Went to see the combo show of Porcupine Tree opening for Coheed and Cambria.  

The Dear Hunter started everything off and I'd only heard of them but hadn't actually heard them yet--I was pleasantly surprised.  So Band One was quite good.  

Porcupine Tree were fantastic, though it was sad to see them in an opening slot (especially having seen the whole Incident tour last year).  Band Two good, too.

Then Coheed and Cambria came on.  Like the Dear Hunter, I had heard the name but nothing of the music. But this was the big band, the one most people had apparently paid their money to see.

Ugh.  

The music had that repetitive anthemic quality that reminded of KISS plus one of those pop-punk groups from the 90s that had a number in their name.  Fairly average stuff, I thought.  The experience was worsened by the audience, which seemed quite intelligent up to this point, transforming into a mob of frat boys pounding fists and chanting along with the anthems.  

Ah well, they were having a good time, but I thought driving home seemed like a better idea.

Not the worst live experience, but the most vivid right now.  More memories will arise.

I saw one Dead Can Dance concert that was truly magical.  One of the top shows I'd seen in fact.

I had told friends about how good this show was, so the next time they came around we went to see them.  It was just awful.  Super long pauses between most of the songs.  Members not looking sure if they knew what song was coming or which song they were in the middle of.  Ugly stares darting all around.  Poor performances, no magic.  Turned out to be the last tour before the band broke up.  

It was one of those cases where I think I saw the band break up before my eyes.

 

Questions: Got to second the Coheed And Cambria. Brilliant in the studio but they're very weak live. Except the Neverender shows are pretty show but those were carefully prepared, choreographed and rehearsed and had an extra special effort put into them. Catch them on an ordinary night and you can be quite shocked by how their studio perfection completely abandons them live.

I've been bored by some performances of local musicians, but I didn't have any expectations of them so I don't think that counts. The few famous people I've seen have been pretty awesome. John Zorn was only average free improv the night I saw him, but the intimate setting made up for it.

Hercules wrote: 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.

Hahahaha

Went very early and was very close to the stage, drank a couple of beers (enough to be more receptive but just the right amount not loose a single detail), everything was perfect

The problem started when the band played the first notes of the song I hate more...Mama, the rest wasn't better, a couple of Medleys with decent music but Phil Collins  singing (horrendous).

Left the Orange Bowl swearing I would never see them again unless Gabriel and Hackett were back).

Iván

A friend of mine saw the Moody Blues in the mid-1980s (I think when Moraz was playing with them, but I may have that wrong).  He said they came out, the audience was applauding appreciably, and then the band started the first song, and then the audience began to boo.  Turned out that different members of the band had different ideas about what the first song should be and went with different choices, at the same time.

Not good.

That's a Spinal Tap moment.

 

Other than that, of all the 100s of gigs, none stand out as being so horribly bad or grossly disappointing - even when the set has been fraught with technical problems, or the band to drunk/stoned to play there has always been some morbid entertainment value to be gained by watching to the bitter end.

Had seen them many times before and after and they were always terrific.

 

I once saw The Highwaymen: Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash. They made no impression on the audience whatsoever which was bizarre given that these guys are legendary figures and the audience was rearing to see them. But there just seemed to be this invisible thick glass wall over the stage for some reason, it felt like a soundcheck or something and they totally missed the crowd.

 

Also The Mars Volta- a great set musically but the vocalist Cedric Zavala dances like a frigging maniac. Which would be fine except he made himself out of breath and couldn't sing properly, gasping and wheezing and dropping the ball on the vocals and the lyrics fairly frequently as the set went on.

Santana- I was invited by a friend. Quite boring really.

Eric Johnson- The opening band (Larry Mitchell's Band) was more interesting.

 

I once saw a Hawkwind show at an amusement park....they had to go on at 6pm due to some park ordinance.  Kids were exiting with their parents as hippies with heads full of acid were entering.  Not a bad show but those poor little kids.

