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[Fhtagn]

Infest this year at MDF was shockingly bad, but only because the singer was too drunk to know he was bombing; rest of the band was killing it but the vocals were off time and incoherent for every song. Would have been fine if he had played it off by letting the crowd sing a lot, but he didn't. They were great the other time I saw them.

Macabre is another band where one time I saw them they were amazing and the next they were truly atrocious. My guess is alcohol was a factor there as well.

I go to a lot of shows with small audiences and musicians just starting out are often opening so I've seen a lot of bad or naive or even incompetent sets over the years, but those don't stick out like when a band that should be great bombs.

 

[March of the Crabs]

Probably a Bomb the Music Industry! house show where Jeff was super trashed.

A Bomb the Music Industry! house show where Jeff was super trashed is one of the BEST shows I've seen! I suppose it could go either way haha

 

[Technosteve]

i've seen gwar live

GWAR as a stage show is the best stage show i've ever seen
GWAR as a music act is the worse music act i've ever seen

 

[Ronabo]

I have everyone here beaten.

I saw Milli Vanilli "live"

 

[The Artisan]

I saw Lupe do a 60 min set in 2008 where he played Kick, Push 3x and Superstar 2x. He did it really well but I've never seen a band/artist do something like that.

he was a waaaay cooler artist back in 2008. he's gotten really unlikable after the cool.

 

[Alszem]

Mastodon. Dudes can't do clean vocals live: the drummer sounds okay (it's impressive to see a drummer sing, so I give him a pass), the bassist is passable (his phrasing is wack and his pronunciation is weird, though) and the lead guitarist is awful (his voice on record is awesome). Also, harmonies are always flat.

And it saddens me a lot since I love their mellower stuff. Crack the Skye is a masterpiece.

This is not.

 

[Var]

My Bloody Valentine. Which sucks because they are one of my top 5 favorite bands.

 

[rashbeep]

Creed

 

[Dishwalla]

I have everyone here beaten.

I saw Milli Vanilli "live"

lol why

 

[Octavianus]

I saw Crystal Castles live years ago and that's when I discovered that seeing bands live isn't my thing.
Not sure if that was their fault though.

It's the only band I've ever seen live so it's automatically the worst.

 

[GhostBed]

Bring Me the Horizon. The vocalist was either hungover or drunk, and didn't sing/scream his parts for pretty much half of every song. He just wandered around stage and climbed on amps and monitors like an asshole. The band's performance was better but they were still noticeably sloppy on some songs. Just seemed like they didn't give a shit. This is 2011 mind you so not sure how they are now that they've completely changed their sound.

i've seen gwar live

GWAR as a stage show is the best stage show i've ever seen
GWAR as a music act is the worse music act i've ever seen

lmao

 

[Piggus]

Holy shit, I almost forgot one.

I saw Gunther and the Sunshine Girls (the guy who sings the "Ohh you touch my tralala" song) in a bar, but we were all underage so they put us at the back behind a rope. He was great, but being put at the back was lame. He did come back and give people high-fives though lol. I can proudly say I slapped Gunther's hand... just imagine the places it's been.

 

[-MD-]

Unearth.

 

[Anung]

Mastodon. Dudes can't do clean vocals live: the drummer sounds okay (it's impressive to see a drummer sing, so I give him a pass), the bassist is passable (his phrasing is wack and his pronunciation is weird, though) and the lead guitarist is awful (his voice on record is awesome). Also, harmonies are always flat.

And it saddens me a lot since I love their mellower stuff. Crack the Skye is a masterpiece.

This is not.

Oh man this hurts to read. I saw Mastodon during their Leviathan tour and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen.

 

[SDCowboy]

The Rolling Stones. I saw them on their Steel Wheels tour. They were just awful, just going through the motions (and badly).

And adding to the fun, there was a hippie lady in front of me who had an acid flashback triggered by the lights they used for 2000 Light years from Home

I saw the Stones back in the mid-late 90's when they were touring with santana and they were (both) amazing.

