Yeah, sure, artists are definitely people first and foremost, but imagine this situation: you’ve been saving up your precious money and budgeting your limited finances to get a ticket to a concert of your favorite artist, getting your hopes up for a mind-blowing performance, only to find yourself mega disappointed with all of it. Yeah, it happens, and these brave Redditors have shared their experiences of the worst concerts they ever had the dubious pleasure of witnessing/enduring in this here Reddit thread. And if you also have experienced something similar to this, you’ll definitely feel seen and heard by these stories.
Right, so what could happen to make a concert into one of the worst concerts in history? First off, the artist’s tardiness. While starting the show, say, fifteen minutes or even half an hour late is quite the norm, some people had the pleasure of waiting for the show to begin for four friggin’ hours! That’s four friggin’ hours, my friends! And the reason for such tardiness? Well, in that particular case, the famous musician wanted to catch up with a basketball game. And that, dear fellows, is just terribly disrespectful to the fans. Other worst concert disasters became so because the star of the show was, frankly, inebriated out of their mind. Yeah, we get it; they are humans, and their lives are, in fact, harder than most of ours, but… Come on. And lastly, the band might have had zero rehearsals, were terribly amateur, or just entirely not what these Redditors expected. And although we can all agree that their experiences weren’t so enlightening, it sure is quite fun to read their stories.
Right-o, ready to take a look at the stories of the worst concerts these people have ever been to? Thankfully, they’ve shared it all on this AskReddit thread! And although all of these stories are exceptional, they’re in no particular order as of right now, so rank these worst band concerts ever as you’d like!
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"My brother's 5th grade band concert was just terrible. Absolute complete rubbish. I can't believe how amateur those kids were."
"I had the great displeasure of seeing Yoko Ono perform live. She was the closing act of a festival and I suspect they gave her that slot to clear out the park so they could start cleaning up. 20 min after she was supposed to go on she put on a video about how she had set up LEDs all over the world that blinked in random patterns and were apparently supposed to represent something about love. That lasted 20 or 30 min. Then she came on stage, started hitting a guitar with her earrings, then screaming wordlessly into a microphone while writhing on the ground. The crowd went from a few thousand people to a few dozen before she finished her first 'song.'"
Commenter said:
"50 Cent. We lived in a small Canadian town that was predominantly white and it was a big deal to a lot of people that he was coming. Show pretty much sold out.
Dude has four or five other rappers perform as opening acts and then a guy who looked like 50 Cent but didn't sound like him showed up and performed parts of songs for about 15 minutes and then walked off the stage. Literally 45 second parts of songs. It was amazing.
People speculated for months afterwards that it wasn't actually him and that he ran into issues at the border."
CahokiaGreatGeneral replied:
"Maybe that was 45 cent?"
Might not have been... Sly (of The Family Stone) did a face plant right out of the bus. Drunk. Stoned. Unconscious. We poured him back into the bus. One of his band mates took his place, no one noticed. They were also stoned.
GDBatDad said:
"Saw Blink 182 twice in two years. Set list was exactly the same, down to telling the exact same jokes about balls and stuff between the same songs.
Side note, in both cases I was there to see the other band they were playing with. Green day played a great show."
ciknay replied:
"Greenday are excellent performers in the purest form of the word. They play good music, know how to entertain a crowd and they do a lot of crowd interaction. They're just fun to experience."
I heard about this with The Offspring. I went to their concert last year. It was the first actual concert I've been to. Online, people were saying they played the same songs, except for the ones off their latest album from 2020, they always played. Still good music, but everything else sensory wise was too much. I'm surprised I didn't go blind from the lights and deaf. That was the first time I experienced not being able to hear my own voice but hearing everyone else's. I was already tired from working when I went and I just wanted to go home half way through. Apparently my city crowd was a "bit better than the last time" they came. Sorta an odd dig. But I heard Dexter Holland is a chill dude who was cool to the local restaurant staff. No hate on Dexter.
"I went to see some band called Future Islands in Brixton, London. My mate’s girlfriend loved them and off the back of her recommendation we got tickets an hour before the gig with no idea about the music.
The sound was crap, and I don’t know if it was the venue or the band themselves. I didn’t hear a single song that I thought was good and I found myself bored.
Later during a break I was outside in the smoking area enjoying a beer. Random dude comes up to me and asks me what I thought of the show. I told him honestly that I’d found it pretty crap and was looking forward to leaving once the show was finished. He looked at me a little oddly then walked away. Friend’s girlfriend comes up to me.
