Greatest live disappointment

It's probably been done before somewhere, but this thread was prompted by watching the telly this morning, when my wife wouldn't let me get her off the computer

I put on Sky Arts to watch Pink Floyd perform DSOTM (from the Pulse DVD, but without any of the other tracks).

I remember seeing this tour, and reliving it this morning, reminded me of just how awful I thought it was. Yep, although DSOTM is a five star classic in my mind, I felt at the time, and again today, just how awful the gig was. The terrible female vocals on Great Gig In The Sky, the vastly unnecessarily overextended Money (with poor old Dick having the indignity of a bunch of gyrating females behind him whilst trying to remember how to play the sax), the obligatory percussionist doing the obligatory jumping up and down whilst, at the same time, saving Nick Mason from being a silent witness, and the conclusion I reached at the time that this was merely a band going through the motions without the man who was passionate about the lyrics he had written.

Controversial, I know. But, what was your biggest live disappointment? A gig or tour you had really looked forward to, but ended up being a total dud.

Give your reasons

Not Strictly Prog, But Thin Lizzy when I saw them supporting Deep Purple a little while back. I was only 15 at the time,(teenage progger here :) ) and it kind of shattered one of my early loves for a band. Them not playing "whiskey in the jar" was a crime beyond comprehension to me, and there was just none of the energy that any Thin Lizzy album is full of. I understand the problem is the sad lack of Phill Lynnot (R.I.P.) but it was still a sad day.

The 1999 International Progressive Music Festival in San Francisco had some wonderful surprises as well as some real disappointments. In general, the festival was wrought with sound system disasters. Both days performances were about 2 hours late. Bondage Fruit opened the fest and blew everyone away despite the sound issues. The bands that disappointed me the most were Lana Lane and The Rocket Scientists whose only real prog moment was a horrifying ItCotCK cover. Porcupine Tree just sounded like AOR to me. They were tight, but...meh.  Gong did their thing and were mildly entertaining, but not really my thing.

Overall I enjoyed the festival. The remaining acts (Par Lindh, Brand X, Buckethead, Magma) were all incredible. But the unenjoyable ones were just that. I guess thats the trouble with festivals, you get some not so good with your good.

Although not prog, but with really interesting and musically dynamic records, Zero 7 in Bristol last year was rubbish. They seemed to have lost all the musicianship shown on their albums and display a sh*tty dance-show .

Worst gig? for sure AMON DUUL2  in paris on 1977 that incredible band had turned to a mainstream hardrock band, a second hand band i must say , they were quite ridiculous what a pity, and having talked so much about them to my friends ,i was ridiculous too

sleeper wrote: I saw Mostly Autumn for the first time in June last year. Having heard quite a lot of praise for them and since bands tend to be better live than on CD I thought it would be good to see them. Most of my problems was that the band are pretty rubbish, but their live sound is still very flat and devoid of energy, not good for a live performance.

What a load of utter b*******s. Anyone who describes a band of this quality as rubbish clearly is utterly tasteless.

I've seen MA about 7 times and will be seeing them again in Dec in York.

They have never been less than excellent and some of their gigs have been on the shortlist for the best I've ever seen. The combination of superb music, excellent musicianship and back-projected imagery are always a mesmerising experience.

My own worst gigs include Can (Berlin - left halfway through) and King Crimson (London - I wanted to shoot Jamie Muir whose antics completely ruined an otherwise passable show) and Hawkwind (in York - the music was awful and the dancer utterly repulsive), but the biggest disappointment was Yes in Newcastle, who were utterly destroyed by their support band, Gryphon. They weren't bad, but Gryphon played such a breathtaking set and Yes completely failed to rise to the challenge


Edited by Hercules - November 15 2010 at 17:58

Hercules: Calm down.

Sword, you really need to turn the macho dial down a notch. This, and the other thread where you tell someone to jump off a cliff, are really unnecessary insults to people, and have nothing to do with their opinions. Mighty tough talk for a guy with a unicorn avatar. 

Edited by Ronnie Pilgrim - November 15 2010 at 18:58

Okay this time round a second-hand experience (not really fair, but there you go).