 

[MadSexual]

Mastodon. Dudes can't do clean vocals live: the drummer sounds okay (it's impressive to see a drummer sing, so I give him a pass), the bassist is passable (his phrasing is wack and his pronunciation is weird, though) and the lead guitarist is awful (his voice on record is awesome). Also, harmonies are always flat.

And it saddens me a lot since I love their mellower stuff. Crack the Skye is a masterpiece.

This is not.

Also a good answer, as much as I love the band. They know it and they've been taking vocal lessons, but they always seem to write vocal melodies for recordings beyond their ability to play and sing live.

 

[gnomed]

It's probably some unknown underground band, but from those with a higher reputation, Kreator was a pretty big letdown. They just did not have the energy necessary for a thrash metal show. I've heard they are pretty hit and miss when it comes to their live performances though, but haven't seen them since.

I saw Kreator recently, much better than when I saw them at a festival a few years before. Megadeth has always been a miss for me especially when Dave proselytizes for 20mins during his set. Good guitarwork, but The PA always sound off.

Black Hippy has been bad seeing them perform live. But Kendrick himself has been a beast the past few years.

 

[Ronabo]

lol why

This was of course before the scandal broke out. They were touring with a bunch of MTV acts and they came to a local outdoor arena that was attached to an amusement park.

I won 4 tickets to the concert plus the park. So me and a buddy both took dates. Actually had a good time.

 

[SDCowboy]

Mastodon. Dudes can't do clean vocals live: the drummer sounds okay (it's impressive to see a drummer sing, so I give him a pass), the bassist is passable (his phrasing is wack and his pronunciation is weird, though) and the lead guitarist is awful (his voice on record is awesome). Also, harmonies are always flat.

And it saddens me a lot since I love their mellower stuff. Crack the Skye is a masterpiece.

This is not.

Huh, I saw them back when they were touring with Slayer and others (Unholy Alliance Tour), and they sounded fine to me, but I'm also not a Mastodon fan (just went for Slayer)

 

[FStop7]

Saw Stone Temple Pilots once when Scott was blasted out of his mind, stumbling through the songs. Guess that was the worst. Went to a Shinedown concert once(for some reason) and we were getting bored so we left, and just as we were getting into the car in the parking lot it started pouring down rain. Felt pretty lucky to get out of there when we did.

The last time I saw them was just before their second album came out. The shows I went to were great. I know they had some terrible shows, though.

The only time I saw them was on the first show of their tour for their 2nd album. Hoooooly shit they were on fire. I ended up in the pit about a foot away from Robert DeLeo's stack on stage. And he's just ripping away on the bassline of Naked Sunday looking like a Hunter S. Thompson impersonator with a pair of dark ass Ray Bans and a lit cigarette clenched between his teeth. Fucking awesome. Though I'm pretty sure that show fucked up my hearing a bit.

 

[HarryDemeanor]

Kings of Leon. They opened for U2 at the Staples Center show I went to.

Pretty damn boring.

 

[Sullichin]

I saw Crystal Castles live years ago and that's when I discovered that seeing bands live isn't my thing.
Not sure if that was their fault though.

It's the only band I've ever seen live so it's automatically the worst.

I also really didn't enjoy crystal castles. That type of music just doesn't really translate well to a live band. Her screaming sounded bad.

Speaking of crystal castles. The worst band I saw live was probably HEALTH. I really liked their remix of a crystal castles song.

The rest of their songs don't sound like that, which is fine, but live they were terrible. Just wall of sound guitar nonsense.

 

[Kain]

Lauryn Hill. She was an hour late while a lame ass DJ was playing awful generic music and pretending to be cool, then she proceeded to sit down while saying nothing, started her thing complaining aaaaaaaall the time to the roadies for the sound or something (she would sing a verse, turn her head and complain, sing another one and so on). The ice on the cake was when she was singing killing me softly, the crowd was at last pleased because they knew the song and she seemed to put some energy, then one minute in she decided to cut the song abruptly and start another nameless random song from her awful new album or something. At that point I was piss drunk and didn't care but people booed like crazy and left her Highness and her high horse.

