Daytripper

Oasis! Alright, so maybe they weren't the worst live band I've ever seen. But they were without a doubt the most BORING! And it doesn't help that they think they're the best band in the world. Because they're not even close.

Regarding Morrissey, I saw his tour around 97/98 and he was amazing. But the following tour (99/2000?) was just awful. Not sure I'd ever invest anymore of my time and money seeing him live because of that. And by the way, he *never* connects with his audience. That's just they way he is.

atlantamoi

I walked out of Smashing Pumpkins at Lollapalooza. Ick.

I was dragged to a Jimmy Buffet concert because of a girl I was dating and it was like being in hell. We were sitting on a lawn and I just layed back and tried to take a nap. People were walking by me saying how drunk I must be because they thought I passed out. I wish I had passed out.

GuessWho

I saw them around the same time, it was April 1992. They were booed off the stage by 20,000 hometown fans. They were opening for GNR that night... nobody in the stadium knew who the hell SP was. Billy's banter between songs did NOT help.

Grimfarrow

To counter:

The Smashing Pumpkins' Adore tour was possibly *the* best concert I've ever seen. They re-arranged many of their older songs such as Tonight, Tonight, BWBW, etc. into completely different songs that are in some ways *better* than the original. It was incredible. Plus, Billy wasn't screaming as much

Alyoshka

Once again to counter. One of the greatest concert experiences I had was during the Mellon Collie tour of S.P. The first hour of the concert sucked horribly. They left the stage and said the show was over.

The place cleared out except a few hardcore fans. There were probably about a hundred of us remaining. Billy and the band came back out and said, "now that we've got rid of those mtv ****ers let's have a real show." They played for another two hours and did a wonderful job. It seemed apparent that they just didn't care about the other people.

Maybe this is unethical because all those people payed, but I guess it's also their fault for not hanging out a little longer to see if there would be an encore of some sort.

GuessWho

To counter the counters, here are some of Billy's quotes from 1992...

"Hey, we're Smashing Pumpkins.... are all of you from Chicago? We're from here too, isn't that cool?"

"C'mon, this is a show, have some fun! Get up, move around, don't sit therte with your arms crossed! We're frpom around here!!"

Applejack

When they came here with G&R, they were booed off of the stage also.

Man they suck live. They have some great CDs but I wouldn't go see them again unless it was free or something

grunter

I think the Pumpkins are really hit or miss when it comes to their live act. I saw them at the Rosemont here in Chicago back in 96 and the sound was horribly muddy and virtually unlistenable.

Then I saw them as a surprise opener for Jane's Addiction (on Jane's 2nd to last "reunion" tour) and they were brilliant. Punchy, direct, very satisfying.

I agree with the above poster who said the "Adore" tour was probably the Pumpkins at their apex. But then I value the "Adore" album over nearly all of their recorded output. I'm funny that way.

I also had the opportunity to see their last "large auditorium" show at the United Center last year. For much of the show, the acoustics were just horrendous - scorched earth, zero melody, white noise garbage. But then - for some reason - during the encores, they began to mellow out a bit and the song structure had a resurgence. By the "1979" sing-along, they were the Pumpkins that I had always known and "adored."

To stay on topic though: worst live band ever . . . ERASURE. And I saw them not once, but twice (!) to get the full effect. Vince Clarke literally pops a DAT tape in a towering DAT player-cum-jungle-gym and punches "play" while Andy Bell sings karaoke style to the electronic tape loops. Not even the constant costume and prop changes could save this stinker.

Runner-up: as much as this pains me to say - it's a tie between the PET SHOP BOYS and GARY NUMAN - both of whom need to learn NOT to lipsynch to some of their biggest radio hits ("West End Girls" and "Cars," respectively). Especially not when the audience is stationed less than 5 feet from the foot of the lead microphone.