'Wow, I can’t believe you were chatting with Samuel. What were you talking about?'
Turns out he was the lead singer."
"Drake. It sure if he’s gotten better over the last 3 years. But paid 400$ for floor seats 40 rows back from the front at a sold out show in Vancouver and the production was quite disappointing. He’s featured in a lot of songs so he would just stop singing and the stadium would hear Rihanna sing her piece like it was on an iPod. He also didn’t have ANY guest performers with him. Most expensive and worst show I’ve been to."
Man, that's what you get for spending $400 on a garbage auto tune mumble rapper. That's on you.
cleanutility said:
"Amy Winehouse Brixton 2007 or 2008. She was shockingly bad, absolutely off her face bless her."
Commenter replied:
"It’s almost as if the warning signs were already there."
It's a shame, because there's no denying there was genuine talent there, but unfortunately, drugs and alcohol took their hold like they have done to so many others. :(
gardano said:
"The one where my brother was playing in the orchestra, and in the middle of a Mozart Symphony, the conductor had a heart attack and died onstage."
criostoirsullivan replied:
"I assume the 1st violin stepped over him and kept conducing, right?"
gardano replied:
"Oh man that would have been truly metal!"
as the resident classical musician here, i feel obligated to say something but… there’s just nothing to say 😢
"Hellogoodbye performed at my college in 2008. It's a liberal arts school in the middle of Pennsyltucky, and the band showed up drunk, kept saying our town was a sh*thole, and repeatedly tried to cut their hour-long set short. They left the stage with a half hour left in their set, and the school's concert committee had to physically push the band back onto the stage. They put zero effort into the show and I lost whatever respect I had for them after having listened to Shimmy Shimmy Quarter Turn thousands of times in high school.
There was a girl who lived on my hall and she and her boyfriend were huge Hellogoodbye fans. They were so excited for the show, her boyfriend came in from out of town, and they left so disappointed."
Purpledranksoxguy said:
"Snoop Dogg 2010 Took him 4 hours to come out because he was watching the Lakers-Celtics finals. Then when it ended we walked outside and people were getting tear gassed."
Bizmark_86 replied:
"He did the same sh*t in my town too. Saw his plane flying in. Black Lear jet going super slow, 2 hours after he was supposed to be performing. It was an outdoor show, so bylaw is 11 cutoff, with exceptions if course. Apparently he didn't hit the stage until 1 am. Did 3 songs and just left the venue. There was a riot, and bunch of fights, a couple stabbings and a bunch of damage to surrounding businesses.
We don't have many outdoor shows anymore. And a very strict 11 pm close."
"I saw Bob Dylan in 2007. About halfway through his set we realized he wasn't just playing new songs we didn't know. He was playing all of his old hits, and they were unrecognizable."
I witnessed the same thing. He played piano for the whole show. Didn't pick up a guitar. He'd be halfway through a song when I would recognize some lyrics and realize what song he was playing. They were all completely different arrangements. It was interesting but not that memorable. Honestly, I give the guy props. Even way back when he was getting boo'd off stages for playing an electric guitar, he just does what he wants and doesn't give a f**k what anyone thinks. There's something about that you have to respect.
"Panic at the Disco last summer. I went with my wife because I wanted to see Walk the Moon (who was great). Outdoor concert, pretty open, decent place.
So the lights go out for Panic to come out, and for the next hour or so all I heard was women screaming. It was like being at a Beatles concert in the 60's. I could barely hear the band playing, much less singing. At least they mostly shut up when they played Bohemian Rhapsody, which was pretty cool, but otherwise, it was a waste. If I had gone just to see them I would have been pissed."
I hate it when people scream at concerts as it just shows they have no respect for other people who want to hear the singers.
Commenter said:
"Matisyahu.
He just paced around the stage for the first half of the show, stopped the set at some point to shout at someone in the crowd for smoking some weed, and then sat down on a speaker to finish the rest of his show. Like, he literally just sat on the speaker until he left."
atlacamayeh replied:
"I didn’t expect to see this here! His was also my worst concert experience. He seemed totally drained and just kind of danced around for a bit then ended his set early. Felt pretty bad for the guy."
"Lets see. I spent over 200 dollars on tickets to see Metallica for their St. Anger tour. Godsmack opened. Crushed it. Metallica came on and honestly it was like they were filing their taxes. I don't know. The music sounded good but their energy was just nonexistent. Maybe it was just me but they got completely outclassed by their opening act. We ended up leaving early."
