Most disappointing gigs/unexpected joy

I'm glad to read this, considering the fan worship for Marillion on these pages!   My chum Curt and I went to see Marillion at Chicago's excellent Park West Theater on 15 August 1995, expecting a fine show.  Instead, it was dreadfully boring, with sub-standard musicianship.  We actually left before the end of the concert, something we'd never done before.  

Unexpected joy was seeing Yes on their CTTE tour, 22 September 1972, in the acoustically-perfect Arie Crown Theater in Chicago.  I hadn't heard the LP CTTE, and went expecting to hear their AM radio hit "America," so imagine my surprise when the classic Yes sparkle ball descended and they began Close to the Edge!!   An added bonus was the then-unknown band, The Eagles, opening for their friends, The Yes (that is how they introduced them, like The Who)! 

None really ... but there were a few things that were sad along the way which made things not as good as they should have been. But we're talking 50 years here ... not just 10 or 20!

Ozric Tentacles, a few years back when they were touring the country on their van ... I had warned them on their Forum/Website about Portland not knowing how to do sound and having a knack for messing it up. In 94 (or 95 not sure now) they were here at La Luna and of course the keyboards were not wired properly and Seaweed spent the night with the wiring since half the time there were no keyboards heard. On the sound board from which I have heard a tape from the show, including John's potato joke and all that, the keyboard was fine, which means that the club did not have enough for keyboards but the drums, bass and guitar were horribly over done!

A few years later, even with a warning, they still played Portland at a dive location, and of course, Silas could not get the keyboard going half the time, and they did not have a sound person, and you could see into the sound board, the keyboard volume was setup at half the other members. The band sound so poor, that I ended up leaving halfway through ... to not pay attention and make sure they can get what they need to protect their music is ... senseless and pathetic. They should have unplugged everything and just played an acoustic set which might have been more interesting!

A lot of great things along the way ... one special moment was MAGMA, and I was scared that the show might not be good, forgetting I had at least a couple of live albums (!!!!NK) and it was magnificent, but at the end I cried ... I knew that something special and different like this would not happen again in my life. They did come around again 2 years later, and it was beautiful ... but I still cried in the end, knowing how special it had been and how much this "individuality" has been for my own writing and artistry.

I can not say there are "disappointments" but if there was one, it would be Damo Suzuki by himself with a 2nd rate band, and before the show he was outside having a smoke, but he would not talk to anyone, just stare out somewhere. I think he was trying to be cool and this and that, but in the end, the show was sad, and the redos of old CAN material were poor and sadder still with the band not having the proper cohesiveness to do it right. All in all it was just another night of busking for a tired old man, if that is fair to say. I still love what he had done before, but he should have moved on and added more to it, and instead he is trying to make the old photograph come alive again, and it ain't happening. The musicians behind him do not have the learning and pedigree of those before. 

Saw TD five times, including their 1st and 2nd tours in LA (Santa Monica Civic and The Greek Theater with the trees on fire picture on the live album) ... and they were great each and every time. I would have liked to see them during the time with the girls, but never got the chance.

Saw PF four times, and they were excellent, not withstanding the bummer at the Sports Arena when 714 people got busted, and the narcs walking the concert and taking people out during the music ... totally pathetic. Typical of the police force style that later got them in trouble, but it was happening before in a lot of different ways.

RW did the WALL here in PDX and it was cheesy for my tastes, although it was fine. The stage was in front and the sound went from left to right and from right to left ... the original show way back when the sound WENT AROUND YOU AND ALL OF US, and it made the whole thing more "real" of an experience. All of a sudden, I felt like it was just a cheap version, or a type of MET redo of some old opera again, with no changes or updates to make up for the "time" ... RW made sure that this time he got touchy about other wars, instead of Vietnam, but the audience didn't give a poop about it all and some folks were getting drinks during that moment ... typical rock audience ... the respect is where? But then, RW's idea of respect is just an idea, not real! This simply showed the difference between the early days of "progressive" music when the idea was to make it REAL and SPECIAL ... and all of a sudden 30 or 40 years later, all you can see is the cardboard reality of it all ... very disappointing compared to the original! And the millions spent on the tour should have been spent on something else ... that made better sense to his politics and ravings!

Surprise: I went to a hall party in River Rouge, Michigan (a fairly dive VFW hall in a fairly dive city just south of Detroit) for a $5 keg night in the early 80s. Did not expect much (except to get drunk), and didn't even know if a band was going to play. Who walks out but Leslie West. Yeah, Mountain's Leslie West -- the Great Fatsby. He was obviously a little drug addled at the time, but put on a damn good show. Unexpected and off the wall, but a great jam given the circumstances.

I went to a Groundhogs gig in Newcastle in the 80's with middling expectations. They were very very good, great night.

Surprisingly good: Crack The Sky 1978 (Toledo.) I remember being blown away...

Hi,

It's a strange comment because in those days, TD was still doing a lot of improvising to try and show their pieces, but the machinery used was not always on par with everything else. Edgar Froese in his book, talks about a lot of it during the band tours and the real difficult issues for their instruments and band in general, like freezing hands in Poland, and no heat except that from the electricity from the instruments and perhaps the crowd warmth ... and guess what? It's on an album!

When I saw them about that time, it was not bad, but you could tell that they were having difficulties adjusting to the new equipment, and they were not able to play the material like STRATOSFEAR as well as they wanted, and had to flow with what they had. 

The sad thing about the comment, is that it was around that time that they got comfortable with the new digital stuff and it ended the run of 6 or 7 years of massive bootlegs ... ALL OF WHICH WERE DIFFERENT because it was impossible to make the hardware repeat the same thing they had created. Too many wires and plugs ... and the result was different each and every time.

I think the comment is due to the fact that recognizable material is kinda mixed in with other stuff and it was down, to just a main theme sometimes and it wasn't until much later, for example, that they were able to do Phaedra on stage ... when we saw them on their first tour something was there from the new album, but when you listen to the Live in America album (their 2nd tour I think) with the pictures of the Greek Theater trees on fire (part of the show with lasers!) ... you can tell how they handled the newer material ... it was very different ... 

I imagine that Exit was looking for something he recognized and didn't get it ... not sure ... but their sound and mixes every time I have heard it, has been very good.