I assume you're talking of who are the Dream Theater fans? I'm one, but I'm a lot less of one that I was years ago. Now I seem to check out their new stuff out of curiosity, have fun for a couple weeks listening to guys show off, then get bored and put it away for long periods of time.

The Country Teasers opening for Wesley Willis. Nothing like a trio of obnoxious asswads desperately trying to be schizophrenic and retarded when the real deal is struggling with existence a few feet away.

Frog Eyes backing Destroyer, SXSW '03, 45 Degrees.

It's probably a good idea to rehearse before you take stage. Bejar was in fine cocksmooch-form hardly acknowledging the audience and forgetting the words to his precious Stray Blues. Frog Eyes held up there end of the bargain, but Bejar wanted to play distant. I'm a fan and I was sick to my stomach. Lost respect for the guy. And I continue to buy his music.

i just thought about it and i could start up an all hip-hop version of this thread and pretty much fill it myself. first stop: funkdoobiest.

Hands down, Badly Drawn Boy in '01. Three hours of complete tourture. To make it worse, it was my birthday and my friend had bought the tickets for us. I didn't want to leave and seem ungrateful to her (the whole gift horse thing) and she didn't want to leave because she thought we'd be spoiling my birthday. So we silently and uncomfortably endured that talentless knob chain smoking, pounding vodka and almost fighting an audience member when he wasn't playing bland, tuneless alterna-folk. Horrible.

Only other thing that comes close was Marilyn Manson in '99. I got tix when it was a co-headliner w/ Hole, who soon dropped off but no refunds were offered. Had fun w/ Nashville Pussy as the opener. Then wonderful Brian came out, we got bored and left after 35 minutes.

I am a fan because I like their jams. As a teen boy growing up listening to Rush, Yes, Metallica, Etc, it was easy to make a transition to DT. I don't like their singer, James LaBrie. Too much of a wanker singer for me, but their chops are amazing, and Mike Portnoy is a cool/uber-talented drummer.

Sadly, no. On a side note, the guy on fire ended up being carried out on a stretcher, if that makes the show sound any lamer.

oh shit i guess that Denali show where the dude next to me was crushed by crment chunks of roof would have to be on this list as well. i wonder if i could find my review of that night around CMJ somewhere. That night was probably the hardest i've ever laughed in my life. not at the crushed guy.

It just seems strange to me that Metallica would continue the dangerous pyrotechnics after Hetfield went up in flames in '91 or whatever.

GIMME FUEL GIMME FIRE

The Cult. Hands down the worst performance I've ever seen.

Red House Painters @ Double Door - went with my brother and a few friends. Only slow songs were played, and every freaking song was SLOOOOOOOOOOWED down to an unbearable speed. Lyrics were forgotten, and Mark Kozelek actually had to teach his hired guns how to play a few songs as they were playing them. It was probably 95 degrees in there, and definitely packed. My friends took off, and my brother (also my ride) wandered off to some unknown area. By the time I tracked him down and fought through the crowd, RHP had already been on stage for 3 hours and 20 minutes without stopping.

Elliot Smith @ The Riv (Katie was there) - one of his last pre-death shows. I don't think he made it through more than 3 songs.

Smashing Pumpkins, Lollapalooza in Vegas. Billy's voice absolutely sucks live and that pretty much ruined their whole set for me. Plus I was pretty drained from standing in 100 degree heat all day. I did see The Frogs on the 2nd stage earlier in the day and I really didn't know any of their stuff but they were pretty entertaining. I saw Flaming Lips headlining the 2nd stage too.

Incubus. Mr. Bungle opened up and System Of A Down was headlining so I had to sit through their boring set. Lowlight: The lead singer playing an extended djembe solo.

Hot Hot Heat. It may have been the fault of the guy at the mixing board but the guitar was too loud and the lead vocals/keyboards were too low. I was still pretty bored after the 2nd song.

blood brothers

Gene Loves Jezebel -- we went for the opening band (Nine Inch Nails on their first ever tour of Pretty Hate Machine), and left about 25 minutes in, when we realized they had played like several songs, but we couldn't tell one from another. (At least, I think it was GLJ.)

Bob Mould. By & large, he only played stuff from the "Dog And Pony Show" & self-titled albums. It was one of the most boring nites of my life...I couldn't wait for that show to end.

Oooh yeah, good one, Darrin -- what a disappointment that was. Equally as bad as Mars Volta at The Wiltern last year. Walked out of that show too. Sold out show, people going mental over them and I just sat there wondering, "when is this torture going to be over with?".

I'd say The Strokes -- twice. The first was at the Gypsy Tea Room in Dallas. Someone recognized that their set list was in the same order as their record, and started calling out the names of the songs before they started the next one. That lead singer of theirs, Fabio, decided it would probably throw the guy off if they just started at the END of the record and worked their way backwards, but, didn't work.