Another one was Europe. Not even the final countdown could lift that up. So devoid of energy...

 

[gblues]

I saw Smash Mouth in Portland Oregon in 1999.

God that was awful. Just terrible. The lead singer was drunk off his as and openly hostile.

I saw Newsboys once too. I was dragged to a weekend long religious retreat and they played during it. It was the worst weekend of my life.

Got ya beat.

I went to a Carman concert once. (trigger warning: shitty Christian music site).

I was like 13 and had no taste.

 

[TheLastCandle]

A band called The Red Paintings opened up for The Birthday Massacre when I saw them a year or so ago. They were definitely not my cup of tea, to say the least. Them and The Blood Brothers, who were one of the few bands I've seen get resoundingly booed by the crowd.

 

[Fei]

The only time I saw them was on the first show of their tour for their 2nd album. Hoooooly shit they were on fire. I ended up in the pit about a foot away from Robert DeLeo's stack on stage. And he's just ripping away on the bassline of Naked Sunday looking like a Hunter S. Thompson impersonator with a pair of dark ass Ray Bans and a lit cigarette clenched between his teeth. Fucking awesome. Though I'm pretty sure that show fucked up my hearing a bit.

Yeah STP in their prime were one of the best live acts in the last 25 years. Unfortunately, as Scott went downhill in the later years so did their concerts.

 

[Lazy vs Crazy]

I saw Deerhunter open for Nine Inch Nails and they were garbage. I can't even describe the awful.

 

[SecretDan]

That's how he sounds though on the majority of his records though.

He's the bizzarro Ozzie Osbourne. Understandable while talking, completely unrecognizable while singing.

This is simply not true.

Maybe you could make the argument for his recent stuff, but you are saying you are unable to understand him when he sings a song like Hurricane or Like a Rolling Stone?

He sings very clearly.

 

[Jaffaboy]

Angels and Airwaves supporting Foo Fighters. Atrocious, and lots of rambling about 9/11 and Tom Delonge pretending to be an airplane and being pretentious as fuck.

The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster supporting QOTSA. Probably the worst performance I've seen, boring, and loads of errors, but not that it mattered too much when they sounded like shit anyway. People were just talking through their set like they weren't even there.

Most awkward was N.E.R.D. at Glastonbury 2009 as seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Do4XrTk1k

 

[peteykirch]

This is simply not true.

Maybe you could make the argument for his recent stuff, but you are saying you are unable to understand him when he sings a song like Hurricane or Like a Rolling Stone?

He sings very clearly.

I was thinking of Tangled Up in Blue

 

[The Albatross]

Howie Day.

He did the college rock circuits in the 2000s and played my college. Besides being a complete prick to all of the staff at the college organizing the show, charging a fuck load for the concert, he also got drunk and went to college parties and tried to get girls to come back to his tour bus to have sex with him. He probably succeeded but everybody thought he was a total asshole.

And his concert was complete shit. basically him playing around with his loop recorder for 90 minutes making stupid faces when he'd layer over some loop. Total joke. If he wasn't suck a dick I would have just thought it was a boring concert, but because he's a dick I think he sucks and his concert sucked.

This is simply not true.

Maybe you could make the argument for his recent stuff, but you are saying you are unable to understand him when he sings a song like Hurricane or Like a Rolling Stone?

He sings very clearly.

I'm a big Dylan fan, but he's widely criticized for having a very unintelligible singing style to his non-fans.

Like a Rolling Stone is a pretty good example of this. Dylan mumbles like 80% of the lyrics to this song...... "onsaponnatima'adressasfinethrewabottadimeinaprime... DIDNT YOU?"

His rambling lack of enunciation is a hallmark of his style and why he has such a noteworthy voice, but it's also a point of criticism for non-fans.

 

[SecretDan]

Howie Day.