 

I once saw a Procol Harum concert with only one original member....a Steppenwolf concert with only the original drummer....Iron Butterfly and Beach Boys shows with NO original members.....the Guess Who played two songs and had to leave 'cause the sound system fried....the Jefferson Starship in front of 200 or so people at a 10,000 seat venue......an Iggy Pop show that still gives me the creeps,,,,,a Springsteen show where I was stuck with a heap of fratboys that howled "Brooooooce" through the entire four hours....and perhaps worst of all - Bowie's Glass Spider tour, anybody remember that one?

 

Once showed up for a Dead show but the band never made it - Jerry Garcia had gone into a coma the night before but 25,000 Deadheads were already partying all over the parking lot at the stadium!

 

90% of the dozen or more Dlyan shows I've attended have been dismal.....always asking the person next to me what song he's doing....nobody ever knows!

 

Saw CSN circa '82 or 3 with Crosby's mike and amp turned off.....he just stood stage left and blinked all night.

 

Saw Rush at a tiny hockey arena in Moncton meant for 2,000 but somehow 5,000 packed in....the beer was cheap but air was at a premium....made out with a local lass who proceded to puke on my new Nikes.

 

Bought a ticket to a one day festival a few years back that was to have included Neil Young, Rod Stewart, Alan Parsons, and Carole King, among others.....only Donovan and Blood, Sweat and Tears actually showed up....oh, and Melanie.  Most of the performers hadn't even been notified of the event!

 

Oh, the tales I could tell....if I could remember half of them.  Lesson learned - AVOID STADIUM SHOWS!

 

Uriah Heep.....Wonderworld tour. At the Spectrum, David Byron entered the stage with a bloody nose. Halfway through the show, he begins singing a ballad. He stops the song 2 to 3 times asking the crowd to shut the F-k up. Finally, he says..."If you don't shut up, we are going to play 50's music for the rest of the concert"   That's what they did. They were bad anyway, but now they were acting like a-holes. Byron laid on the floor and kept asking the crowd if they had enough. "Are you going to shut up now?" he would ask. This went on for about 30 minutes and I walked.

I saw Aerosmith at the Spectrum in 76'. The guitars were muffled and cluttered with reverbish echo. You couldn't hear the snare drum. All you could make out were the cymbals. They sounded like a garage band from the 70's rehearsing on your local yokel block in South Jersey.

Snufu.....again God awful. A funk style which reminded me of glamour.

Santana.....Amigos tour. Not a good time to see Santana obviously. The magic was gone. It later returned on Moonflower. Maybe it was an off night?

Mahavishnu Orchestra....the Apocalypse tour. I found it grand. It obviously wasn't meant to be the Birds of Fire band and many people in the audience were blind to that, pissing and moaning through the entire show. Maybe McLaughlin should have re-grouped Mahavishnu to be like a Genesis event? The fans of the new Mahavishnu could have conversations on cell phones while the band plays the early material, like many 80's Genesis fans do with Foxtrot......Then when the new Mahavishnu material is performed, the fans of the old could exit out the door and smoke cigars....like they do when Genesis play the 80's songs.

 

I saw Charlie Haden & Quartet West at a show at an outdoor theater at an art museum near Walden Pond.  It was very hot & humid.  Haden stopped every song for extremely long tuning sessions.  After about an hour, that included maybe 20 minutes of music, we left.

 

I wasn't wowed by Carl Palmer either.  Aside from rearranging some of the ELP material for guitar instead of keyboards, I was looking more twists than what was offered up.  The show seemed to lack spontanaity as well, which I think could have added a lot to it.

ive walked out of some very lame 'Tribute' bands (mostly Pink Floyd.. they just seem to want to cover the worst stuff in the dullest way..)

i was very dissapointed by Twelfth Night and Pallas last year but as my wife said..' what did you really expect?'

Saw Yes a couple of times, some years ago and was dissapointed by their lack of fire.. resolved to just listen to the studio recordings.. last year, accompanied a friend to see them with Benoit David and found myself almost in tears, singing along (isnt that a drag.. you go to gig to listen to the band only to get some sad old fart singing tunelessly in your ear!) and really enjoying it.. Nostalgia?? Probably... Wheres my Pipe and Slippers

I swore I would never go and see them again and so I didn't - Oh well!

