Worst concert flops & disappointments: Local Spins readers vent (Top ’24 Stories Countdown)

Our readers responded in droves in July when recalling their biggest live music disappointments (sloppy sets, horrible sound, nasty fans). It ended up at No. 19 in our top-stories-of-the-year countdown.

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Our July 10 post featuring comments about fans’ worst concert experiences got lots of attention. But on the flip side, Local Spins wants to know: WHAT WAS THE BEST CONCERT YOU SAW IN 2024 AND WHAT WERE THE YEAR’S BEST ALBUMS? Email info@localspins.com by Dec. 10 with “2024’s BEST” in the message field, include your name and your response, and you’ll be placed in a drawing for a Local Spins gift pack.

Sometimes, it happens when fans least expect it, and it happens more often than many performers at pricey concerts would care to admit.

Anticipation soars high for concertgoers attending shows by high-profile acts, so when things go badly — or even miserably — the letdowns and disappointments remain fresh in the memory for a very long time.

As one veteran of the concert scene put it: “The list is long.”

Local Spins readers responded in droves when asked about their most disappointing concert experiences ever: sloppy and lackluster performances, horrendous sound quality, rude fans, unrelenting rain, tardy start times, ridiculously short sets, on-stage tirades, you name it and it’s happened.

And these disappointments involve some of the biggest, most legendary names in the business: Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Mötley Crüe, Janet Jackson, Al Green, The Who, The Rolling Stones and many others.

Heck, my first rock concert ever — Todd Rundgren at Grand Valley State College’s domed fieldhouse — was a bitter disappointment because I found it to be an overly loud and unintelligible blast of cacophony that didn’t include any of my favorite songs at the time. Luckily, my second-ever rock concert (Peter Frampton at the same venue) was the complete opposite and cemented my love of live music.

I’ve seen literally thousands of shows since, so inevitably, there have been plenty of other duds to clutter my memory banks involving some of the aforementioned stars.

What were your biggest disappointments? Add your tale of woe to the comments section below.

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CONCERT DISAPPOINTMENTS: Local Spins Readers Vent

Mehgan Bechtel – Janet Jackson. Maybe because Tricia Boot and I had just seen Beyonce and she was singing and dancing her a$$ off in comparison, but I feel like she really phoned it in and seemed to be lip syncing the whole time.

John Matthes – Jimmy Page with “The Firm” on the first album tour. Wings Stadium. I have to assume he was not well at the time.

Mark DeWitt – The Who at Van Andel. They phoned it in and the Symphony was flat.

Alex Gonzalez – Warren Haynes’ “Dark Side of the Moon” show. Lamest performance of the Floyd masterpiece I’ve heard. Band must’ve gone past their bedtime.

Nicholas James Thomasma – Ray LaMontagne at Meijer Gardens

Michael Packer – Patti Smith. Showed up 3 hours late, was drunk on her ass and had to hold herself up by hanging on to the microphone stand. She was a disgrace.

Kathy Grinsteiner – Motley Crue

Kevin Lyons – Bob Dylan … again and again

AJ Tarachanowicz – Christone Kingfish Ingram at the Pyramid Scheme

John Crissman – Susan Tedeschi at FMG. Some fervent fans were begging for “Rock Me Right”, the song that made her famous, and her response was, “That song again? I’ll play that when there’s peace in the middle east.” She certainly could have been more appreciative of the people responsible for her success!

Jim Bayes – Black Crowes in ‘95. They were too high and refused to play anything from their first album. It was a tedious jam band show and we walked during their fourth song, which was a half hour into their set.

Dave Adams – Tommy James and the Shondells. They played at DeVos Performance Hall with the Grass Roots opening who were great. Tommy must have thought he was playing at the Van Andel because it was ear piercing loud and physically painful to the ear drums. I had to walk out to the foyer in order to enjoy it.

James Shotwell – What year did Motley Crue kick off their tour at Van Andel and ended up stopping 3x for technical issues? That’s the winner.

Mike Ensing – Rolling Stones at the Pontiac Silverdome December 1981 (2nd of 2) – crowd treated opener Iggy Pop horribly, 2nd act Santana outshone the Stones who came out 2 hours later and had no energy. We left during “Satisfaction.” I should add they were terrific in East Lansing several years later.

Steve E. Dee – Brian Jonestown Massacre at Elevation last September. Ugh.

