Jump to content

Worst Concert Experience


The Owl
 Share

Recommended Posts

We've all seen bad concerts, or been disappointed with show that we've seen live before...this is not the point of this thread.. regardless of how the show you saw went by performance we've all had also had bad concert experiences that has nothing to do with the actual show, good or bad... my question is what concert that you attened gave you the worst experience before, during, and after the show..

 

Things like "The traffic was so bad, I missed the opening act and some of the main set"/ "Found my car got broken into after the show"/ "During the show there was this jackass that kept shoving people and trying to get into a fight"/ "Bastards ran out of beer/merch"/ "I got kicked out of a show"...etc Things like that.. give me some of your stories...

 

 

 

 

 

My Story.....

 

The show was the Dream Theater Progressive Nation 09 show in Atlanta in Late July of 2009... here is what happened to me that day..

 

I first want to point out that I went to this show alone...and was unfamiliar with the city of Atlanta. I was 22 at the time..

 

----------------Before the Show---------------------

 

- First of all is the fact that at that time, I lived in middle Tennessee, and Nashville is one of the worst cities for live music (unless you like mainstream pop or pop country) almost any act I wanted to see live I would have to go to either an Atlanta show, or St. Louis...it sucked, and the Dream Theater show was no exception... it was a 3 hour drive there and a 3 hour drive back... the drive was enjoyable and there was little traffic, but the mere fact that I had to do so is a pain in the ass....but and on a positive note I got there a few hours early and got good parking right behind the venue, in the middle of Downtown Atlanta (The Tabernacle)...this would later be my undoing...

 

- A friend whom with I had worked suggested a local burger place that I had to eat at, I decided to do so, but he neglected to tell me that the place was 10 f***ing blocks from the damn venue... I walked the distance in Downtown Atlanta in the MIDDLE OF JULY! wound up covered in sweat and was disappointed with the food once I actually got there, only to then have to walk the distance back...

 

- I did get back to the venue in enough time to get a good spot in line before doors opened, as I was a general admission ticket, you have to do this to get a good spot, but still miserable in the middle of summer in Downtown Atlanta...

 

 

----------------------------During the Show-------------------------------

 

- Nothing Negative, the show was great, all acts of the show were phenomenal , especially Zappa Plays Zappa, whom I enjoyed just as Much as Dream Theater......and I had a really great spot as well, only a few people back from the state, but as with any General Admission show if you have a good spot, you really can't leave it without losing it... no beer, no bathrooms...etc.. Which normally I am cool with, but this particular show being a 4 act show, made it a bit harder... but not too bad..

 

 

--------------------------After the show----------------------------

 

(this is where it gets fun for me...as in terrifying)

 

- The show was great, I got the merch I wanted and was getting ready to leave. I tried to hang around for a minute to see If the band would come out at all, but it was after 11 already, and had a 3 hour drive ahead of me, so I decided to head out (I neglected to get a hotel and was just gonna make the drive back the same night)....There are alot of homeless people in Atlanta, and during the day, I have a couple a bit of spare change that I had, but when I was leaving and I got back to my car a homeless individual approached me as I was getting ready to leave.. He tried selling me a mp3 player and when I told him no he just stood there and kept pressuring me, and asking for money.... I tried to remain polite and told him I didn't have anything (which was true, I used all my cash on merchandise), but he didn't leave for about another minute or so... not gonna lie, sort of unnerved be a bit...I didn't have anything to defend myself if this guy decided to mug me, I am in a strange place at 11 at night...got in my car and started to leave.....

 

- Now, getting to the venue during the day was hard enough, even with a printed map that I had, as Downtown Atlanta is hard as hell to navigate... at night it was a nightmare...literally. I had just had that encounter with the homeless guy and tried fining my way back to the interstate, only I couldn't and proceeded to get lost... in the middle of Atlanta, at 11 at night... NOT FUN.... I aimlessly drove around for about 20 minutes, while doing so sincere panic was escalating... I was just about in Full on Panic mode when I saw another driver on the road and asked how to get back to the interstate, I did so and got the hell out of that city.....