 

The other one was Simple Minds dull dull dull ..... (90s)

Oh yeah, the whiny self-pitying presence of a Founder (beat you to it, Walter).

Some of the stuff that is out there, that was recorded with them live is quite sad ... and doesn't compare to the brilliance of the band live in their "Live in London" album which is excellent.

 

In the end, their biggest problem is attitude, and being so free spirited means that they think they can do anything they want, and not have to rehearse or make it better.

 

Gong had the same problem. Saw them many times, and with Pip they were jazzy, with Pierre they were rock'y and excellent and could trip really nice, and with the other drummer ... they were ... not very good, and their sound quality and strength dropped considerably, specially without a keyboard player to augment the full range of the music.

 

Let's see ...

 

Deep Purple - Long Beach Arena. They were too loud and were out of tune.

 

Ozric Tentacles - No sound guy to mix their stuff and you could not hear the keyboards. It was the Ed and Brandi show without the sex! It was also, a "freebie" show done in a garage that had the worst sound system. It was the 2nd time the Ozric's have sounded terrible that I have seen ... it has taken the taste out of the music, specially if the band is not worried about what comes out on the other end.

 

Dream Theater - Seen them 3 times. The last two times they have not taken care to make sure they can be heard. It was the guitar and drum show .... and it was like three other people didn't exist in the band. It was the worst mixing job I have ever seen in my life ... and if I were the band's manager I would fire those sound folks on the spot. It's also highly disappointing and brings the music down from "progressive" to just plain rock'n'roll, when the artist is not interested in the result on the other side of the stage. In my book, DT lost a lot of their credibility at that moment, along with a lazy keyboard player that was only doing little fills here and there and not augmenting the music ... he might as well be ticking himself off in the park somewhere instead.

 

Damo Suzuki - Maybe it was the band of kids that had no idea what the whole experiment and improvisation thing was all about ... they just did variations upon a theme on various rock'n'roll chords and notes ... !!! How original! And extremelly sad to see Damo have to live through that. While I am not comfortable saying that the musicians that he had backing him were not "educated" or "experienced", but they did not have much in the way of understanding, of what music can do other than just scales and chords! And to me, that takes a lot away from Damo's ability to improvise.

 

Most lounge-lizard beginner "prog" bands that have no idea what the term means and think that doing weird scales or changing chords is the meaning of "progressive" or "prog".

 

Most "prog" bands that think they are progressive and all they have is one or two effects on their pedals --- that makes them "prog" ... and not just another version of pop music, which their music is!

 

I gave up concerts a while back ... it's actually safer to go see Styx or James Taylor, than any of these bands, that invariably sound like second rate garage groups.

 

There are more, but not worth the mention at all. Generally speaking, the majority of all these "progressive" bands ... are not capable of bringing their sound with them. There are exceptions and some bands take pride in that ... and you can see them on DVD like Nektar, or Caravan.

 

Hawkwind was excellent both times I saw them with the exception that in the Space 1999 tour in LA, the hall was too small for them and that made it too loud. However, MAN was even better in that show than Hawkwind, and we had to leave two thirds of the way into their show because ... it was simply too loud!

 

 

 

 

I usually "separate" the artist from the rest ... in the sense that the majority of the problems with bad shows are not the artists themselves, but the external part of it. ... with the exception of The Rolling Stones ... yeah ... that was out of tune, off kilter and they were not together ... and at least 2 of them were so ripped they could barely stand up! ...

 

I've seen, for example, Daevid Allen in person with a guitar, on stage by himself and tapes (Divided Alien 10k years ago), and with Gong and with University of Errors and ... gosh ... what else? ... and Daevid is usually fine and I have never seen him have a bad night ... I think that he was less into it with University of Errors, but I thought he was tired, not exactly out of it.

 

But the ones I don't like and lose respect for, is like Dream Theater ... because it is all about the ego and making sure the audience knows they have a bigger ego, and not stick to the music ...

 

Pink Floyd's biggest problem the 5 times I saw them? Roger Waters complaining about people being so stoned and the polution from it interfering with their work.  Sound was excellent. Shows were fine. Pig was fine at Anaheim Stadium, though Roger wasn't happy to catch fans fighting for pieces of it ... and yeah ... people did try to get to the stage and steal one of the blocks from The Wall in LA!

