Have You Ever Walked Out Of A Concert ?

Fingers657

I saw Steve Via in the Frank Zappa band and he was really good.
Im not a fan of his solo stuff.

Woodandwires

Only two memorable really, Stevie Wonder in Hannover mid eighties, he was very late coming on and just awful, most memorable part was one of the backing singers did a solo.
Fleetwood Mac last gig of a world tour I think in the old Manchester City ground, it was one of the first times without Lindsey Buckingham, Rick Vito on guitar, Stevie Nicks looked coked off her face. Only one with any interest was Christine McVie good rest her soul.

springhead

Robert Cray. Twice! Early 90’s.  No interaction with the audience. Just wanted to play the songs off whatever the current album was rather than any older stuff.  Very dull.  

Funkfingers

Grumpyrocker said:

Closest I came to walking out …

AdamBat said:

No but absolutely should have done …   

I often wish that I had left early from a Rolling Stones show at the old Wembley Stadium in 1982. 

Second on the bill, the J. Geils Band, were drab, riding on the success of their one hit, Centrefold. 

By far, the best thing on the bill was opening act, Black Uhuru featuring Sly & Robbie. 

M1ck

Only once - a Pink Floyd tribute band local to me called Shine On promoted as being endorsed by Dave Gilmour no less, turns out it was probably PR BS or they were having a shit night (it happens). I doubt DG ever endorsed them but I’m happy to be proven wrong. The sound from the very start was ropey and far too loud - painfully loud for me, and I’ve been to some loud gigs over the years, by the end of the first half it was no better so we left having given them a fair chance to sort themselves out. The irony is individually they are all very talented musicians - they let themselves down that night for sure! 

SimonC

I walked out of Michael Schenker in the early 80's at Sheffield City Hall.
We'd seen him earlier in the afternoon wasted and basically being carried into the venue so the writing was on the wall.
He came onstage during the support act (Vandenberg as I remember) and started monkeying around throwing drinks etc. 
When he finally came on to play he was clearly still wasted and could hardly stand let alone play. I stayed for half an hour or so out of morbid fascination then left feeling cheated.

I'd also seen him at Sheffield Poly a year or so earlier when he sacked a similarly inebriated Graham Bonnet onstage.
I never seemed to have much luck with Schenker - still love him though.

Headphones

mrkb said:

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? 

Sounds about right.

You should have waved!

ewal

Manic Street Preachers at King Tuts in Glasgow. It was when they were pretending to be a punk band.

TTBZ

I would have left QOTSA in November early if I wasn't with my mates. The new stuff is so boring.

chromatuna

Porcupine Tree around the time of Stupid Dream at the Scala in Kings Cross, my friends and I left at the set break. No discernible passion or energy coming from the stage, just boring.

Hawkwind Porchester Hall 2009, 40th anniversary gig. Big fan back in the day when they had energy and rough edges but this was Dave Brock collecting his pension at the Post Office dull.

BillDL

I had to leave a Jimmy Barnes concert early because the acoustics in the venue were terrible and his voice was dreadful as he forcefully screeched his way through every song with far too many of his signature throaty grunts thrown in.  In fairness it was a last minute change of venue and perhaps he had screwed his voice at sound checks trying to get the acoustics right in a bad choice of venue, but it was deafening despite not actually being too loud.

boogieman

WYNIR0 said:

Nearly walked out of Gary Moore at Folkstone Lees cliff hall. 1st half where he was playing 'Greeny' was plodding and dull, was about to walk out when he swapped to his fiesta red strat his playing came alive, so I stayed.

I saw Gary Moore once, think it might’ve been The Forum or Hammersmith Odeon, around the time Still Got the Blues was released whatever. He was in a really shitty mood right from the start and wasn’t playing well (for him). Somebody started heckling him, he got really stroppy and started swearing at the audience. He did calm down eventually but it was still a pretty crap gig. 

