Losing my edge - confessing your gig attending history

[Nocturnal Submission]

I'm not sure that there are any gigs that I'm embarrassed to admit that I went to (maybe I've just buried them deep in my subconscious) but Girlschool wasn't much of an event and a Ry Cooder concert was so tedious and went on for so long I thought I'd died and gone to hell.

I saw U2 in 1982 or 1983 and they were ace.

[Bored Of Education]

I am not sure what the premise for this thread is - worst gigs attended, embarrassing gigs attended or embarrassing gigs attended and enjoyed. I have one for the first, three for the last and one that combines the first two. (and the embarrassment factor is, obviously, subjective).

Worst gigs

For years, it was a band called The Woodentops who some may recall. Although they were the epitome of fey effete indie-pop, I saw and played gigs with a load of bands like this really especially during the 80s and 90s in various North London venues. However, I think that it was because they were playing a very big venue, were lauded by indie-popsters of my acquaintance and were playing after the excellent Marc Riley & the Creepers.

Embarrassing gigs attended and enjoyed

Saxon - Hammersmith Odeon
Bros - Hammersmith Odeon
Robbie Williams - Millennium Stadium
George Michael - Earls Court (he was excellent actually and I am not sure how many people think him embarrassing even).

Worst Embarrassing gigs attended

Ted Nugent - Astoria
Embarrassing, sexist, homophobic and probably racist if we had given him more time and not walked out. Appalling.

[Jah Womble]

Ted Nugent - Astoria
Embarrassing, sexist, homophobic and probably racist if we had given him more time and not walked out. Appalling.

...and you were expecting what, exactly?

[Bored Of Education]

"Cat Scratch Fever" at the start of the set and then we could run away.

[Hot Pepsi]

I am not sure what the premise for this thread is - worst gigs attended, embarrassing gigs attended or embarrassing gigs attended and enjoyed. I have one for the first, three for the last and one that combines the first two. (and the embarrassment factor is, obviously, subjective).

Worst gigs

For years, it was a band called The Woodentops who some may recall. Although they were the epitome of fey effete indie-pop, I saw and played gigs with a load of bands like this really especially during the 80s and 90s in various North London venues. However, I think that it was because they were playing a very big venue, were lauded by indie-popsters of my acquaintance and were playing after the excellent Marc Riley & the Creepers.

Embarrassing gigs attended and enjoyed

Saxon - Hammersmith Odeon
Bros - Hammersmith Odeon
Robbie Williams - Millennium Stadium
George Michael - Earls Court (he was excellent actually and I am not sure how many people think him embarrassing even).

Worst Embarrassing gigs attended

Ted Nugent - Astoria
Embarrassing, sexist, homophobic and probably racist if we had given him more time and not walked out. Appalling.

I’m not a George Michael fan, but would have gone to see him live if I could have seen him in a smallish venue and if it wasn’t too expensive. I imagine that would be a good show.

[DPDPDPDP]

My mate fell asleep at a Chris Rea gig (thankfully I wasn’t with him). Maybe attending a Chris Rea gig could be prescribed by doctors for insomnia.

[treibeis]

For years, it was a band called The Woodentops who some may recall.

Yes. Awful. There were a lot of them, though, back then. Peel-touted jangly guitar things.

[treibeis]

Bored's mention of The Woodentops has pissed me right off. I never plumbed such depths, but I did see The Bluebells and The Waterboys, who were The Woodentops in slightly less shit. Not because I fancied some woman who liked them - an excusable excuse - but because - get this - my best mate at the time fancied a woman who liked them, but he was too shy to go on his own.

I once went to see Antonello Venditti because I fancied a woman who liked him. Antonello Venditti is shittier than the shittiest lump of dogshit on your shittiest pair of shitty shoes.

[delicatemoth]

The Woodentops who some may recall. Although they were the epitome of fey effete indie-pop

Indie-pop they were, but there were far more fey groups around. As I recall Woodentops had a reputation for being quite ferocious live (they released a live album, which suggests some confidence in their abilities), and their near-hit 'It Will Come' is quite motorik - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJf-hIi0YpI

I don't get this thread either. I can't think of a single gig I'm embarrassed to have gone to. I mean I'd be embarrassed to have seen pathetic punk pisshead John Cooper Clarke if I'd chosen to, but he was supporting The Fall and I got my 'miss The Fall's terrible support acts' timing wrong. Likewise, seeing Cliff Richard at the Greenbelt festival was pretty odd, but a friend had got a bunch of us tickets and I had no idea it was a Christian rock festival, I thought it was some eco-thing because of the name. Happily, I also saw The Proclaimers there and they were great.