 

- Then just as I was actually getting out of Atlanta, A f***ing LIGHT went off in my car... I pulled over to a gas station, Stressed as I had ever been stressed in my life to find out what the f**k this light that went on in my car's paned meant ( I was and still am a car novice) ... did I mention that I am just outside Atlanta at now almost Midnight, and 3 hours away from home? Now fully on the verge of a nervous breakdown tried calling my parents to find out what it was.... they didn't know by my description, but after actually checking out my owners manual.. it turned out it was just the low tire pressure light ( I didn't know, I had never seen the indicator before, and for all I knew it was my radiator going out), and would be fine to drive back home... I got home a few hours later very relieved, and tired..

 

 

 

----------------------------------------------------------

 

So that is my story, can you top it? Like I said the actual show was fantastic, no complaints there, but the before and after are experiences I wish NEVER to repeat.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Worst concert experience? For awhile, I didn't like to talk about it because I was still embarrassed by it, but now I got over it...somewhat. As shocking as it is, but when I saw Porcupine Tree at Radio City, it was pretty bad...and it's sad because it happened to be the first time I saw them, in the year I became a fan of the band.

 

Everything went well before the show and after the show. During the show was a real nightmare. Waiting in line for the merch was a pain (I bet the line for Iron Maiden's merch stand is gonna be worse) because the line was so long and there was only one merch stand, it took me about an hour before I got to the front, I almost thought I was gonna miss the start of the show. Thankfully I didn't, but the shirt I bought ended up having a pretty faulty print where it said "Tree" (as in a tiny part of it ripped). Call me crazy, but I admit I'm OCD when it comes to faulty graphic/band tees (as well as other clothes but mostly band shirts). I thought the long wait at the merch was bad until the usher showed me to my seat. Now that's when everything goes wrong, and only gets slightly better by the end of the show. I was sitting in the first mezzanine and funny enough some guy was sitting in the seat I was suppose to be sitting in.....and the usher didn't do anything about it and the guy didn't even show his ticket, if he even had one. So I had to sit right next to him even though I knew that someone was going to show up eventually who's suppose to sit in where I was sitting in at the time. Well someone, actually a couple did show up, but thankfully they let me keep my seat and sat on the seat stealer's right and I stayed there up until the end of the acoustic set they did.

 

The seat stealer went for a break for whatever reason at the end of acoustic set/beginning of the 1st intermission. I thought that I was being smart in deciding to get back my "real" seat in time for Even Less which I did but just as they're about to finish the song the guy comes back and says "That's my seat you're sitting in!" and I think I kept telling him that my ticket clearly said in print that my seat was the one he stole from me. He didn't give a sh*t (not like I was expecting him to anyway) and said something to the point where he said "You can sit on my lap throughout the whole show but that's my seat." Calling the usher wasn't going to make a difference because he failed to eject the guy earlier to begin with but luckily a nice couple who sat in the row behind me said that there was some vacant seats next to them, and that's where I stayed for virtually the rest of the show. But I could sense that guy was probably talking sh*t about me. He thought I was some teenager who tried to sneak in the show (he couldn't even show me his ticket if he had one, while I showed mine to him and he still got butthurt over it)

 

The worst part about it all and this still pisses me off to this day, was that during the 2nd intermission, the guy all of a sudden says, "I'm leaving now, so you can have my seat." So the guy decides to leave when the band has one more set plus the encore to play? You gotta be sh*ting me!!! The couple who sat next to me thought he didn't really have a ticket, but by that point it didn't make a difference whether I moved back or not. I almost was on the verge of getting kicked out (or I felt like I was close to getting kick out) when a bunch of dudes who just arrived during Dislocated Day was looking for his seat and he happened to be sitting in the one I sat at. The same usher who didn't do shit earlier showed him to the seat and when he asked if he could see my ticket, I thought that I was done for, but guess what? He didn't do shit again! One guy sat in the seat stealer's seat while the rest sat on the mezzanine staircase (which was by RCMH standards, a hazard), and nothing really happened from that point till the very end of the show, and I could finally enjoy the show without thinking about getting kicked out for something that wasn't my really fault to begin with. Days later, and I'm not sure if it's true, but I read on one of the PT forums that those who were in the orchestra seating claimed that some crackhead got high during the show and before the encore, she got kicked out. I'm a bit sketchy about the getting high thing, but I knew it was something to the point where she did something and got kicked out for it.

 

Don't get me wrong, Porcupine Tree performed brilliantly, and I still rate it as one of the best shows I've ever seen performance wise. But experience wise? It was so bad that I don't think any concert I go afterwards would top it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Two years ago I saw the Alice Cooper/Rob Zombie co-headlining tour. The venue that had it at was a venue my brother, nephew and I had never been to because they never book hard rock/metal shows, which is the music we're into the most. The venue is nice and located in the small town of Lewiston, NY. The town is located right on the border of the US and Canada. Even though we had known of the venue for many years we had never known where in the town it was. It turns out the place, called Artpark, is located behind some woods in the ass end of the town.