 

So yeah ... sometimes the audience is the problem. ... the ones I would like to throw out are the ones that scream "rock'n'roll" in the middle of it all ... and one day, I caught one musician making some faces about it  to that fan! And about 20 minutes later when the fan said it again, he was ushered out of the hall ... and the band was Tangerine Dream!

Hey Textbook-no. it was actually with John Glascock!

I remember one support 'act' playing in complete silence after he explained that he wouldn't be paid unless he played.

 

The upside was that the main act was always so,so much better.

 

Although someone I know always goes on about the time when Van Halen supported Black Sabbath. Van Halen were a breath of fresh air and then Sabbath came on and plodded there way through War Pigs etc They were shown up by Van Halen. This would have been late seventies I imagine.

 

In my own experience I remember being dragged along to a Marilyn Manson concert about 10 years ago. I really enjoyed the support acts (modern metal bands ,can't remember the names) but then Manson came on and it was panto with inferior musicians.

Well, I'm sorry if you find slightly prog tinged AOR band with a wannabe Gilmore on guitar as a good band, but thats your problem and not mine, and I've seen a lot of bands that could play rings around MA with ease. Hope you enjoy the York gig, but I know I'll skip them for Frost* when they come back around to the Robin 2.

Thats a surprise, I saw them on that tour and they were absolutely brilliant, at the very least in my top 3 live performances that I've seen, though I'm glad I didnt get the acappella at the end of Undertow.

Anyway, I guess I've been quite fortunate that most concerts I've been to have been quite decent. I remember falling to sleep at a Jackson Brown concert in '77. but my most disappointing concert was definitely DOVES in 2004. Small venue, great. Just after the "Cities" disc had been released (which I didn't really like--love their first two). Jimmy was sick--head cold--and had almost cancelled the show. Sound was SOOOOO loud my hearing was gone for three days and ringing for a week. They were a bass/acoustic guitarist, lead guitarist, and drummer. That's it. Al of the brilliant nuances and subtleties in their studio music was gone, absent, lost, with no effort to make them up. When Nina Hagen was sick in '84 she still gave a great show! 

Also, Bruce Cockburn in 2000. I've seen Bruce many times and LOVED every one of his shows--solo, full band, partial band, etc. This was the his last show of a long world tour and he looked, acted, played tired. Only "Rocket Launcher" got any emotion from him (as it always seems to). The rest of the set you could tell he was just goin through the motions, laughing with his bandmates at all their mistakes. No encore. 

 

He picked up his guitar twice to play a solo.

The rest of the time he conducted his band with a conductor stick.

YAWN.

There ... you just said it ... the biggest problem with rock'n'roll ... you are not there for the music! And one of the biggest problems with "progressive" music and the fans!

 

And you are not allowing the man to be himself and create music.

 

There is a reason why he is remembered and known, you know? ... and if you don't mind my saying it, you passed it right by!

 

It's like I used to tell a lot of new age'r fakey's ... it always has to be in a cd, or a book or as a star ... it can never be right there, right in front of you, slamming you in the face ... and saying hello to you!

 

There is a lot of truth to the saying that ... when you are looking for something, all you have to do is look inside ... and the saddest thing about many of the Frank Zappa fans, is that the only thing they can enjoy and appreciate is his guitar playing ... when his own compositional sense and orchestrational sense is far better and intuitive and original ... and the reason why he is remembered so fondly!

 

Other one is Santana in 2000 Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, WA. The sound was horrendous, Carlos's playing so bland, I was really expecting him to blow me away and he did not. I have always enjoyed Santana for many years love his playing but this show was a huge letdown for me.

You can appreciate a musician privately and in your time quite happily without bothering to spend money and effort to get to a gig just to see a guy basically do nothing. I would have demanded a refund to be honest if anyone dared to do this to me.Showed no respect to his fans imo. 

 

Isn't that something.?

Thanks for the heads up, about how I should like my Zappa.

