Oh spot on. I went with friends to see Killer Queen, a tribute act, at the Nottingham Arena earlier this month. I hate the place as the acoustics are awful due to the fact it was designed to play ice hockey and not music!! Saw them on an 80's cruise before COVID struck and they were excellent, but almost wished I had not gone to the latest one...
I saw Depeche Mode in February 1982 at Canterbury Uni supported by Blancmange it is by some distance the worst gig I have been to. They didn't have much material basically played their first album (which I really liked at the time) at a Volume not dissimilar to that I could achieve in my bedroom! I seem to recall they played for about an hour a single encore (Gerry Marsdens I Like it) and they were gone. It was a good time for Uni gigs At Canterbury I had seen Duran Duran supported by Talk Talk just a few weeks earlier (TT were fantastic), but had also around the same time seen Elvis Costello, The Undertones and The Beat who were all so much more visually appealing than Depeche Mode who were just dull as a band though musically very accomplished. Going on to the O2 as venue I have only been once (to see Weller that's surprised you lol), it was awful the sound was poor, the seating vertigo inducing, and he just wasn't on it, apparently he hated it too and has not been back.
I saw Golden Earring at Dunstable civic hall just after Radar Love hit top of the charts , they played it at the start, middle and encore and inbetween some noodling Dutch prog/jazz, awful Another bad gig that stands out must be Nina Simone, I was over the moon to get tickets at Ronnie Scott's and paid a small fortune, she came onstage about 1.5 hrs late looking like she had been shopping in tesco as she had 2 carrier bags with her, she was wearing an old raincoat and didn't take it off , played a couple of numbers before having a row with her bass player then took offence with the audience calling us a bunch of arseholes and stormed off only to return when they booed to tell us to F off . But I can say that I saw one of the greats at least
I think I previously relayed the dreadful Santana gig in '78 at Stafford Bingley Hall, but one of the most disappointing gigs of all time has to be Steely Dan in '97 at Wembley. I was a big fan of their music back in the day but they had never toured the UK during that time. Don't know if it was the venue (wrong for their sound) or just the fact that their records were so over-produced that they could not replicate it live. Whatever it was, the gig was ****e and a fan was lost!
I was at the same gig , terrible seats terrible lacklustre music and to top it all I had a verbal with Bill Oddie in the toilets as he tried to jump the queue , he raised himself to his full 5' 1" gave it the " I'm a star and in a hurry to get away" the rest out the queue gave him a send off of Goody Goody yum yum Santana at the same venue when they released Caravanserai was without doubt one of the best gigs of my life and still one of my top 10 albums
Santana band albums feature in my top 30 certainly. A pal actually bought me an original vinyl of 'Santana' this Xmas. Abraxas, Inner Secrets and even Supernatural are great albums. However, the title track of his solo album 'Oneness' is in my top 10 instrumental pieces of music!
My worst gigs....? The Clash without Mick at Brixton Academy. The crowd weren't having it and Strummer knew he'd made one terrible ****ing mistake. Trying to intimidate the audience just made it much, much worse. Heartbreakingly awful. Prince at the O2. we had really good seats, centre stage in the lower tier. The Purple One turned up over an hour late, in a foul mood, sulked through a few obscure numbers, played some Beatles covers and ****ed off to leave the band to it, until they ran out of time and ****ed off to a crescendo of booing. Got stuck in the next door Underground station car park for nearly 2 hours. The Jam at wembley wasn't great. Their last but 1 gig in the UK and a real disappointment. Badly run and you could tell Paul'd preferred to be doing just about anything else. I'm sure there are others but these come instantly to mind.
Another terrible gig was Davey Graham, a bit obscure to a lot of people but he was one of the finest folk blues guitarist of the time, he did the usual for the time ,took too many of the wrong drugs and lost his marbles Many years later after a lot of therapy he made a comeback, I knew the gig was going to be a dud when the warm up act was his guitar tech who came on and started to play all of Davey Graham's most liked tracks, Graham came on late and started telling some very sad jokes , and playing a load of out of tune rubbish , fell off his stool and passed out , the road crew dragged him off stage and the girl who had been selling t shirts earlier tried to sing a song , l wrote to the venue demanding my money back and got it. Sadly Davey died not long after but I still play his early work and try to forget that gig
Have to concur with two of those being poor, although probably not my worst gigs as I've been to some really **** ones in my time! The thing is with both The Jam and The Clash, they were the only opportunity I got to see either of them so it's sort of that or nothing. I think consequently, they get a little bit of leeway, but The Clash gig especially was poor and goes to show just how important Mick was to the band! Incidentally, when I went to look for my tickets to those gigs I found my unused ticket for the first night of The Jam's stint at Wembley Arena that I'd picked up for a mate when I'd bought mine. He couldn't make it and I rather foolishly left it at home thinking I didn't need two. Touts, didn't know what they were back then! Anyway, wondering what the market would be for an unused ticket from their final tour these days? Probably not much I'd guess!
Mrs B's friend and The Damned tour manager, Joe De Lorenzo, has travelled to London at short notice saying... "Arriving London this evening! Until the 11th now I think! Lot’s cooking. Stay tuned:" If it could be considered to be bad, he'd definitely keep it quieter than this...so, very exciting stuff!
Found a link to the 'Oneness' track I mentioned. It's a slow burner, but I remember the first time I heard it on the radio in the car. I had to pull over and hear it out. Which seriously pissed off my four mates who I was transporting back to the pub after playing a Southern Amateur League match in Wimbledon!
That is a spooky coincidence, I was listening to 6 music a couple of days ago and heard this, a couple of clicks later had brought a vynyl copy on Ebay for a tenner , waiting for delivery
The title track remains an amazing piece of music. There are a couple of really naff tracks on the album, but there are 2 or 3 other classic Santana jazz fusion tomes. That **** Santana gig at Stafford was just around that time and I was really hoping to hear it live. Having just seen a couple of live videos from '78 I think I'm glad I just had the vinyl (and subsequently CD) option.
I found the Woodstock soul sacrifice track on YouTube I think that was the first time I had heard Santana , the local cinema used to show music or non mainstream films late Saturday nights, Woodstock, Monterrey pop, vanishing point , girl on a motorcycle, on any Sunday and easy rider , those come to mind
Happy Birthday Jimmy Page 80 today.......some say the best guitar riff ,certainly the most recognisable
In the early days of pub rock , who remembers this band, I saw them a few times in the Hope and Anchor and the Irish pub in Kilburn high road , black lion? Just past the station on the left heading towards marble arch
I'm too young for Pub Rock, especially its early days... However, your post put me in mind of this project, which Paul Gray was recalling last weekend... The lineup also includes former Damned keyboardist and Guitarist, Roman Jugg. Addendum: The poster of these fine treats is a mine of other delicious stuff and you can get lost in his content for some time. Enjoy!
