Music Artists You've Seen Live And Have Been Disappointed With.....

[saintpeter48]

I saw Madonna about 4 years ago in Hyde Park and she was awful, it was self indulgent rubbish!
She didn't perform many of her big hits and those that she did sing were changed out of all recognition, one that springs to mind is 'Like a Virgin', it was just unrecognisable!
I went away from there feeling cheated, she didn't even know where she was, she said something like 'Hello Paris' ....... After that night I cannot listen to her anymore, she burst my bubble lol.

[Baldric]

Few years back now, but the Eagles at Wembley were brilliant.

Lucky it was Scotland, they wouldn't throw anything larger than a penny more than once!

[catswhiskas]

Went to see Meatloaf at Newcastle arena, his voice was awful, we left at half time , we heard that 10mts after, he announced he couldnt carry on...everybody got their money back, except us, typical !

[ummmm]

OMD were rubbish.

[Bigbad]

Having seen The Eagles twice before, the third time I saw them in 2014 was very disappointing.
The voices had ‘gone’ particularly Don Henley, who for the most part sounded like a cat that was being strangled!
I’ve seen some awful support acts too. One that springs to mind is The Dandy Warhols supporting David Bowie.

[andy-hughes]

If as a fan you invest your time, interest, and money in your musical idol(s) then you automatically feel a degree of ownership, coupled with a sense of entitlement over the music produced, and the way in which it is presented to you.

Unfortunately, this flies in the face of what the artist wants to do, which is develop new music, and find interetsting and refreshing ways of presenting old and familiar music.

That means that some artists do re-vamp their 'standards' to a point where they are unrecogniseable. I am in Canada, and saw Bob Dylan last week,doing exactly that by turning Blowin'In The Wind into a Cajun waltz tune.

Some artists are simply wilful. On one tour, Neil Young, an artist not known for crowd-pleasing, played his new and un-released album from start to finish. He then told the crowd that people moaned at him for playing music they hadn't heard before, but they had heard his new album, and he simply repeated all the songs over again!

I saw BB King a few months before his death, and he was well past the ability to deliver a shadow of his genius as a blues legend. He played You Are My Sunshine for twenty-five minutes! Even his band looked embarassed, and people started to leave.

In those instances, where people will pay to see a legend, it is the responsibility of the legend's 'people', and ceertainly the promoters, to ensure that they legend is not simply wheeled out to destroy their reputation, but is capavble of providing a show that merits an audience paying good money to see.

But part of loving a musician is accepting that loving is not owning, and following does not buy you the sense of entitlement you wish you had - you have to accept what they do, because it's their right to decide what to perform and how to perform it.

[Islay]

Never been disappointed - sad yes but never disappointed!
I too went to see Meatloaf and was so sad to here his wonderful voice had suffered following his 2 battles with throat cancer.

[DTCwordfan]

worst concert in my life, easy one, Deep Purple in Norwich in 1974 - truly awful.

Biggest disappointment, saw Bob Dylan in Montreal in 1980 on his gospel kick, a really good concert in front of 900. Then saw him do the same set at Earls Court six weeks later and he was completely lost with the size of the crowd and there being no fancy screen technology back then.

[DTCwordfan]

BB King was one of the best I have seen, at the Royal Festival Hall - with no less than the Crusaders backing him.

[andy-hughes]

Islay - I guess your disappointment levels, if you have them at all, are proportionate to your expectation levels before you arrive.

If you are happy to see your idols, then you will probably be happy with what they offer, if you are a huge fan of certain songs, or eras in the history, you may be let down if the performances have been adjusted in any way.

It's part of the individual approach to music that makes it such an enduring and appealing art form.

[andy-hughes]

DT - sounds like you were lucky to see BB at his height, not at the end of a long descent, which is when I caught him.

I was there free of charge, as a journalist, but the seventeen-year-old next to me had made a four-hundred-mile round trip to see his idol, him I felt sorry for.

[Islay]

I had seen him several times before so it really was sad to see him after his cancer.

[gingejbee]

Not really been disappointed either....my all time best was Jackson Browne, an acoustic tour with 14 guitars (all his) on stage. I'd go see him every year, if possible!

[maggiebee]

Having seen Alfie Boe in Les Mis a couple of times and absolutely loved it, I went to see his one man show in Edinburgh. Talk about a disappointment.

[DTCwordfan]

1981 it was, Andy.....

[andy-hughes]

That would explain it then DT - a lot can happen in thirty-four years!

I remember interviewing and watching Brian Connolly from The Sweet not long before his death - he was dragging a bunch of young session players around calling them 'The Sweet's Brian Connolly' or some similar contractually-obligated swerve on the band's name.

Imagine how awful that would be - then double it!

[ladybirder]

Pavarotti in Hyde Park, not disappointed he was fabulous. Free as well. 100,000 people standing in the rain July 1991. Princess Diana was there but she was under a cover.

[webbo3]

U2 (early 80s, the war tour)
Depeche Mode (early 80s)
Spandau Ballet (early 80s)
Hanoi Rocks(early 80s)
David Bowie (90s)
Col Kilgore's Vietnamese formation surf team
The baby sitters
Bon Jovi x2
Billy Brag(80s)
The Cult (80s)
Bad Manners (80s)



Dave.

[237SJ]

U2 at Twickenham - maybe because the sound was bad. Robbie Williams at Milton Keynes - I wasn't particularly a fan anyway but he was dire.

[Bigbad]

andy-hughes. I can’t agree with you when you refer to ‘idols.’
Like many (most?) people, my musical tastes have been with me since my youth, and over the years I’ve discovered that I enjoy types of music, that when younger, I would have dismissed as “rubbish.”
But I certainly don’t idolise the musicians whose music I love. I left that behind when I outgrew The Osmonds!

So many of the older singers who are still working today, have, unfortunately, ‘lost’ the ability to sing in tune, and can no longer ‘hit’ a lot of notes, and when this happens, rather than pretending that they still have what it takes, should stop trying.
Fortunately, the ability to play an instrument appears to remain, so it’s not like they have to pack up all together.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen posts from you saying something similar. I haven’t the time to look now, but I seem to recall you mentioning Ray Davies and Brian Wilson in the same vein.

In my comment about The Eagles (10.13 on Saturday), I mentioned how bad I thought Don Henley was. That show made me wish I hadn’t gone, and just had the memory of the two previous shows, when the band had been great.

Caught the tail end of (whatever that programme is that’s on before EastEnders) a couple of weeks back, and Christine McVie was on, and I thought she was absolutely dire.