People you've seen live that were either better than expected or were a bit of a disappointment

johnnyurq

No my recollection is the same, some had a bloody good go though.

It takes nuts and confidence to do that for sure.

bertie

johnnyurq said:

Whitesnake bitched before and after that they should have been the headliners, smacks of sour grapes. But they weren't too bad.

no idea about the first bit - but I thought there were great...........musically far better than AC/DC,   best Snake line up ever IMHO - saw em about 4 or 5 times between 81/84 .............. during Paice / Powell,  Murray / Hodgkinson...........eras

digitalscream

johnnyurq said:

It wan't just MOR a lot of festivals and multi band gigs since forever have had tales of being crocked, some will be true some not I guess.

That sort of thing still happens at a local level when bigger (still C-list and below) acts play. In my BHD days, we supported one of them at our local venue, and the act in question was overheard "suggesting" to the promoter that if he wanted them back, they'd "prefer it if there weren't any other professional bands on the bill", referring to us (the openers were a bunch of schoolkids who couldn't play or sing).

Bit of a compliment, that...in a backwards kind of way. Shame though, 'cos they were pretty immense.

daveyh

What's with the abbreviations today? What's BHD?

EricTheWeary

daveyh said:

What's with the abbreviations today? What's BHD?

Black Hawk Down wasn't it? Why I can remember this stuff but not which way my pants go on is a worry.

johnnyurq

bertie said:

johnnyurq said:

Whitesnake bitched before and after that they should have been the headliners, smacks of sour grapes. But they weren't too bad.

no idea about the first bit - but I thought there were great...........musically far better than AC/DC,   best Snake line up ever IMHO - saw em about 4 or 5 times between 81/84 .............. during Paice / Powell,  Murray / Hodgkinson...........eras

No doubt they did sound ace and Bernie Marsden played very well just I was a bigger AC/DC fan than Whitesnake at the time so a subjective thing.

At the time I thought it was a poor show bitching in public about it IMHO and that may have coloured my memories of them.

mike_l

jaygtr said:

It's a long time ago but I don't think anybody did blow IM off the stage.

Skid Row at MOR '92 came closest, but didn't quite do it.

bertie

johnnyurq said:

 I was a bigger AC/DC fan than Whitesnake at the time so a subjective thing.

oh for sure,  I went there for AC/DC,   I just was more impressed with 'Snake..............probably cos I was nearly asleep on me feet by the time AC/DC came on !!    it was a long day....... coming up from Debbun  - 

carlos

Locust opening for Fantomas. YT clippage made me think I was going to hate them, but it turns out they were amazing live and liked them better than Fantomas despite the latter's star power. The Locust. Amazing.

johnnyurq

bertie;52106" said:

johnnyurq said: I was a bigger AC/DC fan than Whitesnake at the time so a subjective thing.



oh for sure,  I went there for AC/DC,   I just was more impressed with 'Snake..............probably cos I was nearly asleep on me feet by the time AC/DC came on !!    it was a long day....... coming up from Debbun  - 

I hear you there we came by a bus laid on by a local pillock of the community and an old school no bog bus too. Pissing in bottles was the only recourse due to a moaning driver with an industrial strength bladder, plus he wasn't beered up gladly.

It took over 11 hours there and 11 back so a busy few days so like you said zombified near the end, 470 or so bum numbing miles.

It took so long because the driver made the fatal error of stopping too close to a pub just over the border on the way there and back. So imagine a wee pub getting descended upon by a pile of bladdered highlanders off to see some eavy metal.

equalsql

Black Oak Arkansas - Amazing live Jim Dandy was Dave Lee Roth before Dave Lee Roth-- but crap on albums.
Black Sabbath - Awful .. Ozzie was bladdered and I lost the will to live at the drum solo.
Judas Priest - Just embarrassing .. they played fine... just that I realised I'd grown out of 'codpiece-rock'.

Amy Winehouse - before all the drugs and tattoo crap. 2004 a tiny gig in Birmingham, she was playing guitar and had the same band that she played with on her 'Jools' debut. Just an amazing performance.

David Sanborn at Hammersmith Odeon with the wonderful Hiram Bullock (r.i.p) on guitar. Jaw dropping and to top it all Al Jarreau turned up on stage for an impromptu session.. That was a night I'll always remember.

