Fears, Inspiral Carpets, Little Boots and (sadly, but for sheer professionalism of the entire show) Miley Cyrus...

Worst - Pulp's awful din of a support act, Minty. I have to say the Lightning Seeds were pretty disappointing too - they tried to rock out and "turn it up to 11" for a Arena setting and it just didn't work.

Blimey, somebody else remembers Electrafixion!!

Best

Kasabian
Muse
Red hot Chilli Peppers
Biffy Clyro

and the worst Madonna.

Most disappointing Bon jovi, played country all night.

Best:
Manics at the Astoria in '94 (the last gig Richey played)
Tindersticks circa '95 in a tiny secret gig in Camden
Brian Wilson doing 'Smile' at the RFH
Twilight Singers in 2006 at Islington Academy
Pixies at Brixton

Worst by a country mile:
Manics in '95 at Wembley Arena (first gig without Richey), supporting the Stone Roses, both totally abysmal in the world's worst venue

Best:
Bruce Springsteen,
UB40
The Jam
The Who

Worst:
The Human League
All around the early eighties at the Playhouse, Edinburgh where I was working as a programme seller!

worst spice girls - they played to the staff of EMI the summer just bfroe they got famous - the staff went to the bar to get drinks in the hotel and left the spice girls playing in the marquee practily alone and unknown - we thought they were shit and would never make it
robbie williams - EMI ttok all their staff to make up the audeiance only one member of staff didn't go that night and he got paid for not working or going to see robbie

I have seen live at knebworth and it is 10 x better, i thought he was awful live ut like his stuff

the best,

dr and the medics
travis at glastonbury I was on satge at the side

never really been to a bad gig - consider myself v lucky in this respect

Saw Greenday in June in Manchester and they were absolutely wonderful, and definitely the best (and Billy Joe is so hot!!)

Also seen (all Liverpool except Bon Jovi)
Debbie Reynolds (from Sinigin in the Rain and Will and Grace)
Nickelback
Michael Ball
Bon Jovi x 2
Boyzone x 2
Razorlight
Elton john
The Lightning Seeds (free gig!!)
Pulp (with the 'fake' Jarvis)
T.Rextasy (TRex tribute - fab!)
Space
Stereophonics (before anyone knew them!!)
Dodgy
Ocean Colour Scene
Bryan Adams

Probably others that i can't remember!!

As i said - all have been ace! I am v lucky

I'm a huge Pulp fan (saw them on the verge of their mega-fame, in a packed out City Hall in their home city) and yet I totally missed this "fake Jarvis" tour that they did! Two people have mentioned it now. When was it, and was it publicised as being with an imposter?...

Best: Blue Aeroplanes, Hope Chapel in Hotwells, summer of 1985 - I think it might have been the night of Live Aid, but the place was packed, the cider was flowing, the dancer on stage was whirling around, and I've never been to another gig with an atmosphere quite like it (even other, later Planes gigs, and even though at that stage they hadn't yet come up with my favourite song ever).

Worst: a very famous jazz musician whose name I have now repressed for the preservation of my sanity forgotten, at the Blue Note in Tokyo. I had heard some of his stuff from earlier in his career (probably ten or twenty years earlier), which was OK, so thought it might make an interesting evening, but it was the worst hour of meandering tuneless posturing I have ever endured before deciding that yes, I really did have to leave the building. Also, per minute, the most expensive.

I now have a policy of only going to hear anyone live when I have listened to some of their most recent output first (or if I don't have to pay....).