The second worst was when they played Riverfest in Nashville a couple of years ago. Fabio got drunk and pissed off the stage into the river. Most of the people I was with (i.e. - the concert promoters) weren't very pleased. . .

0 for 2.

Trevor

i remember hearing about that. idiots.

For what it's worth Fabio's not the lead singer, but i agree that they sucked ass when i saw them too but in a more general malaise sort of way.

Fiery Furnaces, deff.

Good god that was tedious. One continuous jam of their songs with no breaks. Everthing just sounded the same after awhile. I was ready to blow my head off by the end of it.

Without question the worst show ever, for me, was The Cure at some club in San Francisco I can't remember in '78 or '79. It was one of their first appearances in America and maybe not even a tour. Just a few dates here and there. Anyway, the show was promoted by KFJC, the best college radio in the S.F. Bay Area. All the radio station kids were there. This was expected to be an "event". About 30 minutes into the show we left the hall and were in a bar on the other side of the building shooting pool with the DJ's. There was nothing good about this show at all. The videos they showed for 20 minutes prior to the band coming out were bad. The sound was bad, Robert was bad, the songs were bad. The whole crowd just kind of stood there with their mouths open and then slowly shuffled out. Bad, bad, bad. Despite the goodness of their subsequent studio work I never got over that experiaence and have never embraced The Cure. You only get one chance to make a first impression.

Two other really bad shows of note:
Living Color and Kings X at the San Jose Civic - so loud it made me nauseous
Throbbing Gristle at Kezar Pavilion 1981 - So much noise - so few ears.

I saw this tour when it hit Atlanta, and luckily I was able to step outside during Incubus and then get back up front for SoaD. Our low point: when the idiot lead singer from SoaD threw his mic stand into the crowd and nailed one of my friends in the head. He was wearing a white shirt that got stained pretty much solid red from his own blood.

Other bad ones:

Conor Oberst solo (around '99 or 2000). Oh fuck, I don't even know where to begin. I'm not a Bright Eyes hater, and I've heard that they put on good shows as a band. This was horrendous, though.

Phil Elvrum (Microphones) solo (last year). I was commenting to my friends on how ridiculously precious the opening act Woelv was, but she was nothing. Elvrum takes the cake in the preciousness category, even over Oberst. He played a bunch of 10 sec to 1 min long, half-written song fragments, stopping and doing a silly little fairy-nymph curtsy after each one. My girlfriend kept nodding off and making feel like an asshole for dragging her out to see that crap. Of course a couple of my friends thought the show was "brilliant". WTF

I actually enjoyed Wolf Eyes (their noise is tuneless not "structureless"), but one of the "bands" I saw open for them was far and away the worst performance I've ever seen. They're a local duo called Wilson + Heath, and each one of their shows is a different piece of "performance art". To their credit, I've heard they never do the same thing twice. Anyway the sound consisted of some miked amps that created a continuous pulsing noise pattern. The two dudes sat on opposite sides of an urn throwing stuff around and into the urn and sort of bobbing up and down. One dude started breaking eggs and shit over his head and into the urn while the other guy gradually took off all of his clothes. I swear this went on for like an hour. After this band and the total amorphous noise group that followed them (Rubber-O-Cement), Wolf Eyes seemed pretty friendly and straightforward (and much more fun to watch).

For me it was the cat power show i went to over a year ago. The openning act was white magic, who were the worst two musicians i've ever seen. their act was just random moaning into a microphone over disorganized piano and guitar notes, not even chords. they didn't have well formed songs, the singing was off key, what few notes they were playing were not played well, i felt pretty robbed.

Then cat power stumbles onto the stage in an drunken haze, with her band (who i feel really sorry for) in tow. she began to play pretty well, then the whole self conscious thing reared its ugly head and refused to leave. Most of her songs were false starts or completely aborted, with a lot of self deprication interspersed. in the middle of her last song she just walked off stage into the middle of the crowd got down on her hands and knees with her microphone and finished the song there. I was stunned that a show could go that badly for someone who writes very good music. i don't think i'll ever see something that disappointing again

When I saw the title of this thread I opened it soley for the purpose of telling the world how bad U.S. Maple are/were. I too saw them open for Pavement (at the Fillmore) but instead of stopping after a song or two, they played 6-7 songs...or numbers, it's hard to call them songs. Most annoying was the obviously arrogant singer who was terribly in love with himself (not alone a disqualifying characteristic...c.f. Dylan, Mick, indeed Malkmus himself). But he squealed like a stuck pig...and shook his ass (fat....very fat) like a sex symbol... pulled his hair, stamped 40 years of seeing rock music live, nothing comes even remotely close to how bad they are/were.