 

As we arrive we realize the parking lot is full. Having never been there before we weren't sure where else to go. We saw some road sings that were put up to direct us to another lot. Since we saw other cars following the signs, we just went with the flow and followed the signs and the cars. It turns out the backup lot is an empty one at an old shopping center located at least a mile from the venue. Now this was summer and it was hot and we had a mile walk ahead of us now. Normally it wouldn't be that bad, but I had recently herniated a disc in my back and it was still in the healing process, so the walk there was very painful and miserable for me. Since I wasn't expecting this I didn't bring any pain meds with me.

 

There was no opener and as we walked up to the venue I could hear the begining of School's Out, which is the song Alice opened the show with. Fortunately for me that song is my least favorite of his big hits. I only missed the first minute or so of the song but it pissed me off that Alice was the main reason I was going and I missed the begining of his show. That's the first and only time in my 20 years of going to concerts that I wasn't in the venue when the band I wanted to see hit the stage. I didn't have time to get anything to drink either after that long walk in the summer heat but my love for Alice took over and I forgot about everything during his show. Alice played a great show and it was worth the walk in the end.

 

During Rob Zombie I became miserable again, because first of all he didn't have that great of a performance and second I was thinking about the walk back to the car again and wondering how good my back would hold up. Well, the walk back wasn't any better after the show either. My lower back was tightening up really bad and my herniated disc was really causing me some serious pain. I was moving really slow and it got to the point where my brother and nephew got so far ahead of me that I lost them. They weren't being mean or anything, they were walking at a normal pace but I just couldn't keep up because of my back. Finally, I got back to the car and was in heaven that I was able to sit down again but I was miserable the whole ride home.

 

The one good thing that came out of this is that I started taking my back injury more serious than I did when I first got it a few months before this show. In the last two years i've taken better care of it and today it's nowhere near as bad as it was then. It can still act up on me sometimes but it's managealbe now. The main point of this story is if you don't know the venue you're going to or what the parking situation is like, do some searching online to help and most importanly, arrive a little bit earlier. Even if you have to wait in your car for awhile until the venue is opened, at least you got there in enough time to get a good parking spot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well last summer I went to see some my favorite bluesmen, Buddy Guy & BB King. I went to take a piss and halfway through I felt the ground shaking and I missed Buddy's intro. Then during the intermission, I waited in line again (I didn't finish fully due to rushing back to see Buddy) and BB came out while I was going the second time. So far that's my absolutely worst concert experience, biggrin.gif

 

 

Though the girl in front of me at Tom Petty had probably the worst experience I've seen. She passed out at the beginning of the show and missed it!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (Mr. IsNot @ Jun 28 2012, 08:08 PM)
I was thinking about making a thread like this a while back... Unfortunately, I can't remember what my bad concert experience was, exactly laugh.gif

I remember it now! The reason it escaped me is because it happened during the line to get into the amphitheater.

 

 

There were a few drunk douches blasting "LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR" on repeat in the parking lot when I went to see Rush. It was pretty damn annoying, they wouldn't stop singing along or anything like that. No mercy.

 

 

It's funny to look back though

Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (Mr. IsNot @ Jun 28 2012, 11:59 PM)
QUOTE (Mr. IsNot @ Jun 28 2012, 08:08 PM)
I was thinking about making a thread like this a while back... Unfortunately, I can't remember what my bad concert experience was, exactly laugh.gif

I remember it now! The reason it escaped me is because it happened during the line to get into the amphitheater.

 

 

There were a few drunk douches blasting "LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR" on repeat in the parking lot when I went to see Rush. It was pretty damn annoying, they wouldn't stop singing along or anything like that. No mercy.

 

 

It's funny to look back though

Well that was the parking lot. Anything goes there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A few years ago, I went with my mom to a Rolling Stones tribute band at a little bar/restaurant in Huntington Beach, CA. Even though I'm not a huge Stones fan, the band were pretty good but the experience was pretty lousy. For one thing, most people were drunk and loud. Maybe some of you guys are comfortable with that kind of setting, but I am definitely not. On top of that, there was some couple wildly dancing right near us, constantly bumping into us without saying excuse me or anything. That went on for quite a while before we got up and left.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not the worst, but certainly the most bizarre.

