Original Desmond

What Concerts have you seen where it was the music artist's song selection which disappointed you more than their performance.

I guess i'm talking bout artists who have quite a decent number of albums/songs behind them

The madonna drowned world tour of last year would have really disappointed me. She played hardly any early stuff !

palebluedot

Saw Steely Dan in concert and although the show was very very good, it was too short and they stuck to the "hits" which are my least favorite songs by them.

grunter

Depeche Mode's "Exciter" tour springs immediately to mind. I realize that the "Exciter" album was being plugged and all with the tour, but somebody should have advised the band to lay off the mid-tempo slog-fests. And - as is par for the course - too little of Martin Gore's singing.

I'm also reminded of a Sting concert I saw way back in '88 or '89. I believe it was the "Bring On the Night" tour. The man had a serious chip on his shoulder about his Police hits and ended up playing virtually nothing but smooth instrumental jazz the whole evening. It was a huge disappointment for the audience.

Oh, and add any Prince concert of recent memory (eg. over the last decade). The man almost never plays or sings at his own shows anymore. It's one neverending string of guest appearances - like any given rap album of the moment. I once saw him at the Aragon Theater here in Chicago - expecting an intimate close show-of-all-Prince-shows - and was treated to a $75 comeback bid by Chaka Khan and Doug E. Fresh. (Please dump Larry Graham, Prince. Just do it. Your career will rebound in no time flat.)

Giantrobo

Most KISS shows. They hve hundreds of songs but they play the same s#it all the time.

GUN AND ROSES back just before the two albums came out. The show I saw at the FORUM featured mostly BALLADS Our whole section was bored!!!!

einTier

The last Cure tour. I saw them at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in Houston. I can't find the online review now, but it was a miserable experience, and the reviewer pretty much felt the same way.

Now, I'll admit, I've not been a fan of their latest two albums, but out of the HUGE back catalog of hit songs Robert Smith could have picked from, he picked exactly one: Fascination Street. If the crowd had been into the new songs, that would have been fine, but it was painfully obvious halfway through the set that no one was interested at all. I sat down not long after the show started, and with the exception of two girls directly in front of me, no one in a 100 foot radius was standing either. I watched the crowd steadily stream out over the next hour or so and finally my wife and I decided it was time for us to leave as well. I've never walked out of a concert before, but I couldn't justify staying either -- only one of his hit songs in a 20+ playlist?

If I could have gotten a refund, that's one concert I would have gotten one from.

pantala

The third night from last year's Dave Matthews Band series at the Gorge. Friday night was great, a really good opener. Saturday night was the best show I've ever been too, and is regarded as one of the best shows from last year's tour. Sunday was just terrible. It started out okay with #41, but by the end I was wondering what the band was thinking.

The last encore of the closing Gorge show last year was the same song they opened on Friday with. That was a serious disappointment.

bralph

I've been to Jimmy Buffett shows every year the past 10 years, and I for one don't care to ever hear the Songs You Know By Heart tracks (Cheeseburger, Fins, etc). I still have a great time every year, but I would love it if one year he didn't play any of that stuff.

Iron Chef

Fiona Apple. Back when she went on tour in support of her Tidal CD, and played all of the songs from Tidal in the same order as they were on the CD. That was one of the lamest concerts that I've been to.

Butters

Prince - Nashville - 1997

After starting about 2 hours late because EVERYONE had to pick their tickets up at the will-call window, Prince finally hit the stage. I don't think he had an opening act. If he did, it sure wasn't a memorable one.

Anyway, I think he played every slow or mid-tempo song he had ever written. I was yawning throughout the whole thing, and I was still a fairly big Prince fan back then. Enough to want to pay $75 for a ticket. Everyone I went with hated the show, and I think the whole experience led to my demise as a Prince fan.

POWERBOMB

Last years' Soul To Soul tour with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. They sang most of theirs hits, but they had an awful lot of bad filler songs instead of some of the better filler songs on their cd's.

cdollaz

The ones that bother me are the ones that play the same songs from tour to tour, only substituting in a few new ones. Some of these are:

Van Halen
Ozzy
Sting
Depeche Mode (their shows are too short as well)

Flashback

You must be a young Ozzy and VH fan.

