The Worse Band(s) You've Ever Seen in a Live Environment

[TENTH DREAMER DECEIVER]

Diablo Swing Orchestra;
Midnight;
Suffocation;
Lauren Harris;
Bullet For My Valentine;
Zappa Plays Zappa;
Serj Tankian;
Hate breed and
JC Satellite.

 

[Osiris' Eyes]

Divine Heresy - They were part of the Firewind, Dark Tranquility, Arch Enemy tour...I am not a violent man but I seriously wanted to take a swing with a bat at the barking vocalist...music sucked the singer continually disrespected the audience. Great way to gain some fans.

Suicide Silence- part of the Carcass tour...there are no skinny jeans in my metal...just an awful performance!

Queensryche- couple years ago at the House of Blues Chicago...totally uninspired and a true disappointment.

 

[J-Man]

Let's go wayyyyyyyy back: The worst and I do mean worst band ever was:

Grand Funk Railroad(At Grant Park in Atlanta)
Jefferson Airplane(grace was stoned and drunk)

More up to date:

Vader
Seven Witches(ugggggggh awful)
Dark Empire(Singer was reading lyrics from notepad)
Leatherwolf
Lullacry

 

[cslebn]

Bobflex on the 2005 Gigantour.

They were the first band up and the show was at least 4 hours late starting. The sound was beyond awful, the music was terrible, and the fans just wanted SymX, Fear Factory,Nevermore, DT, and Megadeth. At one point the crowd was chanting you suck. The lead singers response was, "Well you smell bad"

Side note because of the delay SymX only got to play 3 songs. That sucked.

 

[eppst1]

Nice topic!

The worst:
Blitzspeer opening for Overkill back in 90 something. Even if a band is bad, there is always *someone* applauding or cheering. When they finished a song - nothing. Not a peep. It was one of the most akward and painful things I've ever seen in a concert setting.

Hate to say this, but the second time I saw Alestorm they were terrible. They were all drunk and incredibly sloppy which made the songs almost incoherent noise. The first time I saw them I thought they were great.

I don't know if this classifies as a terrible band - but has anyone ever heard of AOK? They played in the BG Open Air show. I never heard of them before this show. Well, the show started out by the two male singers walking onto stage naked. The music wasn't terrible - but it was... what's the word I'm looking for.... weird? Also, lettuce made an appearance during their set as a *prop* which eventually made its way into the crowd.

 

[AngraRULES]

Let me add two more to my list:

Midnight (solo): The most bizarre thing ever. I still don't get it.

Myopia: Ok, these guys are local but I felt like I needed to bring this up (Akumu probably knows the band). Here's the deal - they weren't bad per se live. However, the singer kept on raving about how they were honored and happy to open for their idols, to open for the greatest band ever (Sonata Arctica), and blah blah blah during the whole show. To make matters worse, they sounded *exactly* like Sonata, the singer dressed *exactly* like Tony Kakko and he tried to sound *exactly* like Tony Kakko. What a friggin' bum. To top it all off, he was a bit cocky. Gimme a friggin' break...

 

[AeonicSlumber]

Three guitars

I don't care who it is or what kind of music you play, 3 guitars looks ridiculous on stage. I refuse to see Periphery live for that same reason. I just hate how bands sometimes worry too much about fidelity to the CD in the live setting that they make their stage show look ridiculous and not fun. I may as well just listen to the record.

As for my biggest live disappointment, I'd say Trap Them opening for Kataklysm/Napalm Death. I was expecting chaos and I got a buncha dudes standing around not doing anything and overall weak live sound compared to what I was expecting. Yeah, the crowd was all metal nerds but I would've expected an effort to grind it up like Rotten Sound did when they opened for Carcass (same sort of crowd, but at least they made an effort).

There are a few others that I wasn't big on either.

 

[AeonicSlumber]

Suffocation;

Zappa Plays Zappa;
.

Was it because these were off-nights for them and things just didn't go right? I thought both of these bands put on AMAZING shows.

 

[Akumu]

(Akumu probably knows the band)

Yup, I do -- I run into at least two of their members after every show around here now. I don't think I saw that particular Sonata show you mentioned (since I don't remember all the "OMG WE'RE SO HONORED" bits), but I saw them open after one or two of the OTHER local bands at a gig annnd the crowd loved them. They are an early!Sonata clone, but I don't mind them...

... actually, I just remembered that they encouraged a circle pit at that Fates Warning gig back in June. That was WTF. Okay -- I USUALLY don't mind them.

 

[TENTH DREAMER DECEIVER]

Suffocation because the grunter said the band was finishing up. Then they played for another 30 minutes.