 

Foghat/Montrose concert. The show is about to begin. It is in an auditorium theater. I was sitting near the end of the row center isle with my friends. A guy I know, but not well, runs down the isle and plops into the seat next to me out of breath. "Man... I jumped the rails and ran in! He looks over his shoulder. "Check this out". He opens his jacket and shows me a POUND of cool10.gif

Edited by burgeranacoke
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mine happened at last month's Van Halen concert. There were 2 guys who were pounding beers throughout the night and getting shit-faced. They were in separate rows and they were hugging and getting real sloppy. They both kept holding their phones up to take pictures and video.

 

Van Halen is playing their last song and the confetti was coming down and David Lee Roth was wearing a goofy hat and waving a flag and the 2 bone-heads started fighting. Apparently one guy hit the phone out of the other guys hand and they started punching each other.

 

Well, I'm watching the show so I don't see any of this and I look down and these two idiots are rolling all over by my feet almost knocking me down. Security is all over them choking them out. By the time I grab my bag and move out of the way Van Halen is running off the stage checking out the commotion on the way out,

 

I was pretty pissed I missed most of the ending song and their farewell because these 2 meatheads could not hold their liquor. If they had knocked me down, it would've been seriously bad, as I already have 5 herniated discs in my back and neck.

 

If you are going to get that shit-faced stay home and watch a DVD or listen to a CD because you aren't going to remember the show anyway. In the case of these two they were both arrested and the one guy looked like his cheek was broken. confused13.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Probably ironically enough, Queensryche's last show in Virginia with Chris DeGarmo, July 1997. I was sick that day and was almost late getting into the fan club pre-show meet and greet. Geoff Tate, the almighty himself, was very sick and would not do the fan club meeting. It showed in the performance itself. The guy was extremely sick and they cut the setlist by a lot.

 

And last year QR played their final show in Washington DC proper with Geoff Tate in July at the 9:30 Club (before Merriweather Post Pavilion this past May in Maryland). Tate was again..SICK with the flu and they get cut a bunch of songs from the setlist. Ah, the history.

 

There are some other memorable ones like Lollapalooza 96' in West Virginia with Soundgarden trying to deal with some truly violent Metallica fans, locking my keys in the car during a Godspeed You Black Emperor show at the 9:30 club in December 2000 and waiting for a locksmith as they were playing, and the floor crowd at Soundgarden's final appearance at the Patriot Center before they broke up in 1997.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually, mine was at the Grace Under Pressure tour show at the Worcester Centrum. My buddy and I were in high school and he drove. He had his license about 6 months so his sense of driving direction was somewhat limited, and the GPS and cell phone were not yet available. We lived about an hour east of the Centrum, just outside Boston. Somehow we got lost on the way home and ended up on rural roads even further away from home than when we left Worcester. We got home around 4 am. My parents were not happy.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pains me to say that the last Rush concert I attended at NEC in Birmingham last year was almost ruined by idiots talking loudly during the show.

 

The performance was great but the distractions were not welcome

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Got into a physical altercation (ass kicking) at a Van Halen show this year. I hadn't been in a fist fight since the 5th grade. Long story short, the other party got removed from the premises, but I missed a number of songs dealing with a few drunkards. This was TWO songs into the set. UGH! Edited by Presto-digitation
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mine was at a Cheap Trick and Aerosmith show in May of '04. My ex-wife and her mom were off to Maui that day and I was more than happy to NOT be accompanying them laugh.gif Said show was the same night at the nearby amphitheater here in Vancouver, Washington/Portland, Oregon. Several months before I decided I'd like to go as it would be something fun to do by myself that night so I checked to see what was available as far as tix went and there were some reserved in the COVERED section as well as lawn which is uncovered. I almost got a reserved but decided I'd get a lawn ticket and try to talk my buddy into coming down from Seattle to join me figuring if we both had lawn we could still sit together and all. Fast forward and he decides he can't make it but that's OK as I've never seen Cheap Trick and Aerosmith had delivered the last time I'd seen them (about 6 years previous) so I'm stoked.