The only gig I’ve actually walked out of though was Whitesnake at Hammy Odeon. It was so loud you could only hear mush, and the bass drum actually hurt my chest every time the guy kicked it. I’d gone with a friend as she was a massive fan but even she hated it, so we went and got a drink in the bar. The sound was a bit better out there, although I later discovered the best sound was in the gents bogs where you could finally make out what tracks the band were actually playing. I did wonder if the sound guy at Hammersmith was stone deaf as I saw Jeff Beck there around the same era and the mix then was ridiculously loud too. 

RocknRollDave

boogieman said:

WYNIR0 said:

Nearly walked out of Gary Moore at Folkstone Lees cliff hall. 1st half where he was playing 'Greeny' was plodding and dull, was about to walk out when he swapped to his fiesta red strat his playing came alive, so I stayed.

I saw Gary Moore once, think it might’ve been The Forum or Hammersmith Odeon, around the time Still Got the Blues was released whatever. He was in a really shitty mood right from the start and wasn’t playing well (for him). Somebody started heckling him, he got really stroppy and started swearing at the audience. He did calm down eventually but it was still a pretty crap gig. 

I saw Gary Moore twice, nearer to the end of his life (last couple of Blues tours, IIRC) and him swearing at hecklers was pretty standard. He wasn’t slow in dropping the C-bomb if someone dared to cheer louder for a song off Still Got..than for his newer material.
Also, RIDICULOUSLY loud guitar. Absolutely no need for cranked 100w Marshalls at Wolverhampton Civic Hall. The sound guy put in a valiant effort, but there was no way of balancing the sound out against the sheer volume of the guitar without everything being unbearably loud.

Grangousier

I originally thought not since the deathly dull Hugh Masekela in 1985, but then remembered a few years ago going to see the KPM All-Stars at the British Library. The KPM All-Stars were a bunch of musicians and composers playing music they'd done in the 1960s and 1970s for the KPM music library, centring on Alan Hawkshaw. So Grange Hill, Grandstand, Dave Allen At Large, that sort of thing. Lots of fun, most of the time. The British Library thought it was a bit of a lark to have concerts in their foyer, so. 

Problem was that unless you were very tall or you got there early enough to get a place on the stairs you couldn't see anything and the acoustic was so bad (because it was designed to be the entrance hall to a library rather than a venue) that you couldn't really hear anything either. 

I bet the organisers thought it was a fabulous evening. Bloody hipsters with their bright ideas. It's amazing how few of the people who organise gigs actually take the audience's experience into account. Standing gigs are thought to be exciting or something, but unless you're at least six foot four or right at the front they're just uncomfortably straining to see the band with people pushing past you carrying armfulls of plastic glasses full of fizzy, overpriced lager. 

Anyway, we went home during the interval, it was such a dispiriting affair. Hawkshaw's dead now, so it won't happen again. 

Philly_Q

RocknRollDave said:

boogieman said:

WYNIR0 said:

Nearly walked out of Gary Moore at Folkstone Lees cliff hall. 1st half where he was playing 'Greeny' was plodding and dull, was about to walk out when he swapped to his fiesta red strat his playing came alive, so I stayed.

I saw Gary Moore once, think it might’ve been The Forum or Hammersmith Odeon, around the time Still Got the Blues was released whatever. He was in a really shitty mood right from the start and wasn’t playing well (for him). Somebody started heckling him, he got really stroppy and started swearing at the audience. He did calm down eventually but it was still a pretty crap gig. 

I saw Gary Moore twice, nearer to the end of his life (last couple of Blues tours, IIRC) and him swearing at hecklers was pretty standard. He wasn’t slow in dropping the C-bomb if someone dared to cheer louder for a song off Still Got..than for his newer material.
Also, RIDICULOUSLY loud guitar. Absolutely no need for cranked 100w Marshalls at Wolverhampton Civic Hall. The sound guy put in a valiant effort, but there was no way of balancing the sound out against the sheer volume of the guitar without everything being unbearably loud.

