Have You Ever Walked Out Of A Concert ?

DesVegas

Doves at Cambridge Corn Exchange. Love their songs Cedar Room, Here it Comes etc but they were just so very dull and didn't play anything of any interest. My friends and I all agreed and left them to it after six or so songs

joeW

Ashamed to admit I left a Wayne Shorter concert early about 10 years ago.  I honestly had no clue what was happening at all - in fact not sure the musicians had much of an idea.  I can take a-tonal harmony but when it’s a-rhythmic as well it’s just painful.  See no evil is still one of my favourite albums …

Grumpyrocker

Closest I came to walking out was Ghost at Cardiff in 2019.

It was my youngest son's (10) first gig and the sound from the first support band was just ear-splitting white noise. Even with ear protectors my son was in tears. And I told him genuinely we could leave. He decided to stick it out a bit with my ear buds under his ear defenders.

Thankfully the second support's sound wasn't as awful, and Ghost had the best sound I've ever heard at the gig. By Ghost's second song he had the ear defenders off and was singing along. And he described it as the best night ever. 

snowblind

Got thrown out of a Motley Crue gig at Hammersmith once. Went with a mate who was the Crue fan. I only went because Cheap Trick were supporting. Some girls in the crowd near us started chucking stuff onto the people in the stalls below us. When security turned up they pointed at my mate and said "It was him!". Bouncers weren't listening to any protests so out we went. It was only him they wanted to eject but I went anyway because you stick with your mates and because Crue were so bleedin' awful.

oh_pollo

I've actually walked out of a gig before I've walked in. Was going to see Godspeed You! Black Emperor and had just passed the security at the entrance when the person in front me power vomited Exorcist style all over the swing doors leading to the hall. It seemed never ending. I turned on my heal and left.

Headphones

Left an Aerosmith gig at the NEC.

Having tolerated the awful, atonal dirge that Steve Vai did as the support (including Guitar smash), we expected better of the headliners...  The sound was so poor that we could not tell one song from another.  At one point they tried to get a sing along going... but no one could tell to what...  Gave it half an hour though.

THe NEC doesn't have the best acoustics, but this was an entirely different level of awful.  Give me a teenager's first band in a youth club over that any day!

drofluf

Walked out of a the Low Anthem; I liked the first couple of albums but they then went very experimental and the gig even more so and it was unlistenable. 

TheBigDipper

Loads. But i terms of big artists, just one. David Bowie at Milton Keynes Bowl (Glass Spider tour). Dull, going through the motions and not engaging. The support that night was The Beat - their farewell gig in fact. Total contrast in terms of commitment and passion. What a loss! 

munckee

Went with missus munckee and some friends to see Bon Jovi who I don’t really like, I spent the second half of the gig sitting in a security booth watching a football match. 

Also we went to Country to Country a few times and we left during Carrie underwood because her voice was so screechy it was painful on the ears. 

thecolourbox

mrkb said:

thecolourbox said:

I think we left before the encore when we went to see Jake Bugg at the o2 in Brum. The sound was fine but it was a very dull concert. Plus the Mrs must not have actually wanted to go (after I'd bought the tickets) as she made us late for no real reason so I was already in a mood anyway, so I just couldn't be bothered to wait till the end

Jake Bugg was the support for the Gallagher Squire tour recently. I’d never heard of him before but was surprised he’d headlined tours. sounded like a modern George Formby impersonator and I’m sure he played Postman Pat at one point during the set.

Haha yes I know what you mean. Thankfully when I went he'd played Lightning Bolt quite early on (and I think Two Fingers?) so there wasn't really anything else to look forward to haha his voice is a bit annoying after a while

Kurtis

I've staggered out of a few. 

Jez6345789

Think I have posted this before but Dylan at Brixton Academy was certainly one that sticks in my mind. I know it can be hard to get Dylan on a good night but him mumbling into a too far away microphone and the band struggling to have any idea of where he was going most of the time. The guitarist and drummer played fixated on where his hands were going to go next and the drummer looking for cue to wrap it up. I think I managed about an hour and maybe it got better but for that 60 mins he just rambled and mumbled songs most new and from the way the band played them written on the fly.

anyway won’t be going back for more.