I assume,that you knew Philip would not be there ,before you bought a ticket.

 

Worse show by far; Aerosmith. They were way too  loud and I'm pretty sure they were drunk. But in fairness I only saw them that once around 1972.

Talking Heads in '79.  They couldn't keep time and Tina Weymouth couldn't play bass to save her life.  Walked out after about the 6th or 7th song.

 

The Fixx in the mid '90's, can't remember the exact year.  BORING beyond belief, I actually fell asleep and I was a big fan in the '80's.

 

 

 

Queen in their post-The Game concerts have been a disappointment, good sound but little good music, although I have still been there everytime I could including with Paul Rodgers.

 

Page & Plant were also a disappointment.

 

These are the ones that came quickly to my mind...

 

Peter Gabriel playing most of his '78 album (PG 2) in '80. Wouldn't have happened. And no Games Without Frontiers? Count your blessings as that song was one of the most mamby-pamby Gabriel ever came up with. 1980 was a good year for him otherwise, so the show should have been good, right?

 

I so much disagree with you. To me Genesis Live is nothing like the studio versions. Can you not here how The Knife is different? 

I have to edit this to say I find it a bit....well I'm gob-smacked!

 

I fully second this, small concerts are so much more rewarding.

Next time they came to my home town (Utrecht) I didn't go, but I did visit the concert - with - orchestra (Magnification tour) in Amsterdam. Then they were fantastic again.

 

But the Open Your Eyes tour was the most disappointing, no doubt.

 

You do realize that what you just said is quite wrong about a lot of music in the past 400 years, right?

 

And you missed out on the subtleties that a lot of conductors have in their work ... like you really should check yout Herbert von Karajan, or Erich Leinsdorf, or a Leonard Bernstein ... people that pretty much made composers famous because of the way they played the music ... and it is how we remember it and know it!

 

Frank Zappa, and there is a lot of literature about it, and is in a couple of books, got really tired of his rock fan audience and the lack of respect for his music. And I really believe an artist has the right to stand up for his music and not be a slave to an audience.

 

In my book, this is the problem with a consumerist/commercial audience and society ... you look at Frank as "your product", and he has to kiss your bunny in order for you to be happy ... and I'm sorry to tell you that is not a role that a lot of musicians and artists are interested in ... specially if you are going to call them "progressive".

 

An artist is NOT, your product ... and if you go see him and you get something else, who's to say that the problem is that you did not listen, or see, that there was a lot more about this artist and his music than the 3 songs you liked that you wanted to hear.

 

What's the point of an "artist", or "progressive" ... when you don't allow him to be one?

 

Between you and I, may I make a small suggestion that you go over and evaluate your understanding of what "progressive" means, and what the whole thing is about ... because none of it would have existed if they had done what you wanted and nothing else ... are you sure that is what you want? ... there are placebo's out there you can take and many fake bands!

Iván

I have a recording of Greg Lake, and at the end he thanks the audience for allowing him to work for them.

 

 

YAY Walter's back. Now go away and take your stupid infantile hate somewhere else and grow up a bit. Other people have opinions, and by the look of it, they all have much more evidence/believability than 'everything post '89 is rubbish' which everyone knows perfectly well to be complete rubbish

 

I saw him again at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia in the 80's. Same deal only worse because the volume in this smaller building had no place to bounce around. It was like a trapped sound that was extremely in your face.Times when he would simply stroke the string with his guitar pick and your internal organs felt disconnected. You know that sound when a jet's wheels are first touching the landing strip? My friends wanted to stay so I sat in the lobby.

Weather Report, Tower Theatre.......I don't remember the date. It was the first tour they did after the departure of Jaco and Peter E. I stood at the side of the stage watching Wayne Shorter. What an amazing player. They had hired new players and Wayne Shorter paced back and forth gawking at them and for the whole night. Once he walked over to Zawnul and complained waving his hands and eventually having some choice words for the new members. The music had no soul. The new members raced through the beautiful compositions of W.R. like a day at the race track. Wayne Shorter is technically brilliant but melodic so really, they were missing the point causing the band to lose it's impact of performance.