Grizzly

Blink 182

i haven't actually seen them live (i don't like them at all) but i saw their performance at the MTV European Music Awards some month ago and there was no energy in it, and it just sounded lifeless and crappy. their studio songs can be fairly good, but live just sucked completely.

Giantrobo

RATT....just boring

Smashing Pumpkins...Boring live

Ace Frehley of KISS...sloppy guitar work and man is it embarrasing to sear and hear.

Grateful Dead...bad sound, bad music, weak show....but the drugs make it great for some.

Guns n Roses...yet another boring live band. The break the Giantrobo rule of touring....."LESS NEW STUFF, MORE CLASSIC STUFF!! AND KEEP THE PIANO CRAP TO A MINIMUM!!!"

Slipknot...Idiot singer has crown do dangerous stuff, too much stupid stuff onstage and it distracts from the music.

Giantrobo

true true

You can only do so much VOICE PROCESSING LIVE and many R&B artists have half assed voices to start with. I've always heard Al B. Sure had a deep voice that did not sound good live.

Grimfarrow

Actually, that is more dependent upon where you were sitting.

I sat on the side up (way up) from the stage. And, like you said, the sound was pretty horrible. But I once went around to the middle and peaked in, and it seemed to sound much better. My friends, who were right next to the stage (bastards) said it sounded great from their vantage point.

Maybe we just got crappy seats

Grimfarrow

Don't you think that there is even the slightest possibility of sarcasm there? Remember, this *is* Billy Corgan we're talking about. Mocking the audience when he doesn't like them is one of his specialties.

Nick Danger

Really? The Dead were the original sound system geeks. They always spent the money for good sound. I went to about half a dozen shows (all sober), and after the first song the sound was always dialed in and they sounded great for the rest of the concert.

Giantrobo

Well the shows they did when I worked at the LA Sports Arena/Coliseum sucked in terms of sound.

I'm a "concert sound system junkie" and the sound was flat and lackluster on ALL the shows I worked(all of them) at both venues.

And I guess at some point they just start playing crap music during their show. Well a guy working with the tour told me that at that point the "Deadheads" would be deep into their "trips" and it wouldn't matter what The Dead played....and it didn't.

Decker

No Doubt - I saw them perform twice in LA at benefits (and have seen them on TV live as well). They sound just AWFUL live. Gwen must have some serious overdubbing on her records. Yuck!

And to the guy who mentioned Dylan, give him another chance. I saw him in '91 or '92 and he was just terrible; you couldn't understand a thing he was singing and tried to rush though each song as fast as humanly possible. I saw him again during the Time Out of Mind tour, and he was infinately better and put on an amazing show.

Illinois Enema Bandit

You've clearly made up your mind on the Dead, but I will state that you are flatly wrong. Perhaps you just detest the Dead so much that you are unwilling to consider alternative viewpoints

Fact is, the Dead have pushed the state of the art in concert sound from day one. I have attended several hundred concerts by many, many artists, and have found the Dead to produce the best concert sound. Period. They owned and developed their equipment, as opposed to the standard practice of hiring a sound company. They put an emphasis on clarity and efficiency, as opposed to the myriad concerts where the sound engineers seem to think that volume is the key

As to your comments about them playing "crap music" and it being about the drugs, I will not dignify this rubbish any further

Simple fact: the Dead broke every "rule" in the entertainment industry, and still became massively successful I dare say that they were a little more astute than you choose to give them credit for

GuessWho

No, this was a young, upstart, never-heard-of band desperately trying to build a fan base

Oliver Clothesoff

The funniest part of all that is that half that audience probably picked up Siamese Dream or Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness a few years after this performance because then MTV told them it was okay to like them.

Reminds me of the kids in my high school who used to make fun of my SP shirts in 1990, but were spotted wearing them in 1994....

Being ahead of your time is hard livin'.

Daytripper

Saw No Doubt at the 930 Club in D.C. on their club tour for "Return to Saturn" and they were amazing. And I'm not even a big No Doubt fan. I got the tickets for free.