I Want My Money Back

tkitna

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Fleetwood Mac in the early 90's Pittsburgh Civic Arena. Talk about a show in which a band 'Phoned It In'. Nobody seemed like they wanted to be there. No energy at all. Take that and the fact that they sounded horrible and only played for about 45 minutes,,,,yeah, I would have liked something back on that one.
 

Magic

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I don't think I've had a pleasant experience from the few general admission shows I've ever atended

Me either!!


I think sometimes the Venue can dictate whether the concert experience will suck or not. Around here we have a venue called "Riverbend".....Jimmy Buffett plays there every year. This place is terrible! Sure it is a pristine outdoor amphitheater on the Ohio River, but the parking is awful, traffic control is bad (the road leading to it is a 2 way street), it is miles from the city (or anything for that matter), and the sound / view is terrible (especially for folks in the back and on the grass{which is fake grass}). Crowd control isn't the best, either, especially in the grass areas.


People are packed into this venue like cattle.........I refuse to ever attend another concert at Riverbend!!!
 

LG

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I've only ever attended one "general admission" concert, at the Kinsmen Fieldhouse when the Clash played.

Worst venue in Edmonton for sound quality, but that's OK we knew that when we bought out tickets. It's the only concert I went to where the fans rushed the stage, which had a security fence around it. After the first song "London Calling" finished Joe Strummer stopped everything and told the fans to "Back the F*** Off!", because quite a few were being squeezed against the fence. His commanding presence got the attention of the idiots who were causing the problem and everything calmed down afterward.

I sort of expected something like that when a band like The Clash played, but other than a few cuts and bruises nobody was seriously injured and the show went on without a hitch.

Would never go to another general admission concert after that one though.:nw:
 

Big Ears

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Early Motorhead - Lemmy threw a cigarette end into the audience when they came onstage and the dreadful sound was our cue to leave. I was a Lemmy with Hawkwind or Bob Calvert fan, so I was very disappointed.

The reformed King Crimson should have repaid the cost of tickets and travelling to all fans who expected 21st Century Schizoid Man and Court of the Crimson King (most of the audience). I will never forgive them.

The Enid began by telling the audience they would not know a silk purse from a sow's ear. We all did and walked out.

Mott went from the sublime, in the early days, to the ridiculous just before they split. Nigel Benjamin sprayed the audience with a fire extinguisher or a soda fountain or both (I can't remember, so I must have been there!).

Boomtown Rats copied Dr Feelgood badly as support for Tom Petty. We stayed in the bar until Petty appeared. I admire Geldof for what he's done over the years, but musically he is not my cup of tea.

Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers were overrated and we walked out on them and sold our passouts to queueing fans for the ticket price.

I expected (Ian Dury and) the Blockheads with Wilco Johnson to be very tight, but Dury swore at the audience and Wilco was in the background, so they were just dull.

I loved The Who live, even without Keith Moon. They were worth every penny as were so many other great bands. Best value - George Hatcher Band who rocked and gave 110 percent for hours.
 

Lynch

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Another general admission concert that I had a semi-bad experience at was an open-air concert with Bad Company opening up for Damn Yankees back in 1990 (Holy Water tour) Damn Yankees were fantastic.

Bad Co was fine and dandy, as good as you could expect with Brian Howe on vocals, however the idiot running the soundboard(s) had Mick's guitars turned down so low, there were points in songs that you couldn't hardly hear the guitar at all. It took until they only had 2 or 3 songs left before someone pulled their head out of their ass and cranked up Mick's guitar(s). The show itself was good, but I was very disappointed in missing most of that very important aspect of the band.
 

Khor1255

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Early Motorhead - Lemmy threw a cigarette end into the audience when they came onstage and the dreadful sound was our cue to leave. I was a Lemmy with Hawkwind or Bob Calvert fan, so I was very disappointed.
It's funny, but my brother walked out on them in a very small club back in the early 80s. This was mostly due to him being dissilusioned with metal in general but he did say they were like a bad bar band and actually stopped in the middle of a song and restarted so....

The reformed King Crimson should have repaid the cost of tickets and travelling to all fans who expected 21st Century Schizoid Man and Court of the Crimson King (most of the audience). I will never forgive them.
I guess I was 'lucky' in the sense that I was never fully exposed to Crimson until the 80s. I vividly remember some of the early stuff I heard and it always played in the back of my head but I didn't even know who it was until I was old enough to seek different bands out for myself. We saw Talas (withh Billy Sheehan) play Schizoid every show and they did a bang up job. It was one of the things that got our crowd interested in Crimso. I never had enough money to see many shows and by the time I was fully into Crimson (thanks to the pre Belew albums) the Three of a Perfect Pair tour was finished. I haven't liked anything beyond that album. It's not bad music it just doesn't capture my attention at all.
 

Sox

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Big Country about '86 ... I swapped an Alice Cooper Ticket with a mate cos I couldn't get off work. He assured me Big Country were good ... I spent most of the night at the bar.
 

Big Ears

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The Crossing (1983) is a good album, but they headed for Los Angeles soon after and things went wrong. Admittedly, the album does have an eighties production. Members of the band have worked with Pete townshend over the years.
 

Vehicle

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Pretty short list for me...the only concert I felt cheated attending was "The Cars" on the Panorama support tour.

Ditto. In hindsight, their material isn't really conducive for stretching or improvising on stage. Back then, I thought I could have stayed home and listened to the albums to save money. I just didn't get the vibe or the energy too.


The hat trick.

I saw The Cars, not sure of the year, but it was over 25 years ago. No only did they look completely disinterested, the sound was muddy.

But the topper was....no David Robinson (drum machine I'm guessing) and no Elliot Easton (either Greg Hawkes took a stab at it on keys, or they just played through where the solo should have been.)

No explanation, apology, nothing.

Adding the ultimate insult to injury, they only played maybe 40 minutes.

Other than that, I saw Heart, and the sound was horrible. There was a low end vibration throughout that actually started to hurt my ears.
 

GySgtFTL

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Aerosmith 1977. Tyler was so stoned he couldn't remember the words and his voice was terrible. Perry's playing was equally terrible. Hard drugs are bad. FWIW I had seen them prior to that and they were great. I have seen them twice more since then and they again were great. Just shows what getting clean can do for ones abilities.
 

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