Music Bands with the most disappointing live performances?

Ever found that a band you like is really crap live? I got hit with that recently.. I've been listening to a bit of Frou Frou and Imogen Heap. Pretty enjoyable music, her voice is pretty good, etc. I listened to her perform some of the songs I like live and was shocked when I realized that she can't sing any of her songs live. It's not like she's old and has lost her voice, she just completely relies on the studio to create her music.. I've seen plenty of bands that were just as good (or better) live, this was pretty disappointing to me. I still listen to her, but not with as much enthusiasm..

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Has anyone else been hit with this? How do you recover?

 

Title is wrong I think you means "Bands" not "Bads"

I actually saw that second video before I heard the studio recorded version, I was just impressed that she did all that looping live.

Generally I prefer bands and musicians that can play live, most of the stuff I listen to (blues stuff) sounds much better live anyhow(that's my opinion anyway).

 

Fixed the title, I can't type sometimes

I agree with your point about blues, my favorite blues tracks are all live recorded.. But Imogen's style of music almost completely relies on her voice, if the singer of a blues band can't sing that day, there is still music to fall back on.

 

Whitechapel. I knew they were awful before I saw them but nothing could prepare me for how much they sucked live. Three guitarists playing the same thing and most of that was open fret chugging.

I mustn't forget Flobots too, the entire crowd just talked amongst themselves for their entire set, the only part worth mentioning about them was their rather attractive violinist.

All the bands that I like that I've seen live have lived up to or exceeded expectations though. August Burns Red are one of my favourites and they completely blew me away.

 

Smashing Pumpkins, Reading '07. My first ever gig. Although they were still good, they weren't what I was expecting. Gone was the early 90's awesomeness.

That and NiN completely upstaged them in every possible way. Apart from Ginger. No one can upstage her.

 

On a related note, the show I went to which most exceeded my expectations was Lady Gaga on the Monster Ball Tour.

I listen to her quite a bit, but I never expected her to be able to nail it live. She most definitely nailed it.

 

DragonForce

By far the worst performance I have ever seen

 

I seen the Black eyed peas at Oxygen during the summer. They were terrible.
The best live performance I have seen has to be either Eminem(I know) or Bruce Springsteen. Bruce played for 3 hours non stop. Deadmau5 was also great but it was more the show that did it as it isn't a live performance like a singer.

 

Theres SO many acts that just cannot pull it off live. It's partly the fault of the music industry as a whole throwing us studio produced tracks left right and centre.

You know how people take the piss out of the 'autotune' effect that you hear on stuff by T-Pain or on Cher's 'Believe'? Well hey, pretty much EVERY single track that comes out today has been tuned. You just dont notice it because it's been done well, but if you know what to listen for then you can hear it.

99.9% of humans just cannot produce an entire performance completely pitch perfect, theres just too many variables.

As far as shoddy performances go, Bring me the Horizon and pretty much every other metalcore band are terrible live. I have a friend who records that stuff and he routinely has to record them playing every single note seperately just to get it to sit perfect as they cant play the damn riff clean. There are thousands of artists like this all over in every genre, I should know because I mix their live shows for a living!

Great performances? Springsteen for one, not note perfect but just a great all round performer. Also Beth Neilson Chapman and pretty much anyone else coming out of Nashville, that place just breeds quality musicians. If you're even a little sub-par there you just dont make it.

Why else do you think all the headline acts at festivals are still the old ones? They know what they're doing and havn't just been thrown through the studio mill to sound good.

 

BMTH have improved a lot since they first started out, to begin with they were essentially incapable of creating the music live, nowadays they're far better.

 

Oooh.
Bullet For my Valentine were really disappointing both times I saw them live at Download. They were just...anaemic. There was nothing about them and I wandered off.

Also Linkin Park surprisingly. I am of the opinion that something can be "over produced" and they literally sounded like an album playing when I saw them. They were to clinical. There was nothing that stood out to make it feel like a live performance to me.

Avril Lavigne first time I saw her when she wasn't so big. She was nervous and had no stage presence. She was far too withdrawn and you could tell in her voice. A couple of years later I saw her again and she was so much more confident. A massive improvement and she had stage presence.

I was also pretty disappointed when I saw Edguy too, I had such huge hopes and they ended up playing a massive amount of their new album and it was lost on me so I didn't enjoy it very much at all, and just drank instead.

I'm sure there's many I can't think of right now, I used to have a list of everything I'd seen and my rating of it.

 

Bullet for my valentine at the SECC not long back, they were really crap, especially when compared to seeing them in '08. Also Avenged Sevenfold were poor live in my opinion.

 

Michael Schenker in 2007 at the Manchester Apollo. The guy was so inebraited that half the time he was playing a different song to the rest of the band...

Motorhead about 4 years ago, they were so loud you couldn't hear them(!)

 

Yup, it's got to be the black eyed peas.

 

I haven't seen them live in person but Black Eyed Peas at the Superbowl on TV was godawful. Really, they haven't been any good since Fergie joined. Having a hard time even saying Fergie is attractive since that show, the whole time she was on stage, I kept seeing fat-blonde-80's Ozzy Osbourne.

There have been a few live performances that I wasn't terribly happy with but I blamed that on the venue rather than the band, it's difficult for the type of music that I like to not sound muddy when it's echoing around an arena. The only one that comes to mind is Metallica. I saw them in either '97 or '98 when they were touring for reload. They only played 4 songs total off of load/reload thankfully but they can go to hell for playing everything from Kill '3m All in Acoustic.

By far, the best I have seen was Muse. Marilyn Manson and H.I.M. after that..

 

Procol Harum. scheduled for 3 different concerts in cities I was working in and they were no-show in all 3 cities.

 

Showing my age here, but, I went to see Led Zeppelin live around about 1973 (one of the all time great rock bands and still one of my favourites) and was completely deflated with the sound quality even though the performance was good. Maybe I was expecting too much.

The best at live performances I experienced was from the original line up of Wishbone Ash, who I saw on a number of occasions around the same time. If you don't know who they are and love guitar based bands check them out on You-Tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeY9IRnVmk8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg6zqejXvqI&feature=fvsr

Have you ever heard a Flying V sound so good.

 

I think you've missed the point of that second video entirely, it wasn't a live performance like she would do for a show, it was a stripped down showcase for Indie 105 that had something to do with the Zach Braff movie that isn't Garden State. She did three songs, Hide and Seek (done pretty much like the cd, although she changed the melody slightly) Just For Now and Let Go (just her and the piano, amazing stuff).

Also you really can't compare a youtube video to actually seeing a band live, there's so much more that goes in to a live performance (or should anyway) that goes beyond whether they're singing perfectly on-pitch. Youtube there's none of that atmosphere etc. I suggest you actually go to an Imogen Heap show (as my sister has) before you decide whether or not she's good live

Personally I was *slightly* disappointed with Muse live, more so the second time I saw them.

They put on an pretty awesome light show and they play the stuff ridiculously well live but there's very little actual fun, they come on, play the songs and that's it. Compared with the likes of Nickelback (mucho banter had with the crowd, alongside awesome lightshow and playing) or Extreme (stage presence like you wouldn't believe...seriously) anyway.

 

Bob Dylan.

The audio technicians in charge of the band just try to blast everything as loud as possible without knowing what the hell they are doing.

 

Rush.

Saw them in Glasgow for the Roll The Bones tour, they were great so when the R30 tour came up it seemed a no brainer.

Not that they were bad, just, like what Fiyero says, may as well been at home listening to the albums. And I wouldn't have had to put up with the covers either!