Have you ever "booed" a band at a live show?

Y&T...remember them?



They had the MTV hit video for the song "Summertime Girls" that was like an hour of Baywatch compressed into 3 minutes.

Believe it or not, they opened for Peter Gabriel on his first solo tour after leaving Genesis. Saw the show in San Francisco. "Summertime Girls" wouldn't be released for another 8 years. What you got was a lot of songs like "Alcohol"...basically lead singer / guitarist Dave Meniketti stomping around the stage like a friggin' yeti shouting "al-ka-hawwwwwlll...al-ka-hawwwwwlll...al-ka-hawwwwwlll..."

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this was the wrong band to open for Peter Gabriel. To my knowledge, Genesis never did songs about "al-ka-hawwwwwlll"...God, did the audience HATE these guys from the first note to the last.



Got boring after the first "alcohol." They got a lot of "boos," were essentially booed off the stage...people were screaming "Play Sloop John B!!!"...and they came back for an unrequested encore. That, my friends, is either cojones or stupidity. Maybe both. A stupid band with cojones.

So...the worst concert you ever saw...let's have it. SHARE those details, dammit. It could be a great band that went bad, a bad band that got better later, or an act that was just having a bad night.

PS: If you think you're really missing something, "Alcohol" was on their first album (when they called themselves "Yesterday and Today):



And if a fan somehow reads this and would like to worship them from afar, here is the "official" web site: http://www.meniketti.com/

...go there to learn more about the antics of "Dave Meniketti on searing lead guitar & vocals"...

:evilgrin:

I was saying Boo-urns....

...the Rolling Stones.."

Burns: "I KNOW THAT!!!!!"

set so that they would leave the stage.

My first big L.A. rock concert, when I was a college freshman in 1983, was The Police. It was kind of a mini-festival, with three opening acts, the best of which was Berlin. I can't remember one of the two others, but The Fixx also was playing -- remember them? People all around me were booing and, at one point, someone threw a shoe at the band!

You know what they say....one thing leads to another.

The Thompson Twins also played at the show I was at, at the Tacoma Dome. :D

That rings a bell...

I can't believe that was nearly 21 years ago. You may be a "flamingyouth," but I sure don't feel like one! :-)

Oh well. x(

Even if i thought they sucked. I've been in a few bands and out of respect i'd never do what i wouldn't want done to me on stage.

My first husband was a live and studio engineer, so I knew what even a mediocre band went through to prepare.

I remember once a venue decided it would be clever to hire a local standup comic to open for Todd Rundgren, back in the '80s. I was in the balcony at the venue, and I wouldn't have been nasty to anybody who had the guts to get up and open for Todd (Todd's crowds are notoriously tough on opening acts). The people on the floor threw ice, plastic beer cups and still burning cigarette butts at the guy, whistled through his routine and generally abused him. To his credit, he lasted about ten minutes before he gave up.

I wasn't there, but a friend told me that Marillion got booed rather badly in Cincinnati when they were touring as an opener for Rush back around 1983. Glad I didn't see it -- I rather liked Marillion in that era.

I used to write for a local music magazine, and when I was at shows, musicians would always come up and ask me what I thought of their band. I never, ever told a band that they sucked--even though many of them did--and I also never lied to a band. I would find creative ways to avoid answering the question--and fortunately, nobody ever noticed. (It helped that everyone was drinking/stoned/partying or whatever.) :-)

performing live, especially having to open for someone, isn't the Gong Show. Even if someone's music isn't my taste, it's damn hard to make it in the music business. I would never boo someone for giving it their best shot.

Hell,we almost rushed the stage to bodily remove the MC Five from the stage so that Johny Winters could go on.

MC5 has always been a favorite of rock critics...I never did a "temperature test" on their fans, though...

But I agree, they don't belong on a bill with Peter Gabriel--way too different.

...and the "scenery" from the Summertime Girls video. That's it.

It was the song "Alcohol" that really, really, really made the audience turn on them. After that song, it was a case of "get out the life rafts, this ship is goin' DOWN."

:evilgrin:

the band was late(apparently bus trouble in Indiana), and johnette was so f'in drunk that she couldn't even stand up...the band started playing, and had to start the same song over 3 times because johnette kept missing her mark...and when she finally did start singing, she forgot the words after half a line...they didn't even last 20 minutes on stage before they mercifully called it off.

no money back tho'. naturally.

it was the most pathetic non-show i've ever seen.

I love Concrete Blonde. I saw them years ago and they were fine.

they're supposed to be touring this year, too.
I think their fist album is sheer brilliance.

And completely sucking. I also yelled out "Get off the fucking stage" but I doubt they heard it.

Opened for Van Halen.

Van Halen crowd got restless halfway through opening act.

I actually think he's pretty good, but I saw him get booed when he opened for Bob Dylan. This was before "Love and Theft" which did have a couple songs that sounded like they came from the big band era.

It was an odd combination. The Setzer fans came in zoot suits and left before Dylan started. When Brian played a string of 50's cover songs he made a joke about playing a song he wrote and a Dylan fan heckled him and suggested he try playing just one original song he wrote. He got a lot of boos. I'm not sure who put those two together but it didn't seem to work.

Setzer is a great guitarist and very versatile.... but Bob Dylan and him? Damn.

but after seeing him play I was very impressed with his skills on guitar. Still, that wasn't enough for many in the crowd.

Would have been about 1990. They actually had a lot in common at that point guitar-niose wise, but the Young fans booed Sonic Youth mercilessly.

saw them at a club where the outdoor patio was directly behind the stage, and there was a window in the wall that separated the two. A friend and I went to the effort to tap on the window between songs to flip off the singer. To his credit, he took it in stride, and flipped us off right back.

Usually, if I don't like a band, I make a point to clap when the singer announces, "Okay, this is our last song."

they ran thier set time over almost a half hour, cutting 1/4 of Me First and the Gimme Gimmes time. Imagine those untalented asses infringing on Fat Mikes stage time.

John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman, Yoko Ono
But only when Yoko wailed. We threw quarters.

The rest was one for the ages.

what a bunch of babies...

Most recently, I booed As I Lay Dying when they played in Cleveland on Wednesday.

But before that, I booed Justin Timberlake when he played with the Rolling Stones at SARS-stock. I also booed the Guess Who at that same show, as well as Rush for putting on such a lousy stage show.

I've booed most all of my friend's bands as a joke, too.

I actually liked some of his music, still like some of it (just recently saw for the first time "Rock Star" with Jennifer Anniston and the scene with her in the club with "Stranglehold" playing was hot).

But Ted played lousily through the whole set and then set his guitar up against a speaker making feedback (not creative feedback mind you, just a shrill piercing no-talent ear-hurting wail). And then he left the stage for about five minutes. I wasn't the only one booing.