I’ve been to more gigs than I can remember but have only walked out of three. One was J. Mascis and the Fog which I think was even louder than past Dinosaur Jr gigs - the sound was just an indistinguishable sludge and I knew that staying would result in permanent hearing damage (even with plugs). The other two are both Michah P. Hinson gigs. On both occasions I’d really gone to see the support acts (the Beauty Shop and the Mountain Goats). I used to feel bad for not giving him a chance but it turns out that he’s a Trump supporter so fuck him.
Edit: I have thought of another, a band called Love’s Ugly Children - it turned out that being from New Zealand, on Flying Nun records and deriving your name from a Birthday Party lyric was not a guarantee of quality.
What about you?
Yeah, I should have qualified it with ‘mid gig’ although I’m pretty sure that the venue staff would have thrown you out eventually.
Guillemots at the cockpit years and years ago
The XX at Brixton. Worst sound I’ve ever heard.
Loads and it’s getting more often after Covid. Bands coming on stage at 10pm better be very good because it takes me over an hour to get home and I’m usually working the next day.
Let’s see… I walked out of Gogol Bordello, turns out they’re not much fun live as they only have one song.
Walked out of King Hanna this year. The album is one of my albums of the year, it’s a really nice shoegaze adjacent record. Live they were 70’s rock. I took about 30 minutes before leaving.
Walked away the the Chemical Brothers about 3 times, so very boring.
Probably loads more.
Walked out of Bon Iver, had enjoyed the first album but didn’t take to the second and the gig at the time was just rubbish.
Also walked out of Bob Dylan c. 2008 but I’d taken tickets from someone who couldn’t go at short notice and was on a first date, neither of us fancied staying around for the gig when we realised it was nothing like the Bob Dylan we knew as casual fans.
Into it. Over it. At the brudenell. Was a co-headline thing with the hotelier. For some reason the hotelier were first and the place emptied after, watched a bit of into it over it but found it very dull
I can completely understand walking out on modern Dylan but it’s still a bold move.
I walked out of the worst gig I ever paid for, The Sleepy Jackson at the Zodiac in Oxford. Loved their album but live they were doing something which I can only compare to the ‘Jazz Odyssey’ scene in Spinal Tap. Just mind blowingly awful.
Think I did that at the London show
I really like their album PROPER, bit of a modern emo classic to me. So that’s a shame
to hear
Cat Power, for being a whining asshole.
Walked out of Prince at the O2 because we thought the show was over, and we needed to get the last tube. Turns out he came back on for a 3-song acoustic encore 
Might be controversial but the one time I saw Motorhead they were absolutely terrible. They had a reputation as a great live band but it was an indistinguishable dirge, turns out there’s a reason most bands don’t do the everything louder than everything else thing. Genuinely sounded like a hoover.
You win some, you lose some.
I’ve seen Motorhead sound terrible. They were playing a fantastic gig when Lemmy asked the crowd if it was loud enough. The crowd said that yes, it was loud enough (It was really loud). Lemmy looked a bit surprised and said they were going to turn it up anyway. They did and the sound went to shit, you couldn’t make out what song they were playing. Rubbish. 
Spent all of the Into It Over It set at London chatting to Roswell Kid. They’d never written on a banana before so @Gnometorious was all, write on a banana, so one of them wrote Eric Clapton on a banana and I mentioned him being racist so they added a “fuck” before his name. I like IIOI, but this was a much better way to spend the evening.
Jake Bugg at Liverpool Guild of Students in March 2020