Greg S. Lewis – Elvis Costello at Interlochen last year. Sound mix was surprisingly awful except in the first few rows . By the end of the night there were more folks in the concourse listening than inside since it was at least audible out there.

Dan Hildebrandt – Jeff Tweedy at the Ann Arbor Folk fest.

Kate Krieger Watkins – Ryan Adams in Kalamazoo, probably like 2006, when he played like 4 songs then got mad and left.

Scott VanderSchel – Hall & Oates. Daryl just phoned it in when he sang at all.

Tricia Boot – Ray LaMontagne at FMG. Not to say I was overly eager, but I was looking forward to it and certainly had higher expectations than “massive temper tantrum.” (That said, it did provide fodder for one of my favorite Local Spins reviews.)

Holly Spencer – Black Sabbath, bc we didn’t realize that Ozzy wasn’t going to be there. There was ice on the floor and it was cold in the stadium. Lackluster performance. Wings Stadium.

John Bruni – Rolling Stones, Steel Wheels tour in Philly: pretty much a rote performance (except for a cutting-loose version of “2000 Light Years From Home”).

Mike Dodge – Aerosmith in 1985 Back in the Saddle/Done With Mirrors tour, the Toxic Twin were horrible. Ted Nugent 1981, Intensity in 10 Cities tour (we weren’t expecting it to be very good, but it was so bad we walked out). The Eagles at Van Andel a few years ago, other than “The Joe Walsh Show” at the end of the show, the rest of it was like a band of Joe Biden’s wandering the stage, there was a good 2-3 minutes between each tune.

Justin Stover – Damien Rice. Loved his first album. Saw him in concert and it was the single worst show I’ve seen. Ruined the album for me.

Sam Wildey – Linda Ronstadt when she was promoting her Canciones de mi padre album. We were hoping to hear a LOT more of her hits, too. She only sang a couple at the end. Still love her though!

Michael A McLaughlin – Probably maybe when a fan trying to sneak in fell from the ceiling in the old Seattle Coliseum about three songs into The Kinks first set. He walked away, as did the folks he fell on, but house lights came on and that was that.

Karen Corazza Kirchenbauer – Van Morrison about six years ago at Caesars Palace/Vegas. He still remains one of my favorite artists BUT NO interaction at all with the audience. Very disconnected, and we were very disappointed.

Randy Becker – Dave Matthews at Pine Knob about 5 years ago. Don’t play any of his hits.

Adam J. Smallman – Styx at Van Andel a few years ago. It was so incredibly bass heavy my eyesight was vibrating and I couldn’t hear anything else on stage. Left early cause I got a headache. REO Speedwagon was wayyyyyyyy better, and so was Loverboy!

Rick Wilson – Wishbone Ash, mid 70’s at GVSU. Wasn’t their fault, but the sound system blew up, smoke coming from the PA’s.

Don Clapham – Steely Dan at Pine Knob in the late ’90s. I’m a huge Steely Dan fan and they hadn’t toured in many years, so I was super excited when they made Pine Knob one of their tour dates. The concert was a mess. Walter Becker was totally out of it and basically just stood there for the entire show. Donald Fagan tried to carry the load, but his voice was off that night. To make matters worse, the band was out of sync and the crowd was a drunken mess. Overall, a big disappointment, however, I still love Steely Dan and always will!

Sylvia Brooks Taylor – Al Green at Meijer Gardens…30-40 minutes for way too much money!

Nicholas James Thomasma – I remember when the NIN show at the Deltaplex was cut short due to a fan hitting Trent Reznor in the face with a shoe or a zippo or something. He pushed the keyboard over and walked off stage and then the lights came on. Boom. Show was over. I ain’t mad at the band but it was disappointing!

Vanessa Clark – Willie Nelson at Interlochen. He was playing so sloppily and he was barely singing. It was really sad. Counting Crows: they played all their hits right at the beginning and changed their tempos, making them impossible to follow/sing along. You could feel the disappointment grow during “Mr Jones.”

Isaac Powrie – Flaming Lips

Ben Erhart – Saw Todd Rundgren open a show for Daryl Hall, he sounded like an old man singing songs in a key he wasn’t meant to sing in.

Jennifer Alexander – Filter at the Orbit Room decades ago. The singer was too smacked out to perform [although he tried].

