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

[Metal_Camden]

I seriously hope you guys didn't pay.

What a big pile of suck.

HAHA no we played the next night. Its a shame these bands share the same stage as BG...

Emmure is such a talented band. I mean, Camden, you're a guitar player right? Just look at this tab:
http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/e/emmure/sound_wave_superior_tab.htm

Pure talent.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

I didn't last 10 seconds before bursting into laughter.



Wow, some deep lyrics there....

But i thought diamonds not lasting forever would turn me into casper?

I second this. Jesus Christ..

Yeah. Even Jesus Christ must be laughing at these guys.

Laughing. Then crying.

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahagahahaahahahahah

LOL im glad im not the only one.

 

[JenniferLynn]

This! Saw them as an opener for Firewind at Jaxx a couple of months ago... sad thing was that there was a bigger crowd for Powerglove than for Firewind...

Oh damn i remember them(Powerglove) now!!! They were BAD!!!!

My two fer on Diablo Swing Orchestra - I didn't like their music 'til I saw them live.. Totally sold me and now they are one of my faves.. I thought their live performance was out-freakin-standing..

Worst bands live:

Fuel - they opened for Aerosmith however long ago and it sounded like white noise with lots of bass. Nothing was clear, no energy and I kinda dug some of their radio stuff..

Warrant (later years) - when Jani was a walking train wreck.. Never could hold his crap together on stage after the first time I saw them live and were really amazing...

Light This City - I think that's the name - fronted by a girl, she did the whole scream don't sing into the mic after swallowing sandpaper.. First we were like damn, she's got a set!!! Then it was just like ok.. same song, 10 times, we're bored and some were laughing..

 

[Metal_Camden]

LET IT ALSO BE KNOWN.

that that same Airwalk Music tour with both those bands + 3 more terrible ones drew TWICE AS MUCH as Guardian in Montreal the night before we played.


I guess america isnt the only place with misguided youth.

 

[JenniferLynn]

Nevermore at Jaxx a few months ago was the worst show by a national headliner I've ever seen.

First time I had ever seen them... G Zod apologized for them sucking so bad...

 

[TychoCelchu]

I've seen Nevermore 3 times and none of them were good. It sucks to admit because I love their albums.

 

[jem777az]

First time I had ever seen them... G Zod apologized for them sucking so bad...

I'm curious as to why they were so bad? They were really good when they came through Phoenix.

 

[TribunalRecords]

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.

i actually REALLY enjoyed the last Darkest Hour album A LOT. the two before that not so much, but yes it's funny to see people talk shit on them especially on the ATG reunion tour to which they were personally invited to open for the almighty ATG.

Darkest Hour act like they own the shit, because for years they WERE the shit live. i haven't seen them in ages, but they were amazing back in the day. 150% energy and mayhem. again, they come from a hardcore background and a scene where performance isn't about playing you best but going crazy with the fans and having a good time and that they did.

 

[NuclearFire166]

The worst band (by a VERY wide margin) that I have ever seen was The Unband when they opened for Dio in 1999. I suffered through their set at three separate shows.

I have seen some crappy bands since, but not one came even close to being as shitty as these guys were.

 

[modernwizardry]

Coheed and Cambria - it was right after the drummer and bass player quit. They decided to continue on the tour with a new drummer and bass player that barely knew the songs. It was awful. They had the guitars and vocals up so high that you could barely hear anything. It was also right when they released Good Apollo and they got really popular so their crowd was more annoying than usual. Everybody sang along to A Favor House Atlantic, The Suffering and Welcome Home and then when they played other songs the crowd just stood there. For those few reasons it was the worst show I've ever been too. We actually did walk out early from their set. 3 opened so it wasn't all bad.

 

[AngraRULES]

LOL im glad im not the only one.

