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    Disappointing live acts

    Not bad concerts; more bands whose recorded output always exceeded the quality of their live shows.

    I've heard from more than one person that Steely Dan were a disappointing live act. According to my dad, you get a much better experience watching Nearly Dan play live than the act they're paying tribute to.

    The Stone Roses too, mostly down to Ian Brown's singing. I don't mind his voice on record, but live, it's a tuneless dirge.

    The quality of a Bob Dylan performance seems to depend on which night you go see him.

    #2
    In Dylan's case it depends on your expectations. Performance-wise his musicians are never less than first rate. It's mainly the arrangement of his older material that's startling/disappointing to some. You just have to go with an open mind and ears, if a lounge version of It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) is going to annoy it might better to stay home.

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      #3
      Dylan was one of my bigtime disappointments. And I'm not sure I was expecting much, tbh.

      Simple Minds, at close to their popular peak, were dreadfully dull. Two hours of Jim doing his 'crouch while panning his hand across the room' thing. Over and over...

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        #4
        The Jesus And Mary Chain didn't do much for me the two times I saw them in the '80s, when I was a massive fan of their records and general schtick. When I saw them again 25 years later their performance was better but my level of interest vastly diminished.

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          #5
          I gave up going to Billy Bragg gigs a few years ago, I was used to his talking between songs but it got to the stage when we were being lectured for twice as long as he was playing. That's bad enough but he never changed his speeches for outside the UK so you'd get 5 minutes about the NHS or the British army in Iraq, no longer worth €40 of my money I'm afraid

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            #6
            As if listening to Bragg singing wasn't bad enough. Never saw them but The Cars often seem to pop up in these discussions. Not because they were bad as such - they were a perfectly capable bunch of musicians - but because they were as dull as dishwater.

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              #7
              It's odd...I don't think I've ever even considered them a live act. Can't recall them stumbling through town in their heyday, although I'm sure they must have done. Nor the latter day revival circuit.

              Oddly, it's never occurred to me till now. I wonder if they still do a lucrative trade on the casino circuit in the US, a la Huey Lewis or Hall & Oates.

              [Well blow me...they were in T.O. as recently as seven years ago.]
              Last edited by WOM; 06-06-2018, 20:41.

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                #8
                There was a brief reunion and studio album a few years back but apart from that they've been on the shelf for three decades now. One of their principal members died in 2000 which doesn't help matters.
                Last edited by George; 06-06-2018, 20:58.

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                  #9
                  I saw the Smiths in 84 and 86. Both times they weren’t bad but I wasn’t anywhere near being transported, despite being pretty obsessive about them at the time.
                  Now if anyone asks I’m going to say that I never really liked them other than the guitars and I was just dragged along by my friends. Whom I’m no longer in touch with.

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                    #10
                    The Dylan one is interesting - saw him in '97 and he was amazing; saw him again in '02 and vowed never again.

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                      #11
                      Never, EVER go and see Lightning Seeds live.
                      Ian Broudie cannot fucking sing for toffee. He makes Ian Brown sound like Placido Domingo.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Haddock View Post
                        I saw the Smiths in 84 and 86. Both times they weren’t bad but I wasn’t anywhere near being transported, despite being pretty obsessive about them at the time.
                        Now if anyone asks I’m going to say that I never really liked them other than the guitars and I was just dragged along by my friends. Whom I’m no longer in touch with.
                        I saw them in Sheffield in 1985. Despite being a huge fan, I actually thought that support act James were more dynamic and interesting. They had a better drummer, for example (not difficult). Morrissey seemed a prick even then, not really engaging with the audience but being fawned on by them.

                        Van Morrison in 2001 was not, I'd say. 'disappointing'. He simply lived down to expectations.

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                          #13
                          I've given this some thought and, unfortunately though unsurprisingly, keep coming back to Chuck Berry. Hammersmith Odeon 1975. Played forty minutes on the button — which I'm sure was what his contract specified — he even quit in the middle of a song. Phoning it in doesn't even begin to describe his performance.

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                            #14
                            I’d say Primal Scream who were utterly fucking abysmal (this was Peak Junkie Keith Richards Bullshit Stones “Scream”, or is it “the Scream” for their remaining fans?), except Gillespie normally sounds like shite even on record. But they were fucking terrible. Muso rhythm section, what seemed to be the world’s worst guitarists flanking that total fucking eejit singer. Who, for someone who photographed well, is maybe the least charismatic lead singer I’ve seen in a “proper” band. But then junkies are dull as fuck.

                            Once, I was so obsessed with Screamadelica. Seeing them at the Barras in 94 definitely cured me of adulation but. I’m definitely in the genius coming from the producers/remixers camp now. Maybe the Orb even more than Weatherall, Higher than the Sun is still incredible. Even the vocals.
                            Last edited by Lang Spoon; 07-06-2018, 00:03.