BillDL

I got dragged along to a Wet Wet Wet concert by my fiancée and her sister in Glasgow when they were at the height of their popularity, but I had to pretend I needed the toilet just to get out for half an hour.  I'm tempted to say it's because the mix was so Dry Dry Dry, but the sound was OK.  I just got fed up looking at that grinning Pellow fellow swaggering around the stage like a fanny with about 8 coils of microphone cable up at his face in the hand holding the mic.  Graeme Duffin's guitar playing really was pretty good though.

AdamBat

 No, but absolutely should have done… we saw Tim Vine on his “Plastic Elvis” tour. We’d been to see him a couple of years prior and enjoyed it so thought, why not go again? “Plastic Elvis” is just a quirky name a comedian would give to their tour, right? WRONG! We got inside the Alexander in Birmingham and saw the stage was set up with instruments… odd right? Nope, the show was Tim Vine doing a musical performance impersonating Elvis Presley… no jokes, just a half-baked, sub-par show. Needless to say that a good number of people left, we stayed under the hope that there’d be some jokes later on. Nope, all a great waste of money and time

HAL9000

Clapton. It was either late seventies or early eighties so quite likely he was off his head on alcohol or coke (or both). Awful. Seen him several times since and has always been excellent.

ICBM

scrumhalf said:

Steve Vai at, I think, Hammy Odeon. It was just noise.

I found he was much better with earplugs. I saw him in Glasgow a couple of years ago - he was insanely, painfully loud and it was just a wash of noise. I lasted about thirty seconds and went for the earplugs, which made the mix far better as well. I enjoyed it after that, but thought he could have played more of the quieter more melodic and interesting songs.

theatreanchor said:

Swans was the last one I walked out of. 

Not the last, but I did too - earplugs weren't enough, it was the crushing pain in my chest from the vibration as well. I went to the bar above the venue where they were still very clearly audible, and the mix was again better...

I left a Roy Harper gig because the mix was so atrocious it was unlistenable - scratchy harsh electro-acoustic guitar and muddy inaudible vocals at the same time. Absolutely pointless.

mrkb

Headphones said:

Left an Aerosmith gig at the NEC.

Having tolerated the awful, atonal dirge that Steve Vai did as the support (including Guitar smash), we expected better of the headliners...  The sound was so poor that we could not tell one song from another.  At one point they tried to get a sing along going... but no one could tell to what...  Gave it half an hour though.

THe NEC doesn't have the best acoustics, but this was an entirely different level of awful.  Give me a teenager's first band in a youth club over that any day!

I was at that gig! About 1992 ish? 

markblack

I left a Magic Numbers (remember them?) gig... SO dull. 

I also left a Parquet Courts gig as it was just a noisy shambles... 

Philly_Q

ICBM said:

scrumhalf said:

Steve Vai at, I think, Hammy Odeon. It was just noise.

I found he was much better with earplugs. I saw him in Glasgow a couple of years ago - he was insanely, painfully loud and it was just a wash of noise. I lasted about thirty seconds and went for the earplugs, which made the mix far better as well. I enjoyed it after that, but thought he could have played more of the quieter more melodic and interesting songs.

I don't think I've ever left a gig early, but seeing Judas Priest at the Hammersmith Apollo some years ago convinced me that earplugs were a good idea.  Nothing wrong with the music (at least I don't think so), but it was just too loud and it got to a point where my ears were too tired (I suppose) to distinguish the songs.  And my ears rang for days afterwards, which was scary.

Funnily enough, the most recent gig I went to was Judas Priest again, at Wembley Arena a couple of weeks ago. I didn't have earplugs but this time it wasn't so loud, thankfully.

Fingers657

ICBM said:

scrumhalf said:

Steve Vai at, I think, Hammy Odeon. It was just noise.

I found he was much better with earplugs. I saw him in Glasgow a couple of years ago - he was insanely, painfully loud and it was just a wash of noise. I lasted about thirty seconds and went for the earplugs, which made the mix far better as well. I enjoyed it after that, but thought he could have played more of the quieter more melodic and interesting songs.

theatreanchor said:

Swans was the last one I walked out of. 

Not the last, but I did too - earplugs weren't enough, it was the crushing pain in my chest from the vibration as well. I went to the bar above the venue where they were still very clearly audible, and the mix was again better...

I left a Roy Harper gig because the mix was so atrocious it was unlistenable - scratchy harsh electro-acoustic guitar and muddy inaudible vocals at the same time. Absolutely pointless.

I’ve always wanted to see Roy Harper.
Friends that have seen him on different tours over the years said he was really good.