Disappointing gigs, though - Wire at the South Bank, early 2000s. They were playing their old stuff and it was fairly obvious they found it boring. Audience were charmless rowdy drugged/pissed up types. The only good bit was Michael Clark throwing some shapes (predictably, this was the part that got the charmless audience riled up).
Happy Mondays at Glastonbury 1990 - we took acid beforehand cos we thought that would be good. They were so dull that they dampened our burgeoning trip right down.
Coldcut at the South Bank - they're among my musical heroes, and they were rubbish.

But worst of all - Suicide at the Highbury Garage in the late 90s. So, so bad that I've never been able to listen to them since. BUT! They were supported by Panasonic, who I'd never heard of and who were absolutely fucking amazing - two unassuming Finnish skinheads making some of the most beautifully spare electronic music I'd ever heard.

[Sits]

Bored, we also saw George Michael at Earl's Court and he was excellent. Mrs. S still swoons at the mention of his trousers.

[San Bernardhinault]

I think the point of the thread is to admit the gigs you're now utterly embarrassed about. I wouldn't be that embarrassed now about George Michael or even Robbie Williams (although I might have been at the time). Ted Nugent is a great call. Who wouldn't be ashamed of that?

[caja-dglh]

I really can't think of any. I mean, I have seen Snow Patrol more than a handful of times, but that was back right at the start of their career and they were an alright, alt-indie band. I walked out on Cast at the NME awards and hung in the bar with the band I went to see (China Drum).

I have seen some shite at festivals, but that is what festivals are made for.

[Cal Alamein]

I too, can't think of any gigs that I am now embarrassed to have attended.

Unlike a couple of others I quite enjoyed seeing Saxon, they put on an energetic set in the early 80s. Ted Nugent gigs did not disappoint during the same time period. Sexist, pompous asshole, yes, but not the flag-waving homophobic racist he is today.

[danielmak]

I think the point of the thread is to admit the gigs you're now utterly embarrassed about. I wouldn't be that embarrassed now about George Michael or even Robbie Williams (although I might have been at the time). Ted Nugent is a great call. Who wouldn't be ashamed of that?

I think the way this is most likely to happen is to basically have very mainstream pop tastes because one doesn't know any better (i.e., you like what your friends like and your friends have crap taste) but then something happens and you develop better taste in music, realizing that you used to listen to manufactured sonic garbage. The other way this could happen would be to change tastes dramatically (e.g., some of the metal bands that were mentioned earlier and feeling like the initial tastes were a mistake--perhaps liking pop metal like Warrant or Poison but then discovering something like Motorhead which leads to liking something like Sepultura and realizing there's a huge gap between Poison and Sepultura).

Anyway, I don't say this to sound snotty but as a little kid I went from Kiss and Cheap Trick to punk rock, which I found through a friend's older brother. I was probably 9 years old. So there was no way to see an embarrassing band because I was spared from the mainstream music of the early 1980s. I was never really worried about mainstream stuff friends were listening to and instead trying to get them to check out what I was into. The downside to this situation is not having a clue about many really good mainstream rock bands until my late teens/early twenties (Stones, Springsteen, etc.).

[Sporting]

I'd be embarrassed to have seen pathetic punk pisshead John Cooper Clarke if I'd chosen to, but he was supporting The Fall and I got my 'miss The Fall's terrible support acts' timing wrong

I don't share your complete dismissal of JCC but it's true for me that his appeal, such as it was, quickly faded. And I was none too impressed when I found out that Evidently Chickentown:

The bloody scene is bloody sad
The bloody news is bloody bad
The bloody weed is bloody turf
The bloody speed is bloody surf
The bloody folks are bloody daft
Don't make me bloody laugh
It bloody hurts to look around
Everywhere in chicken town
The bloody train is bloody late
You bloody wait you bloody wait
You're bloody lost and bloody found
Stuck in fucking chicken town

was a so-called unconscious updating of Bloody Orkney, a poem dating from WW2:

This bloody town's a bloody cuss
No bloody trains, no bloody bus,
And no one cares for bloody us
In bloody Orkney.

The bloody roads are bloody bad,
The bloody folks are bloody mad,
They'd make the brightest bloody sad,
In bloody Orkney.


All bloody clouds, and bloody rains,
No bloody kerbs, no bloody drains,
The Council's got no bloody brains,
In bloody Orkney.

On the subject of avoiding Fall support bands, well, this was something a whole gang of us used to do. Probably a bit daft, really, especially when you didn't know the act in question and consdering that you'd paid a nice hefty amount for the ticket. Were you around during the Safii Sniper years? There were some folk who enjoyed his audio-visual stuff though it was certainly a very acquired taste. Anyway, staying in the pub for that last pint made me nervous for two reasons: I loathe being late; and though I love my beer my bladder is not as strong as I'd like it to be, so that I'd be forced to run to the loo after about half an hour of the gig.