"Rage Against the Machine - Lollapalooza 1994 at FDR Park in Philly, they were one of the bands I was waiting to see, but instead of playing their set, they decided this was the stop on the tour where they were going to make a political statement and came out on stage naked with duct tape over their mouths and the letters PMRC on their chests (which made it all the more odd because no one even talked about the PMRC anymore in '94), and just stood there with their d*cks dangling in the warm summer breeze for 20 minutes while a single note of guitar feedback on sustain hummed the whole time. Then the feedback stopped, and they walked off-stage and that was their whole set."
It was actually 1993 at the JFK Stadium site. Zach had completely lost at the previous show in RI, so couldn't sing. Tool played right afterwards, and blew everybody away! 🤘
malleeman said:
"Showing my age here. The Beach Boys in Adelaide Australia (back in the 70s). Came on stage an hour late and the lot of them sounded absolutely horrible through the whole concert, those harmonies they were famous for were left back in the US.
I swear there must have been a lot of help when they created their albums, because live, they were terrible."
The Beach Boys records had the Wrecking Crew playing on them. They were a group of studio musicians that played on hundreds of different bands' recordings.
"I went to see Wu-Tang clan. Doors opened at 7, and I was there by 730. Show was supposed to start at 9. At 8 a DJ came on stage with his MacBook and played music 'to entertain us until the Wu is ready.' He played until almost 1am, and during this time he played six different versions of the song METHOD MAN."
"Slayer. Not cause the band sucked but because I was kicked in the b*tthole by a Native American guy with steel toed boots and a pony tail."
forestguy17 said:
"The one where I thought I was still young enough to go into the mosh pit and busted out both of my front teeth which ended up costing $3k to fix. (The band was Clutch.)"
Commenter replied:
"Losing teeth at a Clutch show kinda sounds like bucket list material though..."
"Smashmouth played a free outdoor concert 2 blocks from my house last summer. Just as I suspected they sounded absolutely terrible live. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Hoping they come back this summer."
"Madonna @ Murrayfield Scotland in 2012. She was late coming on which wasn’t the best start. She was bloody awful singing live. The tickets were stupidly expensive and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a sell out, there was loads of standing room left. She didn’t do an encore. Oh and the sound was terrible."
I don't think Madonna ever started a concert on time. It's kind of her thing. Bloody annoying.
"Saw cake and between sets they spent 30 min trying to give away a lemon tree. They did this by having the crowd try and guess what kind of tree it was and the acceptable answer was Myers Lemon took the crowd a long time to get there. It was a real energy killer."
I saw Cake in maybe 2002. They were late getting on stage which I'm guessing was due to alcohol. Lead singer was slurring the words. I don't think the beverage John was chugging in a paper bag was water.
smokesmagoats said:
"Morrissey at Coachella in 2009. He whined the entire time and dry hacked because one of the stalls served meat.
I had hitched a ride with a band that was trying to sneak in and I went a head and just bought my ticket. They soon gave up and texted me they were leaving. So I paid like over $100 to watch Morrissey gag and maybe ten minutes of Paul McCartney."
ConnieLingus24 replied:
"Yep, that sounds like Morrissey."
He supports PETA, the violent Animal Rights Militia, and during an interview with Simon Armitage in 2010, Morrissey said that "you can't help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies". He also compared the 2011 Norway attacks, where 77 people were murdered, to “what happens at McDonalds and KFC every day”… comparing the brutal murder of 77 people to fast-food companies that serve meat. What an utterly abhorrent human being he is.
"Metallica/Guns n Rose's tour, don't remember the year. They co-headlined and would switch who played first at the different shows. Body Count was the opener.
Body Count played a good show. Metallica came out and rocked it. Guns n Rose's came out about 2 hours after Metallica finished their set, drunk, out of tune and generally not into it. We left about 20 minutes into their set."
Was this at RFK in Washington, DC? I don't remember Body Count, but Metallica was there -and rocked it - and Guns N Roses didn't come on until about the time the Metro shuts down (around midnight I think). Mass exodus for people who took the metro. I was pi$$ed that I paid money for 4 tickets and didn't even get to see all of the concert. However, prices were different back then...I want to say it was the early 90's?
"Went to see The Aquabats opening for Madness in idunno like '98 or so? Those bands were both great, but the opener was a pop punk band I'd never heard of whose songs were really samey and whose banter was just cringe-inducing. 'This song is in honor of national blow job awareness day... ladies' and crap like that.
I've been bitter about the success of Blink 182 ever since."
