Bands that have disappointed you live
 

I'm sure this has been done before. If you object, piss up a rope.

My hesitation to see PE made me curious as to which shows you've been disappointed by. It hasn't happened too often to me, but when it has, it's changed my entire perspective on a band/artist. Hence my reluctance to ruin a good thing with Public Enemy.

While I've seen some mediocre shows, one that is more memorable for me was Pavement. They were TERRIBLE, and that one show has tainted them for me for life.

(Conversely, Medeski Martin & Wood were fucking amazing live, and sparked an albeit brief but intense obsession).

Yeah, I've watched various YouTube videos of Pavement live and they seem hit-and-miss. There's great performances of 'Pueblo' and 'Summer Babe' floating around but there's a terrible Reading Festival performance up there too.

I am yet to be disapointed by any live shows, however. I am pretty picky about who I go to see. Actually, now that I think about it, The Who weren't as good as I expected..

Not to turn this into a Pavement thread, but granted, Pavement began to achieve some suckage around Brighten the Corners.

The Who surprises me - while I'm not really a fan, the shows of their non-geriatric days were quite good.

The Who did put on a good show, but with only two remaining original members the whole thing seemed kinda.. desperate. I'm not really much of a hardcore Who fan though so perhaps I missed something.


I don't think Pavement had any bad albums. Slanted and Terror Twilight just weren't as good as the others.

This is going to sound like heresy here, I guess, but I was seriously disappointed when I saw My Bloody Valentine, and I was a big fan.
Then again, I know other people who were at the same show who thought it was incredible, so there you go.

Flying Saucer Attack were very disappointing live as well.

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Meat Puppets, hard to say this, weren't a particularily good live band. Judging by a few live recordings I found.

I saw the Meat Puppets a lot of times in the late 80s/early 90s and they were always great.

I speak of the period when they were getting out of their hardcore material, the vocals are very off for a number of songs (Lost, Plateau.etc.)

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Jesu. Laptop musicians seem exciting in comparison.

Good call on Sebadoh.
One of the worst shows I saw in the 90s.

Lou Barlow solo sucked badly when I saw him, but I never expected any different.

So bad we went went off to the pub and stayed there the whole evening.Biggest pile of cack i've ever seen live.

I'll throw Nada Surf in there too. Who I was never a big fan of as it was, but even less so after the show.

ascension, i've seen them twice now and they were dull as fuck

The Pixies were always useless live.The first gig of theirs that i attended made me seriously think what i was doing there because they played the songs exactly as they sounded on the albums.Their stage presence was also invisible to say the least.

I assume you're referring to my comment about Lou Barlow. He was playing an unannounced support slot, and I tried to be open minded and give him a chance, on the basis that I hadn't heard an awful lot of his stuff, but I was disappointed.

Sooner or later you are bound to discover that a band you are a big fan of on record can't deliver the goods live. It happens to everyone eventually.

I've gone to a lot of shows that wouldn't have been top on my list of priorities, because someone has asked me to go along. And I'm just that goddamned nice.

I wouldn't complain about such things, as it was obviously my choice to go. And a band's performance skills don't necessarily correlate to my personal opinion of them - I could very well think that Nada Surf blows dogballs, but also think they put on a fantastic performance. One must view these elements independently of one another. You can like/dislike a band while simultaneously appreciating their talents, or lack thereof.