Prince is definitely the one. He has so many hits and in quite
a few years he has never played them out. It's either
ignored or part of a medley. It really is too bad since has a
real solid background, in my opinion.

Giles

the recent gig from South was slightly disappointing, they a couple of songs a liked but on the whole the show was lacklustre.

Gdrlv

I wouldn't call myself a huge Kiss fan, but they put on a fun show. I've actually seen them 3 times over about a 7 year period...the final time being in 1999 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Vegas. I'll never see them again. Every single show was almost exactly the same (with the exception that they played one or two crappy songs off of Psycho Circus in 99). No excuse for a band that has been around since the early 70s to play the exact same 20 songs on every single tour and at every single show.

grunter

Really? The last Cure tour? I'm shocked. I thought it was masterful and brilliant - playing all of these old school Cure songs from their early days. I just about passed out from excitement when they played "One Hundred Years." I was up on my chair screaming the lyrics along with the band, lolling my head around like a thrash-rocker.

The tour was touted as a farewell for the hardcore Cure fans. Robert Smith deliberately avoided many of the huge hits of the past few years and concentrated on rarely played deep album cuts and older, more somber material. Many, many times the band would actually acknowledge those "request" signs held up by people in the audience and play a song they hadn't played in almost literaly decades. It was like a time machine trip back to my moody P.I.B. high school days.

Hopefully - if the rumors are true - that won't be the final Cure tour and Robert will return again from retirement with a new batch of sonic sourness.

mllefoo

The Damned's last tour: they didn't play Grimly Fiendish. Otherwise it was a fun show.

Love and Rockets at the Maritime Theater a couple of years ago: played mostly stuff off the one album nobody bought. At least they played "Yin and Yang and the Flowerpot Man" which is one of their best songs played live.

einTier

When was this? The tour I went to was in 2000. Maybe he's had one since then, and I just didn't realize it. I'm telling you the only song that was older than two or three years old or even a hit song was "Fascination Street". I was really excited to hear it. ...but, sadly, it was the only one I enjoyed during the whole concert.

I understand that artists hate playing the same songs over and over again, but there are certain songs you expect to hear when you attend a concert. I really expected to hear at least half of the following songs:

Boys Don't Cry
Lovesong
Inbetween Days
Close to Me
Why Can't I be You
Just like Heaven
Lullaby
Friday I'm in Love
Fascination Street
Hot Hot Hot!!!
Pictures of You

Illinois Enema Bandit

Eh? The only things I "expect" to hear from an artist are a decent sampling of whatever new material they are supporting on their current tour. Beyond that, I prefer to hear deeper cuts and to be surprised - I can largely do without a greatest hit parade

GoVegan

I'm surprsed by the dissapointment of the last Cure tour, too. I loved it. You could tell that the band was really into it, also. The last time I'd seen them (Swing tour) before this tour they played almost all of the songs on your list, but it seemed like they were just going through the motions.

And, not that this will make you feel any better, but at the show you went to they did play Inbetween Days and Just Like Heaven later.

I couldn't have been happier at the song choices, though.

woofman

SLAYER-

Though I wouldn't miss em' for anything, having seen them 10-15 times in the last 10 years they ALWAYS PLAY THE SAME SONGS, besides the 1 or 2 songs off the newest record they are touring to support, it's always *War Ensemble, Die by the sword, *Chemical Warfare, *South of Heaven, *Hell Awaits, Mandatory Suicide. (No complaints on Angel of Death though) There are soooo many good songs they never play I would just love to hear.

mllefoo

This is what I enjoy about David Bowie shows. He's been steering clear of his hits and playing deep cuts and whatever album he's out to support.

The Earthling Tour disappointed some of his older fans because he didn't play Space Oddity or Ziggy Stardust. But he DID play Jean Genie (I think that's a staple in any live Bowie show), a couple of Velvet Underground tunes, an Iggy Pop tune (something he co-wrote), and even lapsed into The Laughing Gnome at one point. You have to admire a guy who is willing to play one of the most embarrassing songs in the history of rock. Then the rest of the show was stuff off Outside and Earthling. Though the albums aren't as good as some of his older catalog, the songs are *wonderful* live.