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Ten Worst Gigs

1. CHER, October 19, 1990, Wembley Arena

“Welcome to the Cher extravaganza,” she announced. It wasn’t. She spent most of the time changing costumes, and it only lasted an hour and fifteen minutes.

2. VAN MORRISON, May 28, 2000, Bishopstock, Exeter

Spent the entire time complaining to the road crew about his microphone. Massively selfish, and not that good frankly.

3. SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY, May 4, 1999, Embassy Rooms

Totally pissed. Could barely string a lyric together.

4. MICHELLE SHOCKED, March 22, 2001, Dingwalls

Absolute rubbish. She had got religion and started lecturing the audience.

5. RICK DERRINGER, May 9, 2002, Jazz Café

Johnny Winter’s one-time blistering guitarist had found the lord, and proceeded to play a bunch of gospel crooners.

6. BUDDIE GUY, May 1, 2000, Royal Festival Hall

Played exactly the same set as we had seen before, and spent most of the time showing off that he could play Spoonful better than Clapton, and with no hands.

7. THIN LIZZY, December 3, 2001, Café de Paris

Scott Gorham ill-advisedly allowed a roadie to twin with him on The Boys Are Back In Town. He was totally pissed on scotch, and played it all wrong.

8. ELVIS COSTELLO, June 21, 1980, St. Edmund Hall, Oxford

The bass amp failed to work for the first track, and the entire set was plagued by technical problems. Costello remained grumpy throughout.

9. BELINDA CARLISLE, October 31, 2002, Cabot Hall, Canary Wharf

Played the entire set to a backing track with no band. You might as well have listened to a CD.

10. JOE BONAMASSA, March 29, 2007, Shepherds Bush Empire

Tight and controlled on album, this blues hotshot started his first self-indulgent solo after two minutes and never really stopped. I left early in disgust. He repeated the same performance in 2014 at the Clapham Calling Festival to a somewhat damp audience who had only come to see Aerosmith. Bored everyone rigid and insisted on wearing cheap sunglasses despite a distinct lack of sun. Very poor performance indeed. The man needs a tough manager to provide a swift reality check.

11. EXTC, July 5, 2024, The Forge Camden

Very odd this. This was like a basic covers band knocking out old XTC material. Technically they could sing and play but all the details were wrong. In no particular order: no keyboards ( a critical component of many XTC tracks), a guitarist playing a Les Paul (the ultimate rock guitar and totally unrelated to the XTC sound), vocals that were admittedly in tune but had none of the dynamism and expression of Andy Partridge, and a somewhat perverse selection of songs that included obscure stuff and excluded some great stuff. To be avoided.

1 comments

    • Andrew Roberts on February 13, 2022 at 12:51 pm
    • Reply

    Rainbow – 1980 Wembley Arena. Ritchie Blackmore walks off after 10 mins and despite the band playing on, chaos ensued. Seats were ripped up and flung at the stage! Quite scary at 16 years old. never saw them or him again!

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