Inspired by chat on the ‘Do artists owe their fans anything for a live performance’ thread, has anyone witnessed a truly car crash performance by an artist/band? I don’t just mean a bad gig, we’ve all seen bad gigs.
Despite all of the gigs I’ve been to I can only recall one. Although not a fan as a teenager I went to see Christian Death with friends. The support band finished at 9pm and it was after midnight when Christian Death got on stage to deliver a shambolic performance. I don’t know what went on during the three hours between acts but being as most of the band were heroin addicts at this point I suspect it was drug related.
Cat Power
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seen a few to be honest. the most memorable ones were Test Icicles at ULU (lol) where the band just basically refused to play and Dev was shouting ‘FUCK ULU’ down the mic for ages. very odd gig, Lethal Bizzle supported.
also was there for the infamous Danny Brown show at XOYO where he’d gone out and got fucked up with Mike Skinner beforehand and was mega late and then a very troubling incident happened where a fan basically sexually assaulted him on stage.
saw Riz Ahmed get boo’d off stage supporting Wu Tang Clan.
also coincidentally saw the GZA go down like an absolute sack of shit after Lightning Bolt at the Roundhouse, he seemed to have forgotten all his own lyrics and got very angry at the crowd (which by this point was basically no one). incredibly awkward.
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oh and I’ve also seen James Acaster have 2 full blown meltdowns on stage but this isn’t the comedy board so i’ll leave it there
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Remember seeing Badly Drawn Boy at Night and Day (or was it the bar a few doors down i can’t remember) after he’d blown up big style and he was so pissed he couldn’t really do anything. he did a similar thing at the much bigger academy 3 a year or so later again. was beyond funny drunk into ‘oh mate’ drunk.
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Literally, the first gig that came to mind for me too.
I remember a mate of mine came along because I’d told him the band were good. He didn’t trust me so easily again after that one.
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i went to see Help She Can’t Swim last night and was chatting before the gig about how i didn’t get to see them at ULU because the security basically didn’t let anyone in until after they’d finished. such a weird gig.
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Always liked the story of the statistics London gig brought up on the old boards when this was asked
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The animal collective green man headline set is the obvious one for me. Managed about 20 minutes before going to four tet and having a much better time
Oh yeah! I forgot all about that! I think I got in for literally the last song, and the room was pretty much still empty.
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Saw Cat Power expecting a car crash and she was on great form
I saw Ha Ma Superstar lose it big style, must have been a while ago, maybe 10 years. It was at the Hope and Ruin in Brighton. He had a big band with horns etc and was immediately being shitty with the sound person cos he couldn’t hear himself
Was super uncomfortable, like he was having a bad time but he was making no attempt to hide his frustration/ put on a good show anyway
Things escalated when he did a big intro about the next song, how it was about a friend he’d lost . He then jumped into the crowd to sing it and someone went to take a selfie with him. He lost his shit, stormed off, came back a bit later but was a total dick about the whole thing. Didn’t help that he clearly wanted to be taken seriously when most of the audience wasn’t sure if him being a dick was part of the act and meant to be funny
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I have to say that sounds like performance art.
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i know it shouldn’t but 9/11 REMIX makes me lol every time
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Read that and thought ok edgy but not that bad but then the call and response bit came up
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I never understood Har Mar or how he became a thing. Just seemed to be in NME every week for a couple of years, like a joke everyone was in on but I never got.
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I was at this:
I found it fairly entertaining, although I felt bad for my partner - The tickets were a birthday present.
Also, I’m one of the people who got unlucky with a Cat Power performance. She was so whiny and irritating, I never listened to her again.
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I saw Cole Alexander from Black Lips get kicked out of their own show for encouraging crowd surfers and stage invaders but it was close to the end anyway so it kind of added to the beautiful chaos
Wouldnt say car crash per se but when I saw Wu-Tang a member from like the 12th division that not a single person had heard of was on stage promoting their dressing gown range. This was at Brixton Academy. Method Man hadn’t even shown up and he’s my favourite member
Also when I saw Parliament Funkadelic they’d basically bought all their (adult) children and nieces and nephews and were encouraging them to jam which could have been wholesome but I was just startlingly aware that none of these people were P-Funk level musicians and it went on for basically the whole show
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Low, End Of The Road 2008. Although less car crash, more guitar crash
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