ZPZ: Didn't do anything for me.

Was it because these were off-nights for them and things just didn't go right? I thought both of these bands put on AMAZING shows.

 

[Harvester]

Diablo Swing Orchestra;

Curious about this one. They had one of the strongest reactions at the festival that year. Their musicanship was tight, they had a good stage presence, and were unique even by the festival standards with the kazoos and didgeridoo.

So was it truly their performance that made them one of the worst ever for you? Or perhaps it was that you simply hated the music? That's a big difference.

 

[AngraRULES]

Yup, I do -- I run into at least two of their members after every show around here now. I don't think I saw that particular Sonata show you mentioned (since I don't remember all the "OMG WE'RE SO HONORED" bits), but I saw them open after one or two of the OTHER local bands at a gig annnd the crowd loved them. They are an early!Sonata clone, but I don't mind them...

... actually, I just remembered that they encouraged a circle pit at that Fates Warning gig back in June. That was WTF. Okay -- I USUALLY don't mind them.

The problem is that the crowd in the Hartford area (more and more, I noticed) is basically comprised of a bunch of teenagers who think Sonata Arctica and Edguy are the greatest two bands ever. So seeing a local version of Sonata Arctica is like "HOLY FUCK! I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF HELLOWEEN OR BLIND GUARDIAN OR ANGRA BUT WHO CARES, THESE GUYS ARE BETTER!"

Myopia is known to bring a lot of their friends to their shows too - who else would know how to sing their songs after all? And as far as the Fates Warning show went, I couldn't handle staying inside that furnace for any band other than Fates - I remember my camera lenses sweating!!!!

 

[AeonicSlumber]

Suffocation because the grunter said the band was finishing up. Then they played for another 30 minutes.

ZPZ: Didn't do anything for me.

So I mean, is it because both of these bands aren't your cup of tea musically? I mean Suffocation to me was arguably the best death metal show I have ever seen. Those guys just know how to rock it on stage and show their many hundreds of imitators how it's done. Not to mention Frank's stage antics are hilarious. I actually never saw ZPZ yet because of how expensive their tickets usually are, but I've seen live videos and have heard from friends that they are absolutely incredible live, channeling Zappa himself without missing a beat.

 

[TychoCelchu]

Darkest Hour - Nothing has ever sounded more painful, annoying and boring than that. Ever.

Saw them on the At the Gates 2008 tour and it was such a lame joke. They came out like they were a big deal and no one cared (due to them sucking) and both guitarists did nothing but sweep pick the entire set. Sweep picking is the most obnoxious and annoying metal guitar technique there is. It's possible to do it and not look like a gnad, but they haven't figured that out.

Other things:
Threat Signal was hideous on the Dark Tranquillity tour last year.

Howl was very bad and very annoying.

I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but Baroness just pissed me off. It was the first time I've seen them so it was the double whammy of hating their music and hating their performance. yech! And I *like* sludge.

Dimmu Borgir was so bad and annoying that I left after four songs. I won't be back.

Other than that, I have not seen many major bands who truly sucked. Plenty of shit openers, for sure, but many marquee bands that I see don't disappoint, albeit some of them come off as bland (Exodus blew away Megadeth on the 2004 comeback tour. Megadeth weren't bad, they just got shown up by Exodus).

 

[dcowboys311]

Darkest Hour used to be awesome. One of the best metalcore bands around. Their past 2 or 3 records have been major stinkers and it seems like it's taken a toll on their live show for some reason. They've been really bad the past few times I've seen em but they used to be a great live band. A shame.

 

[Element_man]

Howl was very bad and very annoying.

Oh yeah, my band opened for them in Calgary in October. Fucking boring! Every other band that played that night (all local) made them look like idiots.

Also, Laura Harris was utter shite at Wacken '08. But HOLY WOW! THOSE PANTS!!!

 

[dcowboys311]

I thought Howl was great at MDF but that's the only time I've seen em. Looks like I got lucky!

 

[Justin G]

Skipping over bands that I just don't care for in the first place, I'd say the worst performance I've seen in a while was Paul DiAnno at Jaxx last year. Unneccessary delays, technical difficulties, a voice that's pretty much shot and a belligerent attitude made for an all-around awful performance.

 

[labrekk]

More up to date:

Seven Witches(ugggggggh awful)

Who was the singer? Cause I saw them a few years ago with James Rivera on vox and they gave a damn fine show. I think they were opening for Symphony X.

 

[labrekk]

Powerglove.

I had to endure them 2 times as an opening band (first with Hammerfall, second with Firewind). Most boring and dull band I've ever seen. Music is already dull, and to add insult to injury, there are no vocals...