I just showed it to my wife and tried to explain to her what an emo/emo-core band was... Although there's a few aspects of that music that she actually liked (gotta remember, she is not a metalhead - she listens to Maroon 5, Beastie Boys, The Fray, Linkin Park, Black Eyed Peas, etc...), this is her quote regarding this band:

"It's like Justin Bieber and Marilyn Manson had a baby."

All that said, I did bring her to see Dream Theater last year and she *really* enjoyed it!

Now I'm trying to decide which one should be her next metal experience... I wanna say Sabaton & Accept. We'll see.

 

[DTJeff]

To shed a little light on the "shitty deathcore bands on legit metal shows" discussion. Based on my ~5 years experience doing shows in my own band, this is how it works:

If a headlining band wants a $5,000 guarantee, rather than actually do any work to promote the show, or at least test the market for interest to see that the headliners are even capable of drawing enough to make sure the show won't bomb, the promoters will let 5 local bands buy onto the show, prebuying 50 tickets at $20 apiece ($1,000 apiece, so 5 grand total). That way, no matter what happens, the show won't bomb and everyone will make their money.

That being said, it's been my experience that 80% of bands don't even come close to selling the tickets they prebuy, the just get burned and look at it as "paying to play", which is why the shows are still half-empty even though the openers had to pre-buy 250 tickets.

 

[sava]

The worst live performance I have ever seen was from MSG. I have no idea if their performance is always poor though.

 

[freakchylde]

Yakuza. They were one of the support bands for Lacuna Coil. The lead singer's sax playing reminded me of a bad impersonation of that band on Lost Boys and they stayed on stage too long.

 

[AeonicSlumber]

LET IT ALSO BE KNOWN.

that that same Airwalk Music tour with both those bands + 3 more terrible ones drew TWICE AS MUCH as Guardian in Montreal the night before we played.


I guess america isnt the only place with misguided youth.

Dude Emmure is gigantic over here with the kids. Their music was the themesong for a few WWE pay per views and had some bigtime wrestler on one of their album covers. They may suck bigones, but the joke's on everyone else because apparently people are buying it hahah!

 

[AeonicSlumber]

To shed a little light on the "shitty deathcore bands on legit metal shows" discussion. Based on my ~5 years experience doing shows in my own band, this is how it works:

If a headlining band wants a $5,000 guarantee, rather than actually do any work to promote the show, or at least test the market for interest to see that the headliners are even capable of drawing enough to make sure the show won't bomb, the promoters will let 5 local bands buy onto the show, prebuying 50 tickets at $20 apiece ($1,000 apiece, so 5 grand total). That way, no matter what happens, the show won't bomb and everyone will make their money.

That being said, it's been my experience that 80% of bands don't even come close to selling the tickets they prebuy, the just get burned and look at it as "paying to play", which is why the shows are still half-empty even though the openers had to pre-buy 250 tickets.

Yup, a horribly sleezy promoter tactic to cover his ass so he doesn't lose money on poor ticket sales. Local bands should NEVER support these practices.

 

[DTJeff]

Yup, a horribly sleezy promoter tactic to cover his ass so he doesn't lose money on poor ticket sales. Local bands should NEVER support these practices.

Yeah, I agree, which is my band doesn't. We've still been able to open a bunch of cool shows over the years based on reputation in the area though.

 

[Pellaz]

Worst touring act I've seen: Diet of Worms. Yes, with Damond Jiniya on vocals. The tour package was Godhead (my friends' band) first, then Mortiis, then Diet of Worms, then Christian Death headlining. Diet of Worms was so abysmal live that they were driving people out before Christian Death started. ("Punchy" from Christian Death was also part of Diet of Worms.)
It was soo bad that after a few more shows Christian Death "magnanimously" offered to change the tour order with Godhead, having them play a higher slot after Diet of Worms and right before Christian Death. My friends wisely declined, since they actually wanted to play in front of an audience.

(Later I saw Damond Jiniya fronting Savatage and he was terrific...honestly have no idea how Diet of Worms could have been THAT awful, but, there ya go.)