I love the openers that literally no one has ever heard that are better than the headliners
"2004 - Nickelback / 3 Doors Down co-headliners @ Summerfest in Milwaukee.
Most of the crowd was there for 3 Doors Down, but Nickelback was the 'true' headliner. They came out late, had long rants in between songs, seemed genuinely disinterested in actually playing music, but that wasn't even the worst of it.
At one point towards the end of their massive 40 min. Set they started tossing FULL BEERS onto the audience. As I was in the first few rows, I did NOT appreciate getting doused in beer. The crowd immediately let them know how stupid that was and they played 1 or 2 more songs before hauling out of there."
"2011 - I was supposed to see Nas perform most of Illmatic + other hits in Tromsø, Northern Norway. It was EPIC! First time ever that a GOAT rapper visited my city outside of a festival. Ended up knocked out in the crowd, security helped me to the staffs wardrobe and tended to my almost broken nose while I heard 'If I Ruled The World' playing in the background. I was so drunk, so I had a good time nonetheless, but god damn it I wish I watched the whole concert in its entirety. The venue was pretty small too, so the energy in there was incredible.
F*ck. Now I'm in a bad mood. How stupid do you have to be to miss something like that!?!?! Bahhh."
"Childish Gambino, about 4-5 years ago. He sat on an amp the whole time and barely put the mic to his mouth. The whole set was about 20 minutes.
I feel like it was around this time he started publicly going through some mental health stuff, so it makes sense."
lordfreakingpenguins said:
"I went to a Christian music festival once since I got a free ticket to cedar point, every band took a 20-minute break to preach at the crowd. Only got to hear like 3 songs from each band."
Spoksonatoping replied:
"Christian rock gets on my nerves. They can make the worst music imaginable and most cliche garbage and they have a guaranteed audience. They have no standard because they know their music is going to sell. I hate it."
I can think of only one "christian band" that I don't mind. Skillet, and that's about it. And with that said, I'm not religious so I don't think I'm all that into finding more bands based on the fact they call themselves "christian rock" (though there may be other bands I enjoy and don't know are christian rock tbf but i dont think there is)
nerbovig said:
"Five Iron Frenzy, about 14-15 years ago. Nothing against the band, but a third of the crowd consisted of Christian parents in the back half of the venue nervously eyeing the situation constantly."
-advice- replied:
"That sounds hilarious."
Zomgzombehz replied:
"Ska is a gateway music to punk rock, all pastors know this."
TIL that Christian ska is a thing. Never heard of Five Iron Frenzy before, but they don't sound half bad to be honest. Also, apparently at least two members of the band are atheists, according to the wiki.
"I was working as a stagehand for a Rockfest about 5 years ago, and the finale act of the entire festival was Rob Zombie. The show sold out and I was stoked to see a legend perform from side stage. However it was short-lived, because after 1 and a half songs, Zombie's voice gave out and he had to leave the stage. There was a 3-hour waiting period and the audience was chanting for Zombie to come back out. But it never happened. The house told us to start tearing down the stage, and the crowd started to riot while me and the stage-crew went out front and began packing up the equipment. People were throwing stuff at us from the crowd, booing, and chanting (but I guess I would have been too if my $200 non-refundable ticket was wasted)... Truly a memory I'll never forget."
Rob started out doing Elvis impersonations..friend dated him in h.s and showed me pix to prove it!!
"From a sound point of view, Fleshgod Apocalypse. Couldn’t hear anything other than drums and growls. And when you have three people singing, including an opera singer, and orchestral backing tracks and can’t hear any of it there’s a major problem.
In terms of being boring, def leppard. They followed steel panther and motley crue and after those two they were just bland."
"James Brown, some time in the '90s. He was two hours late getting on stage, and then 90% of his songs are build-up while he shuffles back and forth.
I hear he was great in his prime. I did not see him in his prime."
He was electric in his prime. His energy, his voice, his stage presence, his music... he knew how to do a show.
"Angels And Airwaves reveal show in London.
After a year or so of Tom going on about his world-altering music, the hype for this show was ridiculous. It was all secretive and in this weird church venue. It was so sad feeling the few hundred people there have their excitement dragged out of them and beaten to death by Tom's new grown up singing voice."
"I went to a Kendrick Lamar concert. The performance was great, but I suffered from horrible Acid Reflux all night. I'd be like:
'ALL MY LIFE I WANTED MONEY AND POWER.'
Coughing fit.
'RESPECT MY MIND OR DIE FROM LED SHOWER.'"
"Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros at Prospect Park Bandshell summer ‘15. Lead singer was so drunk/on something that he was falling off the stage and couldn’t remember the lyrics."
"All of the concerts I've been to have been, at worst, decent but the worst of them would be Bon Jovi during the spat with Richie Sambora.
Nobody had been informed Richie Sambora wasn't going to be there so, when they came out and started playing, you could just feel the entire energy of the crowd die down. As we listened throughout the songs, you could tell something big was missing. Bon Jovi just did not sound the same. It was disheartening. It's amazing how much Richie brought to Bon Jovi and yet people only know Jon."
was fortunate enough to see them in Nashville right before Richie left
"Death Cab for Cutie. It would have been at least 15 years ago now, I loved the band, but the venue was empty and just had some early versions of a hipster swaying all scattered around. I was so excited and then it was so boring."
So OP wanted to go to a concert for the concert experience and not for the band’s music? XD
"It would have to be Lupe Fiasco in DC two or three years ago. He played half his set and the just bounced without telling anyone. Even the staff were telling us he was coming back out. Probably waited like an hour and then the house lights came on and it was over. Thanks Lupe."
"Disturbed and Avenged Sevenfold Featuring halestorm stone sour and hell yeah.
The bands themselves were good but the crowd ever moody. I was standing front row center stage for Avenged and no one was touching me on any side. As soon as anyone bumped into someone else it was an instant fight. It was a 5-hour concert and there was no moshing the entire time because fights would immediately breakout."
"Saw DJ Shadow in Sydney a few years ago; his show was scheduled for a club type venue (appropriate, as he's a DJ) but was moved to a warehouse type venue due to demand. Doors open at 7 and there's a few opening acts listed on the bill; so I stand around and watch those but the venue was completely wrong for the type of show; there was one small bar and a single DJ on a big stage just looked wrong. DJ Shadow didn't come on until about 1:30 in the morning (last train left home was at 1:20am, so I was screwed) and by then all the energy of the room was gone and everyone just seemed to want to go home."
How are all of these bands getting away with playing so late? Aren't there noise restrictions? I remember at least one band at The Corner Hotel in Melbourne, when they came on for their encore, say 'we'll try and finish this before the trains stop running' because they knew the area/crowd so well.
averybritishbloke said:
"Lostprophets. They were drunk on stage, played sub-par and certainly not a sell out. This was Newport in 2012, turns out to be their last ever concert before Ian Watkins arrest."
DanHero91 replied:
"I really hate how many times I've seen them live and how every show I saw was pretty great. Occasionally I still get some of their songs creep into my head and shudder until they disappear."
I went to a gorillaz concert and it was great!
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All day concert in Nuremberg West Germany in 1985. Headliner was Deep Purple. Two opening acts were Mountain and Meatloaf. Two others were smaller acts I can't recall the names of. The first was very good. Did a couple oz ZZ Top covers. But the second band was so bad that when the p.a. cut out during their set people actually cheered. The rest of the show, however, was fantastic.
'Most every band I worked with was stoned, drunk, and/or wired. Oddly enough, it made some bands better: Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Janis, Gracie Slick. Dad tried to mentor most of them, passing on Bix Beiderbecke's advice to him: drugs and booze will steal your music. Sure enough... most ended up in the 27 Club. Only real problem I had was time I sat in audience with my grandma, who wanted to see Elvis. He tossed his sweaty, stinky scarf in my lap and a fanatical biotch tackled me from behind to get at it. I didn't even want it. His concerts were lackluster by then anyway. He was too out of it to remember lyrics and his security team were jackasses.
I went to a gorillaz concert and it was great!
Load More Replies... All day concert in Nuremberg West Germany in 1985. Headliner was Deep Purple. Two opening acts were Mountain and Meatloaf. Two others were smaller acts I can't recall the names of. The first was very good. Did a couple oz ZZ Top covers. But the second band was so bad that when the p.a. cut out during their set people actually cheered. The rest of the show, however, was fantastic.
'Most every band I worked with was stoned, drunk, and/or wired. Oddly enough, it made some bands better: Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Janis, Gracie Slick. Dad tried to mentor most of them, passing on Bix Beiderbecke's advice to him: drugs and booze will steal your music. Sure enough... most ended up in the 27 Club. Only real problem I had was time I sat in audience with my grandma, who wanted to see Elvis. He tossed his sweaty, stinky scarf in my lap and a fanatical biotch tackled me from behind to get at it. I didn't even want it. His concerts were lackluster by then anyway. He was too out of it to remember lyrics and his security team were jackasses.