Lee Chase – Leon Russell played at a small club somewhere on S. Division about 20 years ago. The PA was painfully loud. I mean, painfully loud. The sound guy was oblivious to our repeated pleas to turn it down. I really wanted to see Leon but we had to leave.

William Hahs – This is going back a ways, but the last one I was really disappointed in was UFO fronting for J Geils. UFO was absolutely awful so awful. People literally went out to the lobby till they were done. Probably a very bad choice of opening acts as they are pretty much diametrically opposed.

Meegan Holland – An odd choice, but Woody Allen with his Dixieland band at the Carlisle in New York City. He never once looked at the audience, never once said a word. It’s in a cabaret setting, for crying out loud, so the whole point is to engage with the audience! But of course later we all found out what an asshole is.

Tracy Lorenz – Prince. Unless you like fifteen-minute improvised guitar solos EVERY SONG! I don’t think he played one song start to finish.

Bob Starkie – Aerosmith in late 70’s, stumbling around stage and drugged out.

Daniel W Dawe – Most recently Ryan Adams and the Cardinals. The guitar jams got old as did disappearing in the fog. It was cool the first song, but not getting to watch the guitar playing got old.

Hals Smedstad – Willie Nelson at Outlaw Fest last summer. He’s a great dude but he is getting so old. Honestly I was just crying most of the time because it took me a minute to realize he wasn’t touring in that condition because he HAD to but because he WANTED to. He was really falling apart and he just wanted to be, and still is, on the road – probably planning to till the day he dies. The music was not good, but it was really emotional & spiritual almost in a lot of ways. Either way, just not what I was expecting at all.

Dan Terpstra – 1) Morrissey of course for cancelled gigs; 2) The Dandy Warhols for a terrible mix, lighting, and performance.

Jess Ay Yo – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at House of Blues Chicago in 2016.

Stephen Aldrich – Will say it again, Dylan pops up here more than once. The present Bob Dylan released his debut album, Love And Theft in 2001. At this point there is no looking back, and if you want an act that cranks out versions of the hits, faithful to the original records, you have come to the wrong place. Bob is much like a Jazz artist in the last 23 years, nothing is quite the same on any given nite. And for those who can’t recognize the songs he’s playing, it might be a good idea to familiarize yourself with his albums of this century, all of which are among his finest work, and you might enjoy his shows so much more, as I do.

John Olszewski – Back in the ’70s, I went to Lowell Showboat to see REO Speedwagon, Blue Oyster Cult, Salem Witchcraft and four other bands. It rained all day we sat around on bleachers and only REO played and one other low level band. I really wanted to see Blue Öyster Cult. We saw their equipment. They packed it back up after it started raining again.

Anthony Plumstead – Los Lobos is a band I always liked. Having said that, I didn’t think they sounded very good at Meijer Gardens a few weeks ago. The guitars had $#!+y tone, and they were way TOO LOUD. I stuffed a paper towel in my ears, then I could here what they were doing a little better. It was disappinting because I am a fan. Little Feat sounded great.

Sarah Fairbanks Keen – Right off the bat, I am going to say Bob Dylan at Van Andel in 2012. I had front row. Mark Knopfler opened and he was amazing. But, I had stood up and leaned against the guard rail front of the stage and the couple sitting to our right went and got a security guard and asked him to tell me to sit down because they couldn’t see. The security guard came and told me I was in their way and I was like, “Are you kidding me?!” It turned into this heated argument between me, the security guard and the other couple and I kept telling them, “You can’t dictate what happens around you at a concert.” Then, when Dylan came out, he sat at his piano almost the whole show and there were huge monitors hiding him from my view. I barely saw him at all – and I was front row. He didn’t sound good, being able to hear him without seeing him was not a consolation. And the couple who reported me to security, when Dylan took the stage they blasted past me and my husband and stood in the dead center of front row in front of the people who paid to sit there. I couldn’t believe it. No one reported them, though.

Brandon Ward – I got free tix to go see The Black Keys at Van Andel a few years back. Modest Mouse opened for them and they (MM) were horrible. It sounded like they were playing two different songs simultaneously for most of their set. I was disappointed as I was actually a bit more familiar with them compared to the headliner.