Wishbone Ash with Laurie Wisefield. Brilliant: the best sound system I ever heard then or since 

guitari

historyisjunk said:

Probably biggest disappointment wasn't even a bad show. Neil Young at the SECC sometime mid 90's. In fact, I think he did a really good show & it lasted a fair while; Kula Shaker were pretty good suport too. Where I had to sit, & I mean sit or else, was much too far away, I hardly remember anything about it, it was so dismal. I'd been working my arse off away from home & looking forward to it enormously. The SECC also gouge you for parking, which isn't mentioned when you buy the tickets.

Was that the Broken Arrow tour? Seen NY a few times and that show was probably my least favourite. It was also unbelievably loud IIRC.

viz

daveyh said:

What's with the abbreviations today? What's BHD?

Yeah, alternating current direct current were not nearly as good as whitesnake.

guitari

Most dissapointing for me was Smashing Pumpkins around 2000, their farewell tour - they played new material most of the gig. Don't think they played anything from Siamese Dream or Mellon Collie.

Kelly Clarkson was a pleasant surprise, great singer and a very good band with her.

bertie

daveyh said:

What's with the abbreviations today? What's BHD?

Bad Hair Day

you of all people should know that................  

daveyh

bertie said:

daveyh said:

What's with the abbreviations today? What's BHD?

Bad Hair Day

you of all people should know that................  

LOL )

ICBM

guitari said:

Kelly Clarkson was a pleasant surprise, great singer and a very good band with her.

I like Kelly Clarkson a lot. She can really sing, she can write a bit, she's totally professional but (contrary to what you might expect from her Anerican Idol win) isn't afraid to stand up to record company types and do what she wants to do, and she doesn't seem to conform to industry pressure about her image either. Top marks all round really.

historyisjunk

guitari said:

historyisjunk said:

Probably biggest disappointment wasn't even a bad show. Neil Young at the SECC sometime mid 90's. In fact, I think he did a really good show & it lasted a fair while; Kula Shaker were pretty good suport too. Where I had to sit, & I mean sit or else, was much too far away, I hardly remember anything about it, it was so dismal. I'd been working my arse off away from home & looking forward to it enormously. The SECC also gouge you for parking, which isn't mentioned when you buy the tickets.

Was that the Broken Arrow tour? Seen NY a few times and that show was probably my least favourite. It was also unbelievably loud IIRC.

@guitari
Sorry didn't mean to ignore, just happened to see this as the thread got bumped.
Not much of an answer anyway as I don't know which tour- my best guess is it was 1996. As I said, I really don't remember much about it except that I thought they seemed to be doing a good show, but I hated the venue. I don't even remember if it was extra loud- something I don't like normally, so perhaps it was a different tour.
I seem to recall there were banks of seats & a big open area in front of the stage which you couldn't move to if you were in a seat. I'm not even a mosher, I just like to feel I'm in the same building as the stage...

I saw Pearl Jam (of whom I'm not a massive fan) at Wembley arena, which is pretty huge too, but for some reason that seemed much better- perhaps it was different expectations.

Skipped

Bad:
The Stones at Maine Road Manchester 1990. They were so bad I am not even sure it was Music. Just an uncoordinated noise. I told me friends "it's the stadium acoustics" and went off the wander into every part of the ground, and then onto the pitch. No improvement. So I started watching the crowd instead. Loads of people chatting in groups, taking no notice of the gig.
Seeing them (recently) on tv at Glastonbury, I thought they were rather good. People were dancing. :-O. Nobody was dancing at Maine road.


Really Bad:
Grand Funk Railroad. Hyde Park. 1971
Ok - The albums were not exactly wonderful songs played by virtuoso musicians but they were raw and kind of exciting...
In Hyde Park Grand Funk were embarrassing. Like watching some kids rehearsing. Mark Farner playing some horrible cheap guitar through a cheap nasty fuzz box way too loud - maybe twice as loud as support act Humble Pie. I still can't explain it.

EricTheWeary

Heard some John Mayall today. I used to think of him as a journey man musician who happened to have played with some great musicians but I saw him live a few years ago ( I went primarily to see Buddy Whitington) and he was a great, great live performer. He would have been in his early 70's then so, presumably, even greater at one point.