He did the college rock circuits in the 2000s and played my college. Besides being a complete prick to all of the staff at the college organizing the show, charging a fuck load for the concert, he also got drunk and went to college parties and tried to get girls to come back to his tour bus to have sex with him. He probably succeeded but everybody thought he was a total asshole.

And his concert was complete shit. basically him playing around with his loop recorder for 90 minutes making stupid faces when he'd layer over some loop. Total joke. If he wasn't suck a dick I would have just thought it was a boring concert, but because he's a dick I think he sucks and his concert sucked.



I'm a big Dylan fan, but he's widely criticized for having a very unintelligible singing style to his non-fans.

I know. And it is not an accurate criticism. Especially of his early albums.

 

[Tawney Bomb]

My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy. Enjoyed both, but would never pay to see them live again.

Mastodon. Dudes can't do clean vocals live: the drummer sounds okay (it's impressive to see a drummer sing, so I give him a pass), the bassist is passable (his phrasing is wack and his pronunciation is weird, though) and the lead guitarist is awful (his voice on record is awesome). Also, harmonies are always flat.

And it saddens me a lot since I love their mellower stuff. Crack the Skye is a masterpiece.

This is not.

When I saw them last year they sounded a lot better than the time I saw them a few years before that. The lead guitarist is still the worst love vocalist of that bad, but he seemed to be getting better.

Edit: I think Disturbed may actually be the worst. Saw them twice, once touring on 10,000 Fists and then again on Indestructible and the band seemed like they would rather be anywhere else both times. Left early the second time to beat traffic.

 

[Poimandres]

Festivals can be pretty brutal for this type of thing. I saw an infamous train wreck performance from The Vines once at the Big Day Out, and the Dandy Warhols basically melting on stage in close to 40 degree (celcius) heat.

The one that pissed me off most though was My Bloody Valentine in 2014. Yes, I'm sure people are going to fight me about this but bloody hell... everything was super poorly mixed and burried, seemingly intentionally. I think Loveless is a good album, but this was just a joke.

 

[Manu]

I like Linkin Park. I have always liked them and defended them many times. But they're the only band I've seen live twice and have been disappointed both times. They sure can put a good show as far as sound and visuals go, but they always look so bored on stage, like they're just going through the motions. They also seem to be adamant about not playing longer than 90 minute sets, so with 6 albums currently out you get tons of abridged songs, random intros/outros and mashups.

 

[The Albatross]

I know. And it is not an accurate criticism. Especially of his early albums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMqZ2PPOLik



Dylan is also embarrassingly bad live these days, but he's also older and so I don't hold it against him.

 

[Prodigal]

Glassjaw was pretty bad when I saw them 8 or so years ago

 

[YaBish]

The worst band I've seen live was an indie band called In The Valley Below. The drummer was hardcore third-wheeling while the singer and guitarist were practically making out on stage. My friends and I exclusively cheered for the drummer.

Plus the music wasn't that good.

 

[Bread]

I saw Deerhunter open for Nine Inch Nails and they were garbage. I can't even describe the awful.

That's surprising, I saw them in December and they were incredible. Fun energy, good sound. Maybe they hadn't found their identity on stage yet.

I saw HEALTH open for NIN and they were booed off the stage. It was sad to see because no one deserves that but they were a terrible band to open for NIN. Just pure noise.

 

[Diablos]

My Morning Jacket opening for Foo Fighters in 2001 or 2002. They sounded like a Battle Of The Bands semi-finalist in town of 50000 people

Not sure if they were having a bad night but I saw them open for the Foo Fighters too. They were better than Foo Fighters. Much tighter performance. What city were you in?

 

[Cereal KiIIer]

Weezer. Do they even like playing music?

 

[Brian_FETO]

Infest this year at MDF was shockingly bad, but only because the singer was too drunk to know he was bombing; rest of the band was killing it but the vocals were off time and incoherent for every song. Would have been fine if he had played it off by letting the crowd sing a lot, but he didn't. They were great the other time I saw them.