Ron Clause – Oh, the list is long…

Andrew Ogrodzinski – Grateful Dead at Deer Creek in 1995, not because of the band, but the locals who crashed the gates and started a riot. It was a two day event. House lights were left on during the first night and the second night was cancelled.

Anna Sink – Kings of Leon

Wendy Reed -STP at the Delta Plex. Cage the Elephant opened and sounded amazing. STP sounded as if they didn’t bother to sound check at all (and you HAD to in that space because the acoustics got weird in there.) I feel like I heard all of the words to the songs, but that may have just been because I knew the lyrics? But any of the talking in between was completely incoherent. (Granted, who knows what state Scott Weiland was in when he was on stage, so that could have been part of it.)

David Marin – David Bowie and Nine inch Nails. NIN opened with lots of lights and smoke and dissonance. When mercifully their set was up – still in darkness with flashing and stage smoke – Bowie walked on and joined them for another hour of the same bullshit cacophony. Palace of Auburn Hills. Waste of gas and time even if tickets were comped.

Ryan Hipp – Stereolab at the Reptile House in, I don’t know, 1998? 2001? Something broke so they paused the show to literally drive to Best Buy or Radio Shack to get a part. I left after an hour and I guess people stayed, and they were back up and running like 2 hours later, but I had already left.

Kathy Zamarron-Bresnahan – Bob Dylan at 5/3rd Ballpark was unintelligible. Awful concert. Plus our bank card was hacked!
Paul Michael Magnan – Bob Dylan

Jeff Martin – I wasn’t excited about seeing him as such, but I’d heard good things – John Gorka opening for Richard Thompson at the Pinnacle Center in Hudsonville, circa 2002 was just bland, boring, utterly forgettable. RT, of course, was brilliant.

Laurie Lacross-Wright – Willie Nelson at Clio Amphitheater, early 2000s. He was an hour late getting on stage and was so stoned his band couldn’t follow him as he changed chords in odd places and jumped around on songs. We left after 30 minutes but he was making major bank selling $50 weed-themed T-shirts. People were buying them by the armload.

Rene Nicholas – Stone Temple Pilots, 2014-ish. Way too loud, way too screechy, I left after 2 songs. However, I’ll forever be grateful I went to that concert because the opening band was Rival Sons and I became an instant fan that night.

David Bauman – Bob Dylan. Four out of 5 concerts were 2 thumbs up, but that one time in Kzoo that he performed none of his recognizable songs.

Mark Landauer – On a lark, my buddy and I went to then Wings Stadium in KZoo to see the Scorpions in the “Rock u like a Hurricane” days. I wasn’t a super fan by any means but I thought what the heck… There wasn’t one hit that they played that remotely resembled anything that I heard on the radio. Didn’t recognize anything..even after they announced it. I must have stood there looking puzzled the whole time. At the end of the show they made a human pyramid as a photo op. Total shlock. What a waste of 90 minutes I’ll never get back.

Matt Plichta – I’ve been to an inordinate amount of shows and I always find something to keep me interested unless the volume is unbearable (RUSH in Chicago and Living Color at The Orbit Room). Not by fault of the band but by fault of the FOH.

Lar Fitzgerald – It’s a tie, Country Joe & the Fish, or Foghat, Slowride was sooo boring.

Rick Wylie – Little Feat at State Theatre, was really looking forward to it. The sound was so bad we left half way through and listened to the CD on the way home.

Craig Carrick – I’m not a fan, but my wife loved Meatloaf and we seen him the first time and he was great. Really solid show and he seemed to love his audience and performing. He seemed like a cool guy. But the second time we seen him he was pissy and vulgar and his show was just horrible. He seemed like he didn’t like the audience and the show sucked.

Julie Bernat Swanson – A fan was a jerk at Ani DiFranco concert at 20 Monroe. She walked on stage, and before a single note, said jerk yells,”Tell us a joke!” We all cringed at him. But, Ani used it. Here’s the joke she told; A UPS delivery guy knocked on a door. A kid, about ten yrs old, answers in a negligee, smoking a cigar. The man halts a bit then asks “Are your parents home?” Kid replays,”What do you think?” Jokes are good ,”freebird” fans are not.

Andrew Rossi – The Flaming Lips never truly disappoint, but have become a bit lackluster post “Clouds Taste Metallic” era. Steven Drozd drumming alone could be everything you need to see. He went ape and Wayne would frazzle dazzle.

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