 

Keep in mind though I was a native of Washington state, I had spent the previous 13 years in Southern California and had forgotten that rain was not just a possibility but a likelihood in late May in Western Washington and Oregon. So I wake up on show day and it's pissing to beat the band and continues throughout the day. I mention to the ex that I'm thinking about wearing a baseball hat and she's like "no, you'll look like a dork". So being a dumbass, I listen to her and go to the show sans baseball hat. Big fukking mistake. Why? Because I wear glasses and it's raining like mad and I can't see a damned thing because my glasses are soaked and every time I wipe them off, they're wet again in seconds. I will say Cheap Trick sounded great. Never saw a bit of their set though. Fortunately the rain let up to a light drizzle by the time A'smith came out and I actually saw their set. But the shit of the day wasn't done.....at this point, the venue I'm at had only been open about a year or so and the powers that be had yet to figure out how to get 12 to 15 thousand people out of the place in a reasonably prompt fashion meaning I literally sit in my car for 2+ hours before I'm able to even start the engine and spend another 1/2 hour making my way out after the show.

 

Lessons learned:

1) Never buy a lawn ticket in the Northwest if there's a covered seat available

2) If there isn't a covered seat and it even looks like it MIGHT rain, bring a baseball cap to keep the rain off my glasses

3) My ex-wife is an idiot, and.....

4) Quit listening to her

 

 

 

 

Lastly I'd like to say I have never understood why anyone would get shit-faced drunk at a concert. Even back in the 70s as a young and dumb guy I knew that was not the way to enjoy a live music performance. I pay to see people play music, not fall down, puke in the bathroom, forget most of the show cuz I'm hammered, etc., etc., etc..... Now smoking was a different story, but I've never had more than like 2 drinks at a concert in my whole life and I'm sure I'm over 200 shows, maybe even 300. My sympathies to those folks on this thread (and elsewhere) that have had to suffer the stupidity of drunk assholes at a show.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Probably a small "festival" I went to a little over a year ago. Couple of local acts (Mother Mother and Said The Whale, IIRC). The bands were good but it was cold, rainy, muddy, the sound sucked, and the stage was impossible to see. Oh, and there was no crowd control, so lots of drugs and douchebags. Pretty miserable by the end of it.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seeing Wynonna with my wife. I love my wife (as is obvious from me going to the show), but Wynonna?

 

wtf.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Worst experience? Seeing Yes in back in Nov. 2008. I was 14 at the time and had never really been to a small venue. The club the band was playing in - and I can easily call it a club because the place had no less than 1000 seats from what I could see - was pretty intimate (Lifestyles Community Pavilion in Columbus, Ohio if anyone's been there).

 

Me and my father had 2nd row tickets, dead in the middle. Couldn't ask for a better view, but my gods...EVERY flower power hippie just crawled out of the woodwork. I didn't have a problem with them because, well, they're a bunch of 60 year old women moving around like they're on LSD (which I have no doubt they were). My problem was with this group of 30 year old pricks who insisted that we stole their seats.

 

My dad shows them our tickets and, after drunkenly gazing them over, still believe we had their seats. This was about twenty minutes into the show and went on until intermission. They finally sit down in the three empty seats to my left. If I were to describe what a sewage treatment facility smells like, it would be these three assholes. On top of the retched smell they let off, they were letting out these incredibly loud belches and ripping farts like there's no tomorrow. At that point, I would have welcomed the scent of a men's restroom urinal cake. At intermission, they finally decide to f**k off. Just as they get up, one of them slips up and says "Dude, where's our tickets?" Usher overheard and threw them out on the street with the multitude of homeless people begging for scraps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

U2...ZooTV tour...get there early, get great festival seating spots righ in front of the stage...I make it through the opening acts, Sugarcubes & Public Enemy...U2 comes on...my wife taps me and says "I can't see.."...I say "Huh?"...she repeats...guilts me into giving up our spot...we watch the balance of the show from nosebleed seats at the Oakland Colisseum...including the acoustic set 10 feet from where we were. sad.gif

 

Still married...25 years in August!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

in 1987 I went to see The Moody Blues with a friend of mine. We both did a hit of LSD (wasn't that great) and smuggled in a bottle of whiskey (neither of us drank hard liquor very often, but we needed something to last us a few hours). Well, my friend couldn't stop throwing up during the whole show 062802puke_prv.gif and we had about a 30 foot diameter empty circle around us where nobody came close to us. With tears in his eyes and barf on his shirt, he stuck it out like a good soldier and I stayed by his side the whole time (you never leave someone alone during a bad trip). Needless to say his trip was kinda ruined, but the show was good.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...