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                              #15
                              New Order at Leeds Tiffany's in 82 were properly disappointing. They hadn't developed their electro sound yet and I remember they looked very uninterested. I told my friend Neil after the set that there was no point to them without Curtis and they might as well split up.
                              Cocteau Twins at Leeds Uni in 84 were very dull indeed but in retrospect I guess the problem was in my expectations.
                              But New Order and Cocteau Twins are still bands I play 30+ years on, unlike the Smiths

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                                #16
                                Guns N' Roses. Axl just being a prize prat. 45 minutes I'll never get back.

                                Sly and the Family Stone. Sly being, well I don't know really. He spent more time off stage than on, hardly touched a keyboard and mumbled a few lines.

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                                  #17
                                  Rob Zombie puts in the effort, the staging, the pyro but Just Can't Sing Live.

                                  I'm not entirely sure he counts as my expectations were low to begin with but atthe same gig as RZ above, Marilyn Manson couldn't even reach the low bar I had set. As Tony Wright tells a story about being forced to swap slots with MM at Reading "We went on stage and warmed the crowd up and then Marilyn Manson went on and calmed them all down again".

                                  I saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers and I was very surprised to see them commit the crime of being very dull indeed.

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                                    #18
                                    Steely Dan definitely fit the bill for me. They were basically doing studio tracks verbatim.

                                    Springsteen, who played turgid versions of the same song without any subtlety for three hours.

                                    And the Rolling Stones, who were equally turgid. They seemed to abandon any of their interesting songs and just play nothing but a loud, uninteresting, plodding version of rocky 12 bar blues while Mick wandered around the stage.

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by Haddock View Post
                                      New Order at Leeds Tiffany's in 82 were properly disappointing. They hadn't developed their electro sound yet and I remember they looked very uninterested. I told my friend Neil after the set that there was no point to them without Curtis and they might as well split up.
                                      Cocteau Twins at Leeds Uni in 84 were very dull indeed but in retrospect I guess the problem was in my expectations.
                                      But New Order and Cocteau Twins are still bands I play 30+ years on, unlike the Smiths
                                      I can remember hearing John Peel describing New Order's live work as 'a little untidy' - which I also discovered around 1983 was being very polite indeed.

                                      By the time I next saw them, headlining Reading in 1989, they'd improved greatly.

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                                        #20
                                        Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
                                        I've given this some thought and, unfortunately though unsurprisingly, keep coming back to Chuck Berry. Hammersmith Odeon 1975. Played forty minutes on the button — which I'm sure was what his contract specified — he even quit in the middle of a song. Phoning it in doesn't even begin to describe his performance.
                                        My mum was a big Everly Brothers fan and I am too due to the five hour, three cassette car journeys of childhood. She violently took against them though after attending a 1980s show in the same vein as Amor's Chuck Berry experience. Apparently Don & Phil also met the contractual minimum to the second, with the added bonus that, because they weren't on very good terms at the time, they came on from opposite sides of the stage and didn't speak to or look at each other for the short duration of the show.

                                        I'm not sure that this was entirely unusual for '50s acts at the time. A lot of them felt financially ill-treated and had grown used to presenting their music in a bastardised light entertainment version. Audiences suffered accordingly. Rick Rubin's rehabilitation of Johnny Cash was a real game changer in that respect and fans as well as artists benefitted hugely from it.

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                                          #21
                                          Good thread.

                                          Agree with Hobbes on Ian Broudie, very weak voice live.

                                          However, the Everlys did a good show when I saw them (about 1985) as also Berry on his late-period visit to Wembley Arena (1994-ish). If I'd known Benjm and his mother at the time might have blagged backstage access- apart from the recent story about the brother who dated Bryan Ferry's ex, didn't another relative go out with Sir Nodwald?

                                          According to Don, the brothers' mutual dislike extended back to their teenage years and had little to do with the callousness of the light ents industry at the time. "It's because that asshole always votes Republican"

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                                            #22
                                            Originally posted by Duncan Gardner View Post
                                            ...didn't another relative go out with Sir Nodwald?
                                            Just a friend of the family, DG; I can't claim any blood ties to the great man!

                                            She's not the only person we know at home who can make this proud boast. Unlikely as it may seem, NH seems to have been quite the object of desire in '60s Walsall.

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                                              #23
                                              Bangin' Man.

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                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                                                Bangin' Man.
                                                Shhhhh, don't tell Margaret!

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                                                  #25
                                                  I’ve waxed lyrical on another thread about Roxy Music. And although aurally they sound(ed) fine live, Ferry’s excruciatingly bad Dad Dancing always made me cringe.

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