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There's so many to choose from, I would take a crappy local band in a pub over a shit major label band in a big venue any day. At least the local band aren't getting paid loads of money for sucking, and I can go get a nice pint of beer whilst they do.
In no particular order:
Susanna and the Magical Orchestra/ Jamie Liddell, Manchester Halle Concert Hall, 2005. I was stewarding at a festival and I got free tickets, and it was an ordeal to stay til the end. Both acts utterly turgid and soulless cack.
The Darkness, Stoke on Trent Sugarmill, 2003. Just rubbish. The guy I went with just went oh my god, kurt died for nothing. Which is weird cos he was about 45. Sorta knew what he meant though.
Galway Festival 1998, Pulp, Cornershop, Beastie Boys, Garbage. This wasn't bad because of the bands, but I was on holiday with my dad, and not being into 'loud music' he dropped me off on my own in a football field on the outskirts of Galway filled with about 5000 irish students getting progressively drunkerer and drunkerer and more blarney with it. There were about 3 food stalls and 2 stalls selling strange neo pagan/Catholic/Wiccan trinkets.
I watched most of the bands queuing up in the beer line which stretched the length of the pitch, or queuing in the toilet line, to have a piss in what resembled and probably was a pig run. The Beastie Boys were pretty good as I remember, didnt know many of their songs then, Cornershop were inoffensive. It got dark before Pulp came on and I got a bus back early cos I was bricking it, was bitterly disappointed to miss my only chance ever to see them, walked in the B+B to find my dad listening to the entire concert on the local radio who informed me it hadn't finished yet. Garbage lived up to their name.
V2001 Festival. I stewarded, it rained, the bogs leaked, RHCP and Nellie Furtado, nuff said.
Aphex Twin at ATP, 2002, dull as ditchwater.
Blur, Birmingham Arena, 2000, Awful Sound, lacklustre greatest hits performance, odious psycho fan scum crowd, got a pint of beer tipped down my neck in 30 seconds, grown men were trampling teenage girls screaming in agony underfoot to get a foot closer to Damon Albarn. He seemed to really enjoy this spectacle.
VVM at Birmingham Supersonic 2003. Guys dress in plastic pigs masks, one plays vague laptop noise, the other stomps about and yowls (sort of reminds me of some other 'legendary' noise band, yawn). Everyone carries on with their conversations. After 10 minutes Stompy says 'Right, we're only doing one more, then we're fuckin off, cos yers all reet boring basteds int yuh?' People's conversations are simply too fascinating for them to care.
There's loads more, but think I've said enough. I think I've learned that gigs you pay to go to are generally better than ones you sneak into, especially if you're not familiar with the act. Oh, and the only one that was a headlining gig and not a festival of these was the Darkness, so I guess they must be the fuckin worst! Oh, no I missed Blur, they are the shitness too.
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