[Jah Womble]

Indie-pop they were, but there were far more fey groups around. As I recall Woodentops had a reputation for being quite ferocious live (they released a live album, which suggests some confidence in their abilities), and their near-hit 'It Will Come' is quite motorik - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJf-hIi0YpI

The Woodentops were far less wimpy than the majority of C-86 (as that non-scene was known) acts out there. The epitome of that movement was probably Talulah Gosh, The Railway Children or maybe Grab Grab The Haddock, who I once saw open for The Colour Field. ('Enid Blyton-indie', a lot of that stuff. Blyth Power were quite good, but the best were probably The Loft/Weather Prophets.)

But worst of all - Suicide at the Highbury Garage in the late 90s. So, so bad that I've never been able to listen to them since. BUT! They were supported by Panasonic, who I'd never heard of and who were absolutely fucking amazing - two unassuming Finnish skinheads making some of the most beautifully spare electronic music I'd ever heard.

The latter had to change their name to Pan Sonic (duh, can't imagine why...) and I also saw them play, with - I think - Trans Am. Both acts were top-notch, IIRC. (Surprised that Suicide were so poor. Actually, perhaps I'm not.)

[Nocturnal Submission]

I've heard of virtually none of those bands, but why on earth wasn't Grab Grab The Haddock your entry on the bad band names thread!

[Ray de Galles]

The Nugent gig might have ended up vaguely bearable but he was playing the old Astoria on Charing Cross Road and found out it also hosted the G-A-Y club night. The stupid, homophobic old twat was clearly determined to spend more time rabbiting on being a cunt about that than playing songs so we left.

As to what we expected, well some of Nugent's tunes are fantastic, his live show used to be great ('Intensities In Ten Cities' is one of the finest, but overlooked, live albums of all time as well as having a fantastic title) and he was always an infrequent visitor to Britain. It was a rare chance to see him but, given it was 2002, was probably at least twenty years too late to do so.

[Jah Womble]

The tedious old species-endangerer once had his own outdoor reality TV show called Surviving Nugent: The Ted Commandments - the title also likely being the best thing about it by some distance. During the filming of one episode, he apparently almost lopped off his own leg with a chainsaw.

How different it might all have been, eh?

I've heard of virtually none of those bands, but why on earth wasn't Grab Grab The Haddock your entry on the bad band names thread!

You're right - it absolutely should have been. (For info, GGTH was the band of Alice and Jane Fox, formerly of The Marine Girls - who of course were Tracey Thorn's first group.)

I shouldn't worry unduly about not knowing the majority of those bands, however. Most of them were packed off to bed after a slap-up feed many years ago...

[Bored Of Education]

I don't share your complete dismissal of JCC but it's true for me that his appeal, such as it was, quickly faded. And I was none too impressed when I found out that Evidently Chickentown:

The bloody scene is bloody sad
The bloody news is bloody bad
The bloody weed is bloody turf
The bloody speed is bloody surf
The bloody folks are bloody daft
Don't make me bloody laugh
It bloody hurts to look around
Everywhere in chicken town
The bloody train is bloody late
You bloody wait you bloody wait
You're bloody lost and bloody found
Stuck in fucking chicken town

was a so-called unconscious updating of Bloody Orkney, a poem dating from WW2:

This bloody town's a bloody cuss
No bloody trains, no bloody bus,
And no one cares for bloody us
In bloody Orkney.

The bloody roads are bloody bad,
The bloody folks are bloody mad,
They'd make the brightest bloody sad,
In bloody Orkney.


All bloody clouds, and bloody rains,
No bloody kerbs, no bloody drains,
The Council's got no bloody brains,
In bloody Orkney.

On the subject of avoiding Fall support bands, well, this was something a whole gang of us used to do. Probably a bit daft, really, especially when you didn't know the act in question and consdering that you'd paid a nice hefty amount for the ticket. Were you around during the Safii Sniper years? There were some folk who enjoyed his audio-visual stuff though it was certainly a very acquired taste. Anyway, staying in the pub for that last pint made me nervous for two reasons: I loathe being late; and though I love my beer my bladder is not as strong as I'd like it to be, so that I'd be forced to run to the loo after about half an hour of the gig.

Upon being told that "Evidently Chickentown" bore a resemblance to another poem called 'Bloody Orkney' by a Second World War naval officer, John Cooper Clarke said

"It does," the poet says. "I didn't consciously copy it. But I must have heard that poem, years ago. It's terrific."

This sort of thing happens all the time in art - especially music - and it is often accidental in this manner. It would be great if people just accepted and were open about it.