Macabre is another band where one time I saw them they were amazing and the next they were truly atrocious. My guess is alcohol was a factor there as well.

I go to a lot of shows with small audiences and musicians just starting out are often opening so I've seen a lot of bad or naive or even incompetent sets over the years, but those don't stick out like when a band that should be great bombs.

Infest would've been mine had it not been a random (and really fucking unfortunate) rare case. The other 4 times I've seen them it was perfect, was hyped for another "set of the weekend contender", was glad Discharge dropped because no chance they could follow Infest AND..........fucking trash. Other band members kept looking at each other saying "this sounds fucking terrible" from the first song. Straight up pathetic for any gig, especially a huge event you have people flying out for. I can't even imagine someone coming from another country or something for Infest to see that shit.

Macabre is the worst, but that's just their music. The more stupid polka bullshit they throw in the more irritating it becomes. That's what their fans like though so it's hard to fault em?

 

[uncelestial]

My Bloody Valentine. Which sucks because they are one of my top 5 favorite bands.

I've seen them twice and they were absolutely godlike so I have no idea what they could've done to blow it so bad in your mind.

 

[The Argus]

Growing up I saw a joint Alanis Morissette and Barenaked Ladies show. BNL sounded great, but Alanis was just awful. So screechy, might as well have been Yoko. We left along with a ton of other people. Shame because I love JLP.

I've seen some mediocre Ween shows. Gene was just a mess. When he's sober their shows are top tier.

Once Mike Doughty threw a hissy fit and left the stage after a few songs because a girl kept singing along. This was when he was anti-Soul Coughing and that's all people wanted to hear.

 

[Randam]

Marilyn Manson... that lazy bum just striking a few poses, while his "Band" is just pretending to play (hell you could see the roadies behind the amps actually playing the songs)

You sure about that?

Never heard of anything like this before.

Why not just let the roadies on stage then?


I guess they were tuning guitars and not playing the songs.

 

[kitchenmotors]

I also really didn't enjoy crystal castles. That type of music just doesn't really translate well to a live band. Her screaming sounded bad.

Speaking of crystal castles. The worst band I saw live was probably HEALTH. I really liked their remix of a crystal castles song.

The rest of their songs don't sound like that, which is fine, but live they were terrible. Just wall of sound guitar nonsense.

Have to defend HEALTH, you do realize they're a rock noise band? They're anything but terrible live. I saw them in November of last year and they put on an amazing show. The amount of work put into that "wall of sound guitar nonsense" is a craft. They pull it off really well.

I think people expect something completely different of HEALTH because of that dumb Crystal Castles song. The song is originally a HEALTH song, Crystal Castles remixed it. Not the other way around. Although HEALTH now is veering into pop-influenced territory with their latest album, so their live shows have also changed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okq4Rkbl3ig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt654DbT8yk

 

[Sorcerer]

My Bloody Valentine. Which sucks because they are one of my top 5 favorite bands.

I have heard a few stories where they play so loud, you can literally walk away with damaged ears from their shows.

It sounds like its way to loud to be enjoyable in any case.

I love the band but not that much.

 

[TI82]

I saw Megadeth at a festival and Dave was being super weird and they played 20 minutes past their set time, delaying the whole thing.
Dude can SHRED though.

yeah this was in like 2006 or so, during the gears of war tour i think it was called. Great music no issue there for me.

 

[Pacbois]

Saul Williams opening for Rage Against The Machine in Paris (don't judge i was 17)

Show was already super late and people from the rafters wanted to get into the pit, which almost went all full riot because of that super lame opening set.

Also i've seen tons of small local bands opening up for international acts. Last summer, before Tijuana Panthers, there was this band of butt garage slacker teens who were just insufferable.
Also I hated Hinds but that's probably because they were hitting on my nerves with their stage presence.

 

[TheCochese]

That one guy needs to calm the fuck down.

Mine would be Tonic. One of those free concert series in late-90s Atlanta. No range, no energy.

My biggest surprise was NIN. I didn't know how much energy Trent could bring. Holy shit.