I saw Yes at the JFK stadium. During their performance of "Ritual", members of the audience decided to set the seats on fire. Eventually the fire extended across an entrie side of the stadium and the fire department was brought in. Yes continued their extensive and errie jam deriving from the center of the "Ritual" piece throughout the end. I'm off thread again because Yes were very great that night however the fire was quite dangerous and it's a reminder to many how any act of extreme violent measures can reveal itself to you at a Rock concert.

Procol Harum at the Spectrum May 13th 1977. They were God awful as they fumbled through the old classics and performed also,...their new material from "Something Magic". That night it was known to me as "Something Tragic". It just sounded like a bunch of guys who were no longer Procol Harum. Brooker and BJ were the only members left from the salad days and the new members really didn't compliment the band's compositions. They were at the end of the line.

5/13/77 Return To Forever. They had 2 of the original members Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke. Clarke sat on a stool during the middle of the band's performance and played various Classical compositions using a bow and it was just incredible. All the musicians were impeccable but the essence of what I felt with the Romantic Warrior version was lost. Changing of members can ultimately dissapoint the fan.

BTO opened for Ten Years After at the Spectrum May of 74'. It was horrible. Cheap chord progressions stolen from "The Who". "The Who" had originality. This was commercial and on the ashes of "The Guess Who" and they were just writing the same style but with a harder edge to it. Staduim Rock.

Reo Speed Wagon opened for Mott the Hoople and they were bland middle of the road Rock music. They had zero hits at this time. The "Hi- Infidelity" album had yet to surface. The style was Staduim Rock and difficult to sit through.

Johnny Winter at the Spectrum 5/21/76 was a huge disappointment. While being a great guitarist that night, the material itself was cheap boogie and fashioned to a "Stadium Rock" trend. I was thinking only of how inspiring he was with his first 2 Blues releases and now he had to be like everybody else. Rotten show!

Black Oak Arkansas headlined over 2 great bands....Back Street Crawler and Rory Gallagher. Black Oak Arkansas played their stupied "Jim Dandy to the rescue" and their style fit into the arena rock era. A real painful show. Jim Dandy had the David Lee Roth look years before Van Halen hit the scene. He had his scrub board and assistant bimbo Ruby Starr on stage with him. For all the fantastic musicians that derive from the Southern United States, this was if anything, a disgrace to them.  

I've actually seen Indigo Girls many times, most of them awesome but they had one gig where the sound was terrible and Amy went into a free form poem ending in her screaming "I'm a killer" over and over.

 

I think Dylan back in his prime did some amazing work, but don't waste your money.

 

I've seen alot of bland gigs but few truly bad ones. (Van Hagar anyone?) I love music so I give quite a bit of leeway. The hardest is inconsistent bands where you've seen them be just magical and you tell your friends and the next gig they're boring.

I saw U.K. open for Al Dimeloa at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia. Al Dimeola was touring off the Casino album. U.K. were totally great! Thay gave one beautiful performance that night. Alan Holdsworth's guitar was turned so far down into the mix that he was almost missing from the ranks. You could plainly see that he was playing the most outstanding stuff! A few times that we did hear his guitar, it was completely mind blowing and suddenly they would shut him out of the mix. Al Dimeola being an excellent guitarist should have been able to withstand somebody elses talent or even stand up tall and except who he was compared to another man's playing. If in fact...he was the one behind it all? Sometimes it's the manager who pays the sound tech extra to perform this act of sabotage. Jobson, Wetton, and Bruford performed magnificently through the mix of treble, feedback, and dropouts. But the sound tech won the battle in the end causing U.K. to sound overall less impressive and even un-professional. Al Dimeloa entered the stage with a mix or sound that compared to one of the most highly regarded Frank Zappa productions. The concert sucked for this reason only. I walked..

 

 

And once people stop buying the albums then what happens?

Did a record company ever not promote Zappa's music?

Did Zappa never resort to gimmicks to get people interested?

What is 'progressive music'? Is it not in the eye or ear of the beholder or are you the only one who really appreciates what a true artist and what 'progressive' means?

 

An artist is very much my product. If they dont sing and dance to my tune then stuff em!