Have You Ever Walked Out Of A Concert ?

ALR

Sesh said:

Back in 95? I went to see Pulp. They were great, but I did the usual pre gig pint and went in to see the warm up act, Minty. After about 2 minutes, me and the other chap I was with went, "Nah," and went for another pint. 

Wow you saw Minty? Did you see Leigh Bowery give birth to his wife?

Strat54

Gassage said:

Yes.
Everything But The Girl - horrendous.

I also literally fell asleep at Kylie.

So you can tell people you slept with Kylie....

MartinBush

Left an Ash gig early because it was so loud and going on forever. The sound was better outside the venue...

Also left a Bobby Conn gig as that one was also going on forever. 

Sesh

ALR said:had 

Sesh said:

Back in 95? I went to see Pulp. They were great, but I did the usual pre gig pint and went in to see the warm up act, Minty. After about 2 minutes, me and the other chap I was with went, "Nah," and went for another pint. 

Wow you saw Minty? Did you see Leigh Bowery give birth to his wife?

Had to look him up... 
No, it seems he was dead by then. This was the residual band riding on the back of some song that went, "nice to see you, wouldn't want to be you," being sung by Alan Carr. 

scrumhalf

MartinBush said:

Left an Ash gig early because it was so loud and going on forever. The sound was better outside the venue...

Also left a Bobby Conn gig as that one was also going on forever. 

I'm trying to remember which gig it was where the awful sound was so much better in the lavs.

jdgm

1980 (I think).  The Rainbow Theatre Finsbury Park.

Weather Report in what turned out to be the last tour with Jaco Pastorius.

I was a HUGE fan of WR.  But by that time the shows had become 40 mins of the new stuff, then about an hour of interminable solo spots from each band member and finally 30 minutes of 'greatest hits'.  It wasn't what it had been, even 4 years previously.

Pastorius started his usual monumental bass solo.  There was a clock over one of the exits and I noted the start time.  Half-an-hour later (NO exaggeration at all) he was still going and receiving a slow handclap from the audience.  Like quite a few others, I got up and left. 

That was the last time I saw Weather Report.  I was furious with Jaco Pastorius for - as I saw it - sabotaging my favourite band. Anyway he left, and they recovered to some extent by getting Victor Bailey and the great Omar Hakkim. 

A year or more later I happened to be driving up Charing X Road and, where it meets Tottenham Court Road, there is/was a theatre on the right.  The words 'Weather Report' were up there in big letters.  I thought about it, remembered all those times I'd sat through all those bloody solos and decided not to bother buying a ticket.

I've wished I had that decision to make again since, but I don't - nobody does.

I've walked out of plenty of gigs in my time but that is the one I remember most.

ewal

ICBM said:

barnstorm said:

Makes me feel less like an old man to know that lots of you also hate how stupidly, unnecessarily loud many gigs are.

I remember NPR doing a piece at least 10 years ago suggesting most people wanted the volume turned down, and yet…

“If it’s too loud, you’re too old”… no, the levels at a lot of modern gigs are far beyond just being a bit too rock’n’roll for the over-50s - way beyond exhilarating and into uncomfortable and even dangerous, and often at the expense of a good mix too since the sources which are easiest to amplify to extreme levels are not usually the ones you want to hear most of. (ie not the vocals.)

The last time I saw Mogwai was like that. There was just this mass of lower mids swamping everything else. I did wonder what any of the guys on stage would think, if they heard what the audience was being subjected to. I love the sheer power of Mogwai's music which is totally lost when it is extremely loud....

lustycourtier

MartinBush said:

Left an Ash gig early because it was so loud and going on forever. The sound was better outside the venue...

Also left a Bobby Conn gig as that one was also going on forever. 

Wow Bobby Conn! Hes ace but such a massive back catalogue, I can imagine

Grumpyrocker

Reverend said:

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?

No Tribulation followed by All Them Witches.

I actually like Tribulation but their sound guy really screwed them over. 

jaymenon

Toto live at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo London in June 2011 (and I had travelled 200 miles just to see them)

Great band - but the acoustics were really terrible - and the sound swirled around uncontrollably.

Jfingers

I rarely go to loud gigs these days, favouring acoustic duos where I can sit down. The Cramps used to be pretty loud,

@Paul_C although you walked out because they were bad, Crass were more than just a band...

snowblind

SimonC said:

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.

I saw the H'smith Odeon leg of that tour. Most interesting thing about it was seeing Vandenberg go A over E over one of the monitors whilst walking backwards during one of his solos. To his credit he did keep it going as he went down. Don't recall anything about MSG's set and I wasn't even drunk. Resulting memories were about the same as if I had left early. Nothing inspiring for sure. I do recall a story from around that time about Bonnett dragging some bloke with a guitar out from behind the stacks and yelling, "This is the guy who plays the bits the german can't". 

Fair to say the 1980s were not kind to a lot of musicians.

Paul_C

Jfingers said:

I rarely go to loud gigs these days, favouring acoustic duos where I can sit down. The Cramps used to be pretty loud,

@Paul_C although you walked out because they were bad, Crass were more than just a band...

True, I do have Bloody Revolutions and Stations of the Crass on vinyl. Live was not better than the record in this case.

Philly_Q

snowblind said:
I do recall a story from around that time about Bonnett dragging some bloke with a guitar out from behind the stacks and yelling, "This is the guy who plays the bits the german can't". 

Steve Casey, the offstage rhythm guitar playing roadie.  That was the same show Bonnet got his cock out and got sacked.

MartinBush

lustycourtier said:

MartinBush said:

Left an Ash gig early because it was so loud and going on forever. The sound was better outside the venue...

Also left a Bobby Conn gig as that one was also going on forever. 

Wow Bobby Conn! Hes ace but such a massive back catalogue, I can imagine

I am delighted someone else has heard of him! 

jim_cross

I walked out of Joe Bonamassa at RAH - right up in the gods the sound was so awful that I could distinguish guitar from vocals from sax - it was just a mess

goldtop

Red Hot Chili Peppers at Brixton (Academy, I presume) in the early '90s.

So much for recommendations from a life-long music buddy.  

Hootsmon

last song on Night of the Guitar tour with Leslie West/Steve Howe/Guys from Wishbone Ash/and a host of others jammin'

on stage for the last song encore Johnny B Goode

10 guys trying tae out volume each other was too much for me and I left early

snowblind

Hootsmon said:

last song on Night of the Guitar tour with Leslie West/Steve Howe/Guys from Wishbone Ash/and a host of others jammin'

on stage for the last song encore Johnny B Goode

10 guys trying tae out volume each other was too much for me and I left early

Went to one of those at Kentish Town back in 1980-something or other?  Leslie West making a big deal out of playing a headless guitar. My mates GF at the time worked for Polygram who were running the gigs.  Sat in a box with Mick Fleetwood and co in the next box along. Can't recall the exact date but if memory serves (what little is left of it) it would have been this lot.

Reverend

Nirvana at Reading 1992. Left after a couple of songs to catch the train. The general consensus is that they were pretty poor that day so not a great loss