Worst performance I've ever seen.

Subject: RE: Worst performance I've ever seen.
From: mousethief
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 12:29 PM

Mickey Dolenz, about 5 years ago at a state fair. He appeared to be drunk or high, slurred his words, had no stage presence at all. At times he seemed contemptuous of the audience, as if he was too good to have to play at a state fair.

(Next on the same stage were "The Turtles featuring Flo and Eddie" who were kickass. Tuneful and funny, full of energy, grateful to be able to make a living from their music (they said so). More than made up for the monkey.)

Subject: RE: Worst performance I've ever seen.
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 02:17 PM

GfS, my information on that other thread was based on solid science, which you found unacceptable for your own personal reasons.

Leave it alone, GfS, or I'll expose you again.

Comparison of IP numbers (like Caller ID), remember? Your back-pedalling on a self-revealing post, then trying to lay the blame on others was a pretty pathetic performance. So either drop your snide remarks or open another thread. Let's try to keep this one on the original subject.

Sorry, folks. GfS choses to snipe, and I would PM about this, but the fact that he choses not to register doesn't allow me that option.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Worst performance I've ever seen.
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 05:35 PM

Again I'm not going to mention names, but agree that some performers can be great on one night, and the pits on another. One who has been mentioned above turned up once at our local club, and forgot words to nearly every song and sort of bluffed his way through the whole evening: he seemd totally unprepared for the night, and I was not impressed. Think he thought it would be a doddle to play our wee club, and it wasn't: think he learned his lesson as next time I saw him (only because he was part of a festival programme - otherwise wouldn't have paid to go again after the previous shambles)he was on good form and WELL REHEARSED, and a different can o' worms!
Another performer had a lot of memory lapses and was deemed "past the sell-by date", but turned out he was in the early stages of Alzheimer's, so any hard words said that night were later swallowed when the truth later emerged.

Subject: RE: Worst performance I've ever seen.
From: Taconicus
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 12:33 PM

The worst, musically, include some Europeans singing American folk music with what they think is an American accent. Which makes me worry about my own singing of Scottish music. I'm not trying to pretend I have a Scottish accent (I lived there for only a short time), but with much Scottish folk music you have to use the old Scottish pronunciation or the lines just won't scan. And then too, I usually sing songs the way I heard them originally, and I usually learned them from Scottish singers, which means... well, I'm sure no one's going to think I'm actually native Scottish and I worry it may sound as though I'm trying to pretend I am.

And again then there's just plain bad pronunciation, like Paul McCartney in the early Beatles recording of Till There Was You...

There were birds in the air,
But I never SORE them winging
No, I never SORE them at all,
Till there was you.

Subject: RE: Worst performance I've ever seen.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 09:09 PM

It was a sweltering hot end of June day in the assembly hall at Nettelhorst School in Chicago -- circa 1957. Some unbelievably inept teacheer had my brother, Richard's, eighth grade graduating cless do the Puccini opera AIDA.

I'll never forget it!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Worst performance I've ever seen.
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 10:19 PM

That must have been especially wierd, considering that Aida was written by Giuseppe Verdi.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Worst performance I've ever seen.
From: Janie
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 11:43 PM

I will chime in regarding bad performances by Dylan. I never saw him perform "back in the day," but have paid good money to see him at small venues (under 2000 seats) twice in the last 20 years. Had hoped the first time was a fluke. It wasn't. I came away both times feeling like the poor quality of his live performance of his music was intentional. I felt insulted and devalued. I wasn't looking for a "show." I was looking for good live renditions of his music.

Still am a fan of his music - as long as it is a recording.

Subject: RE: Worst performance I've ever seen.
From: GUEST,I'm not here, right?
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 03:54 AM

Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, maybe 25 years ago. Painfully loud (louder even than Motorhead) in a hall that was basically just a shell - nothing to absorb the sound: it was just bouncing around. Deafening even at the back I knew their songs but it impossible to make out what they were performing. I left out after about 15 minutes.


I heard of a Thin lizzy concert in Australia where they struck the opening chord, stage pyrotechnics went off - and so did the sound. They coulcn't fix it. End of show!

Subject: RE: Worst performance I've ever seen.
From: C Stuart Cook
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 05:32 AM

Couple of years ago Richard Thompson at Bridgewater. Support act sound was fine in the 'gods'. RT came on, never heard a single word sung all night in the muddy mix. People in the stalls said it was OK.
A few weeks later Barbara Dickson did a full blown folk rock concert and the sound was superb. Same venue, same seats.
Went to a concert at Bridport. Jim Moray and friends. Small venue with the bass drum miked up. Never heard a single note of Jim's tasty looking guitars all night. Lots of good individual elements that mixed up to a mingy pulp.

Subject: RE: Worst performance I've ever seen.
From: GUEST,Jim Moray
Date: 05 Aug 10 - 04:22 AM

Stuart : I don't think I've ever played in Bridport in my own right so I guess you're talking about the Transglobal Undergrond UNITE show recently. There were a lot of sound difficulties on that tour and the amount of people and equipment made it quite complex, but I was just a guest so it wasn't my place to wade in. Sorry you couldn't hear us properly.