Music Bands with the most disappointing live performances?

I had the opposite experience with these guys:

I liked them before, but live they are even better!

 

I don't think its fair to judge them on post 2000 split performances. One of my favourite bands, but I could not get myself to see them when they reformed in 2007! Maybe this was a good thing, as my memories are unspoilt!

 

I know its not, but seeing as I found them in 2003 when I was 12 and I found out a few years later they were going to play again, I couldn't say no. It wasn't bad, but just couldn't reach my expectations.

Best gigs? Hmm..

RATM at Finsbury Park
Billy Talent Reading 09 (**** the kings of leon)
The last ever NiN show at the O2 in 09

 

I was extremely disappointed with Bruce Springsteen when he played Glasgow's Hampden Stadium a couple of years ago.

Sound quality was very poor. Although he Boss and his band were excellent, and I respect their right to play whatever they want. The set list was made up of obscure tracks, including a cover of an olde American West song from the 1800's.

Left early.

 

Worst band ever was got to be Chumbawumba...randomly saw them at WOMAD and they actively refused to play that Tubthumping song which everyone clearly wanted them to sing, lots of shouting and grumbling in the audience.

Imogen Heap was pretty good though! She decently engaged the audience and put on a proper show, entertaining and all. And doing the looping /etc live was pretty cool.

Mumford and Sons was excellent, 1.5hours of solid music including 14 people on stage at the end just twaddling away on the banjos, the whole audience was singing along, made for a really pleasant evening.

 

This. I travelled half the country to see them too.

Catatonia way back in '97. Open air concert that pissed down all day. All the other support bands were ****. By the time they came on they played like 5 songs and ****ed off. Bah.

Pelican in some shithole in Bristol. Place was about as wide as your toilet and had the worst possible acoustics, plus, they can't seem to play live.

Best has to be Rammstien (crowd surfing on a boat + flames Cheesecake) and NIN (second time, when they played all their old stuff + best view from a balcony directly opposite. Lost voice for a day from singing along).

 

Type O Negative - as much as I loved Peter Steele (RIP ) every live performance I've seen (not in person sadly) sounded so far from the studio album awesomeness. Maybe I just caught bad shows.

Best though, in person, would be either Korn, Machine Head or Sabaton.

 

That is fair enough - I found them 6 years earlier - I guess I was lucky in that aspect!

...on topic - most dissapointing - going to see Roots Manuva finding out they did not bother turning up....followed closely by going to see Roots Manuva (again!) and finding out that they decided to do a DJ set of their music!!!

 

I think I have been pretty lucky with live bands, pretty much all bar one act and that was a warm up have been great. The one act was warm up for The Gossip (who were surprisingly good) and was called NoBra. A post op transexual who stripped to a pair of undercrackers (and nothing else) and proceeded to screech half an hour or unmitigated drivel. In the end, the chants from the croud drowned out the noise from the stage.

 

Jimmy Eat World - I've seen them twice and they were rubbish both times.
Blink 182 - Just play their normal songs at twice the speed. At least it means the concert is over quicker.

 

Another vote for Bullet for my valentine. dicks, lol

 

two different skill sets - live performance and studio recording. it's a feat to master both and arguably only the best can do it consistently.

 

Worst live performance was a band called Chariots of Fire or something. Opened for 36 Crazyfists.

The fat singer tried to wear clothes way too small for him, couldn't sing, but they hold the best memory off any gig for me.

The singer jumped on the speaker to jump in the crowd, went to jump in the crowd for everyone to move away and him fall flat on his face. Got up and tried to hit a few people for moving, people formed a mosh pit around him for lulz and so the bassist had to jump in to get him out. Was just a mess. He tried to carry on, but just couldn't.

 

Since we're going into opening acts, I'll add a couple.

Morningwood - Opened for Mindless Self Indulgence. The sound was horrible, singer howled and moaned more than sang. Also, she was wearing clothes that were far to tight and the result was watching a muffin-top jiggling on-stage.

Cold - This one was actually during a big music festival where 20 or so bands showed for a day and they've got 2 stages set up.. They had a couple good songs that I wanted to hear but they just didn't seem into it and the singer was being a dick. The sound quality was fine all day except for them. They were just a couple songs in and played "Stupid Girl" which was one of the big songs at the time. As with the first two songs it was a pile of suck and people were mostly just standing around to have something to listen to 'till the next band. They finish the song and singer comes to the mic and attention whores and says "Thank you." - hardly any response from the crowd. Singer gets pissed and comes back to the mic: "I ****in' said thank you." This time there are more boo's than cheers and the vast majority that were still standing there turned to walk and pick a spot for the next band at the other stage.

 

Megadeth were by far the worst I've seen live, the average pub band has more stage presence and a better sound. Wolfsbane would be second but that's because they always were crap, not for any other reason really!

OT: Seen many excellent live shows but most fun is a tie between the Vandals and Less than Jake.

 

Well, if we can include pop groups, I'd say the Black Eyed Peas performance at the Super Bowl this year was pretty piss poor.

 

Worst... hmm. Joe Satriani was kind of lame, live. Paul Gilbert opened for him, used one guitar, played through a 60 watt Marshall combo, and blew everyone away.

Satch came on with about 8 guitars and 4 amps, and was entirely mediocre. Bah.

NIN were loud and sounded big, but didn't really have much in the way of audience connection. We were at a metal festival, though.

Linkin Park. That was fun. Last band of the first night, totally packed. packed into this huge crowd. They got along well, and then Chester whatshisface brought out his own little band for 3 songs. The absolute worst reception I have ever seen. Totally silent reaction from the crowd. Made my night.

Metallica were as expected. Lots of pyros, but not a lot of balls. Big shame.

As for surprisingly good shows, Limp Bizkit got along well with the crowd, considering that just 20 minutes prior, most of them were chanting "F**K LIMP BIZKIT" repeatedly, while Machine Head was on. I started at least one of those chants. :3

 

That reminds me. I've seen H.I.M. 2 or 3 times, and every time they've been horrendous.
Also saw Marilyn Manson at Download and he was more bothered about touching himself than performing. Really flat and muddy sounding performance. Was very disappointed at that.

 

Sting was definitely the worst gig I've seen so far, basically just played through the studio tracks. Really disappointing as the three live albums he'd released up to that point were all fantastic, and this was just dull.

 

Meh, You like Manson's style or hate it. He was touching himself a lot during the show I saw but the sound was really clean for the style of music and it was a decent light show with his usual stunts on stilts and the over-sized speech stand.

I'm more surprised H.I.M. was that bad multiple times. Was it maybe the venue they played? When I saw them the sound was very good (although I couldn't understand a f'n word Valo said between songs). They all worked well on stage, good presence getting the crowd into it and everything. Not that much of an impressive light show but good enough.