Most disappointing gigs/unexpected joy

Marillion at Rock City in Nottingham was the worst gig I've ever been to, although I was given free tickets, so I can't complain. The best gig I've ever been to was Bjorn Again (the Aussie ABBA), also at Rock City. The furthest I've ever travelled to a gig was to see Blue Oyster Cult at Birmingham Odeon (58 miles from Nottinghmam) during their "Mirrors" tour in 1980 and the loudest concert (pardon?) I've ever attended was Ozzy Osbourne at the Derby Assembly Rooms before it burnt down. 

Edited by Psychedelic Paul - June 15 2021 at 11:18

Toy Dolls early 80's - a punk band from Sunderland, they hit song was Nellie The Elephant played at punk speed. They played a total of 3 songs of which 2 were Nellie The Elephant, gig was over in 15 minutes.

Edited by Nogbad_The_Bad - June 15 2021 at 10:46

Most disappointing was Jethro Tull in 2007. The setlist wasn't bad and it was a stone's throw from where my girlfriend (now wife) lived. However, there was no Martin Barre (who was on his own solo tour if I remember right) and Ian Anderson was in a very bad mood and especially the second set seemed like everyone on stage just wanted to be finished with the show. 

Edited by Hiram - June 15 2021 at 11:09

I saw Tull on the Roots To Branches tour in Canada and, hopefully, caught Ian on a bad voice night. The band rocked but Ian was a big disappointment. He sounded close to his old self on the album. Studio trickery?

Most disappointing gig: Magma live in Vancouver some years ago at a club.

It wasn't expensive and I'm still glad I went, and I got to be right by the stage (but tried to be far from the speakers). The venue had a poor sound system, there was a long opening narrative by someone who introduced the band about how spiritual Magma's music is and about understanding it, where I thought, "You're taking it far too seriously". The setlist I didn't like much, not that adventurous, and it was far too rock and not jazzy enough for me. Worst, it was totally unnecessarily loud. Really loud, and the subtle bits that often make music special did not come across (it sounded all flat, very loud and very flat). I got worried when I saw they were selling ear plugs. Magma should have followed it up with a performance by Swans called Soundtracks For the Deaf, because that's how I was after the concert.

Shame, I've seen and heard lots of Magma concert footage that I love. Maybe my expectations were too high. I stopped listening to Magma for a long time after that. I thought, wow, I thought Magma was supposed to be fun and a bit silly, but they really take themselves very, very seriously.   The other factor was that I brought my wife and I was constantly worrying about her reaction, so that made the experience worse,

Maybe I'm too used to going to jazz and classical concerts to really appreciate rock concerts (although the best I ever saw was Spinal Tap, and they go to 11, well not really at the concert). And damn were they funny when talking. Totally not disappointed at all with Spinal Tap.

Best surprise (not prog) was free tickets to a cello/ pipe organ concert in Osaka. Now that was a transcendental experience. I didn't need to be told how to appreciate the music or how spiritual it was, this was numinous. I was utterly enraptured. And and so nice to have a quiet audience who I think care enough about the music and are respectful to the musicians not to talk or cheer during the performance, and the acoustics were amazing. I really am a classical music concert kind of guy mostly, but that's what I was raised on. And I love jazz clubs.

Edited by Logan - June 15 2021 at 12:04

I can echo the Dream Theater sentiments, their concert I went to was mixed absolutely dreadfully. If there was keyboard or bass, I didn't hear it. All incredibly muddy drums and abrasively loud guitar and vocals. Seriously, there was no reason for it to be that loud. Shame, cause they played all of Metropolis Part 2 which should've been awesome, but I just couldn't enjoy the music.

I once saw an absolutely stunning and surprising gig by Portuguese jazz singer Maria Joao together with a quite adventurous female guitarist with an English sounding name. They didn't have any albums together and stupidly, after not finding anything to buy in the next month or so, I even forgot the guitarist's name. I have some stuff by Maria Joao and she's generally very good, but I have never found any recording of the kind of thing that they played on that evening.

So far, disappointing gigs have oddly coincided with my interest in those bands declining, as was the case with a Rush performance in 2013 which was mostly just show with the band just playing straight-ahead versions of their songs and not really letting themselves loose, a Roger Waters performance of The Wall in the same year where I sat in between a bunch of drunk idiots all the way in the back row of a giant football stadium, and a Camel performance in 2019 with sub-par acoustics and a disappointing setlist. On the other hand, I was afraid the same thing would occur to me before going to a Soft Machine concert in 2018 but I went ahead anyway realizing I might never get a chance to see them again: they ended up playing a vigorous show that totally outdid my wildest expectations and made the album they were promoting at the time seem really tame in comparison.

Styx and Yes in 2011. Styx were great but Yes were pretty lame that night. Benoit David was the singer and he just didn't do that good of a job. Their performance was rather lackluster anyway. I was pretty disappointed. 

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - June 15 2021 at 18:10

Yes, I think a lot of bands could take a leaf out of Soft Machine's book - I saw them, for the first time ever in 2019 (Nottingham) and was blown away!  They had dynamic new material and reimagined the old stuff in very creative ways...