Worst Concerts You Have Attended ??

2007 SXSW Music Festival. The venue was the 18th Floor at the Hilton Garden Inn (one of the 3 best SXSW venues). Andy Pratt was first, followed by Bic Runga, Jonette Napolitano and Graham Parker.

Andy Pratt was beyond awful. He was doing his best to make us leave; but, no one did because the next three acts were so good. About halfway thru his set, Andy dropped his guitar pick and he couldn't find it. All of us were thinking "thank God this trainwreck is about to be over," only to have an audience member yell out that he had a spare pick.......despite most of the audience yelling "NO!!!," that did not deter him and we had to endure another 20 minutes of Andy Pratt. Bottom line, the agony was worth it, since the remaining sets were transcendant. Jonette even explained the origin of the Concrete Blonde song "Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man" (turns out she had a ghostly encounter years earlier while staying at the Driscoll Hotel in downtown Austin).

I was also fortunate to catch Bob Dylan on his 1986 tour when Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers were his backing band.

Dave Matthews Band in San Francisco Golden Gate Park (I think?). I was dying for 2+ hours because I was with a group of females and they seemed to like the show. Only saving grace was Carlos Santana who showed up for the last 20 minutes and played some good tunes.

A show that shocked me was The Tragically Hip in San Francisco. I had seem them a few years earlier in Santa Cruz and they were great as expected. However, in that SF show Gord Downie for some reason went into a primal scream rant on every song. A shame because the American audience never heard the greatness of their music at that show.

During the early '70's saw Johnny Winter in Madison Square Garden, I can't remember how, but, I some how ended up in the front row  and the crowd which started off as surly got downright nasty. Beer bottles flying all over, hundreds of people rushing the stage, my chest got crushed against police saw horse barricades, I couldn't breathe, I really thought I might die there. Johnny stopped the show, said it wasn't cool, and that the band would leave if they didn't chill out. Then the master showman sat down and played a really beautiful solo blues guitar tune and everyone calmed down. Still, I was truly scared.

Not many years later I saw Yes in the round at Madison Square Garden (a really lousy venue for concerts), Sound system was partly on the moving circular stage and partly in the rest of the arena, really weird sound, some of the sound moved, some of it didn't, it sucked.

One of the most unusual musical events, again in the '70's  was listening to The Chicago Art Ensemble on the top floor of a broken down drafty loft in Greenwich Village. We sat on on moldy mattresses as the cold winter rain leaked in rather vigorously on our heads while they played some rather interesting free Jazz. After the performance, the small audience was invited to sit a communal picnic style dining table with the musicians where they served some kind of awful gruel, and some decent crusty bread. The musicians couldn't have been nicer, the music hypnotic, but it was not something I'd want to do again.     

reubent:

I was just kidding and not "trying to be funny" as our supposedly "new" member (daponte911) implies, because IT WAS FUNNY.

DeKay

@dekay  - Thanks buddy, you had me worried. With some of the crowd around here, you never can tell.....

BTW, what I said is still true. The 3LP Abby Road Half Speed Master is really good. It also covers the entire 33 song set, vs the 6 songs on the original LP. Highly recommended!