Worst headliner I've seen: Nevermore, performing after Opeth. Warrel's voice was Bad that night and there was a steady stream of Nevermore fans exiting the venue during their performance. This, after half the crowd had already left after Opeth finished. In the words of Jim Sheppard, "Yeah, it's been pretty brutal playing after Opeth on this tour" -- it was Opeth's first-ever US tour -- "but nowhere as bad as Atlanta."

Worst one-off band I've ever seen: Ghost of the Robot, which 'featured' James Marsters (Spike from "Buffy") on vocals backed by basically a high-school band. This was at Dragon*Con.
Lord, he was awful. I was outside the ballroom where he was playing -- since I do value what little sanity I have left -- hanging out at a friends' band's table*, and people were coming up to us. "Please, make them stop!" "Can't you turn them off or something?!" All we could do was shrug and say "Sorry."
The following band was a band called The Cruxshadows, and a few of their fans had staked out a place on the rail in advance. Having gamely endured the sonic attack** and aural assault that was Ghost of the Talent, the Cruxshadows' frontman gave them free merch to help make up for the audio trauma.

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.

I referred to Divine Heresy's lead singer's incessant haranguing as their "mosh-pit beg-a-thon" over on the AtlantaMetal forums....and promptly got that comment sigged. That was a truly annoying performance.


---
* Emerald Rose, for those who know 'em...
** Hawkwind reference. And none of us had our "wheels".....

 

[nomisofsiman]

5. Throwdown. Saw them at the Ozzfest freefest and I swear they were the biggest bunch of posers I've ever seen. It also didn't help their case that they didn't have one, not two but three Pantera covers in their set when they only had maybe 30 minutes? You just don't do that when you're trying to get new fans because they'll only remember those covers (and they weren't done well either).

4. Moonspell - They too played with Dimmu and Danzig. Another band I love most of their material but their performance just seemed sloppy from an instrumental standpoint as well as vocally. I also found it odd that they had these huge ass banners up above them that came down during their performance, despite only getting 30 minutes or less. Just a real big disappointment, yet their live cd/dvd I think is pretty good. So I don't know if it's just that they don't do well with that limited amount of time or what.

3. Darkest Hour. I would have to agree here with others. They just seemed to act like they were so damn special, yet their performance was anything but.

2. Danzig. I love, love, love all the early Danzig albums, but when I saw him a couple of years ago with Dimmu Borgir he was just BAD!!!!! I don't know if he's just gotten worse with age (as that was my first time) or if he's just never been much of a live performer but he just can't hit his notes live.

1. Flyleaf. Absolute worst for me. I saw them a couple years ago at Family Values and good God, they awful. It was just like a bunch of guys playing instruments that had nothing to do with each other. It just sounded like noise. And then the singer, you could barely hear and when you could, she was way off key. It was only a 30 minute set I believe, but it was torture.

 

[nomisofsiman]

I will add one more thing in terms of what others are saying on this thread. I don't understand how some people are saying bands like DSO and ZPZ are terrible live. You may not be a fan of their music, but I have a hard time understanding how you can say they are bad live performers. DSO especially worked their ass off on that stage at PP X and even if you didn't dig the music, you can't dispute that. ZPZ is very much like when Frank did it, is an acquired taste but still, they are some of the best musicians you will ever see live. I'm guessing those slacking them probably saw them on the Prognation tour? That would make sense to me as most are going for DT and when seeing ZPZ I can understand people thinking WTF.

 

[Matt Crooks]

I'm curious as to why they were so bad? They were really good when they came through Phoenix.

Warrel's voice was shot, but worse than that he was forgetting lyrics, coming in at the wrong times in songs, etc. He had a terrible night. The rest of the band looked like they couldn't wait to get off of the stage.

I've seen them countless times, and they've ranged from good to amazing every other time, this was just a really, really off night.