It seemed such a big surprise when Gary Moore died, but he was pretty fucked up towards the end of his life, by the sounds of it.  Whether that was the booze, or just his personality, I don't know. 

The nearest I've personally seen was Michael Schenker during his wilderness years.  Once when he was completely off his face during a support set at the Hammersmith Apollo, and another time on a G3 tour where he was going through a phase of dyeing his hair and beard black and wearing sunglasses.  Nothing went wrong on the latter occasion, he just wasn't very good (as I recall it).

fretmeister

Walter Trout at the Stables in Milton Keynes about 15 years ago.

I went with @Paul_C .

Ollie Brown was the opening act and he was very good for a young chap.

Trout was the loudest act I’ve ever seen, including all the metal gigs I’ve been to.

The volume was beyond stupid. We left in the first song and I’m glad we did. The SPL was close to vomit inducing levels. It was painful just to be in there.

The people who stayed absolutely got some permanent hearing damage that night.

Even outside the double doors to the room it was still too loud for conversation. We ended up having a drink in the bar about 30 metres from the closed main doors to the room. 

fretmeister

Page & Plant. Wembley Arena in about 1998 ish.

Sound was good, and Plant was in very good voice, but there was so much dry ice smoke that it was getting hard to breathe in some places. My wife was really struggling so we left.

Can’t remember who the support was though. 

gusman2x

Walked out of Sunn O)) last week. Managed just over an hour, but it was just too monotonous, and horrifically loud. I had to put some tissue in behind my earplugs!

CaseOfAce

Philly_Q said:

RocknRollDave said:

boogieman said:

WYNIR0 said:

Nearly walked out of Gary Moore at Folkstone Lees cliff hall. 1st half where he was playing 'Greeny' was plodding and dull, was about to walk out when he swapped to his fiesta red strat his playing came alive, so I stayed.

I saw Gary Moore once, think it might’ve been The Forum or Hammersmith Odeon, around the time Still Got the Blues was released whatever. He was in a really shitty mood right from the start and wasn’t playing well (for him). Somebody started heckling him, he got really stroppy and started swearing at the audience. He did calm down eventually but it was still a pretty crap gig. 

I saw Gary Moore twice, nearer to the end of his life (last couple of Blues tours, IIRC) and him swearing at hecklers was pretty standard. He wasn’t slow in dropping the C-bomb if someone dared to cheer louder for a song off Still Got..than for his newer material.
Also, RIDICULOUSLY loud guitar. Absolutely no need for cranked 100w Marshalls at Wolverhampton Civic Hall. The sound guy put in a valiant effort, but there was no way of balancing the sound out against the sheer volume of the guitar without everything being unbearably loud.

It seemed such a big surprise when Gary Moore died, but he was pretty fucked up towards the end of his life, by the sounds of it.  Whether that was the booze, or just his personality, I don't know. 

The nearest I've personally seen was Michael Schenker during his wilderness years.  Once when he was completely off his face during a support set at the Hammersmith Apollo, and another time on a G3 tour where he was going through a phase of dyeing his hair and beard black and wearing sunglasses.  Nothing went wrong on the latter occasion, he just wasn't very good (as I recall it).

I'm sure I've read somewhere that Gary Moore was backstage at one gig punching the walls due to the bad tinnitus he had - which could account for the behaviour.
I saw him at the local aircraft hanger supporting BB King and the volume wasn't extreme.. .but then we weren't in front of those Marshalls!

Only gig I've ever left midway was Bonamassa in the 90s? I was just bored with the blues noodling and lack of songs... It was me not him - just not my bag. Saw him with Black Country Communion at the last Hammersmith Odeon gig they did and that was a different story. How does Glenn Hughes still bring it at that age?!

Reverend

Grumpyrocker said:

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. 

with zombie and Fireball Ministry?