Great bands that are terrible live performer

Can you think of a band that makes great music, but are terrible when they perform live on stage?

To me, it's always been Nirvana. Having seen several of their live shows, I came to the conclusion that they are just bad or at least disappointing on stage.

What about you?

Curt Kobain is well known for goofing on his audience.

Right now I would say Queens of the Stone Age. I really like them, but hated the camera girl incident.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8JBfRSeYofM

@kingbonesaw: LMAO

@ungodly: That's rude af!

Every Joy Division live cut I have involves Ian moaning about feedback. Can't day I've seen a bad live act, though. The inverse when Casual Sex are involved. Better live than in the studio.

Mastodon, Cradle of Filth and Deftones are my three faves that suck really hard live. Other faves like Muse, Tool and Opeth are really, really good, though. I would've agreed Nirvana suck live, but that Unplugged performance is one of the best live things ever, in terms of performance, so that "bad" stuff was probably drugs and the dirty grunge sound more than actual shittyness.

Smashing Pumpkins was a band that was just atrocious live back in the 90s. Corgan's vocals were terrible and it was obvious they didn't get along on stage.

Pains me to say, but Marilyn Manson hasn't been great live since... what, 2000? 2001? And between then and recently, MM shows were actively awful on account of a pretty sustained period of drunk/high performances, save for a handful of standout concerts. Thankfully he's gotten much better (prop accident notwithstanding), but the fantastic spectacle of the classic shows are long gone.

But yeah, throughout those rough years, it was pretty bad. Forgetting lyrics, truly terrible vocals, letting the crowd sing half the song for him, lack of theatricality (not a big deal normally, but that's kind of Manson's thing), stopping songs to go off on asshole audience members constantly... I'm so glad he's getting his shit together again.

I win.

Ananamaguchi.

Worst show I have seen, looked like the band was recording a study cut.

One the best live shows I've seen: Nekrogoblikon

MGMT performances ive seen were bad

@maluvin: Yeah, that era was rough. He had to shout every sentence to be heard over those Big Muffs, and it just sounded gnarled. They got very good in the 2000s, though. Porcelina live in Paris is great, and their performance on Musique Plus was legit too.

Oh, At the Drive-In. Chalk some of it to getting old but a lot of their early energy dissipated. Plus Cedric's voice lost its edge. Plus he got fat but didn't change his wardrobe accordingly.

Can confirm that Marilyn Manson was trash live. Saw them at Mayhem Festival in 2007-ish (?), so it was definitely not at the height of their powers, but yeah. Also, festivals are not ideal for any number of reasons.

I remember being in circles where DragonForce was the go-to example of this. People would jokingly call them StudioForce because producing music with the speed and cleanness you'd hear on their albums seemed to be production wizardry that they could never fully recreate on a stage.

Bloc Party was atrocious live.

@brunothethird: Oh, I forgot about Unplugged. Yeah, that was legendary, even though Kurt's voice was really... bad.

Rolling Stones, never been too impressed by their live performances. Maybe they were better in their younger days but Springsteen ain't no spry chicken either, and he is still rocking as a 69 year old.

Mastodon are notorious for not being as good live.

The Sword weren't great when I saw them either

Haim. they get showy, but the music suffers a ton for it

Converge weren't great when I saw them a few years ago. Bannon couldn't do that voice live, at all. That might have just been a one off though, I seen a few live vids where he was pretty on point. I bet a long tour can fuck his vocal chords pretty horribly too.

Eh...Fear Factory. Musically, sonically, they sound fucking tremendous, so it's still really easy to get into and enjoy their shows. However, Burt Bell's clean singing has never really been that good live, and I have felt my skin crawl at their shows watching him try to hit some of those notes and hearing is voice crack at the slightest strain. His screaming, still to this day, sounds as good if not better than on the albums, but his singing...man.

Broncho is the worst live band I have seen by far. I don't really listen to them but their studio stuff is 1000 times better than what I heard at that show.

The audio mix was terrible, everything was loud as fuck and distorted and you could literally not understand a word the guy was saying, he actually sounded like an alien.

As a fan of industrial and noise, I'd say most of the currently active acts are pretty atrocious live nowadays, as most just press play on their macbooks and make occasional gestures towards the crowd. There are still a few going the old school route with tape loops and found percussion, which is awesome (Brighter Death Now, Puce Mary, Umpio and Altar of Flies come to mind), but they're in the vast minority.

Mortiis and Coph Nia were fucking jokes live, and Merzbow was kind of a bummer.

Really didn't like the sound balance seeing KMFDM live either, with the guitars overpowering everything else, but at least it was fun seeing them switch floppies on their sampler in-between tracks.

Then, I'd say the venue does a lot of difference too, a lot of big venues just have absolutely awful sound systems. We've got one fantastic location in Stockholm with speakers along the walls across the entire room (also on separate channels if the performers want to use that, though most don't. I did see one maybe 7 years ago that had the sounds all move across the room though, which was great), and I try to go to every show they got there.

Mos Def. I saw him at Austin City Music Festival in 2009. It was at a time when that music festival did not have rappers in the line up. I really liked his debut album Black on Both Sides and Black Star. After his performance, it was the first time I was bored. He was making up songs as he went along and he was banging on the bongos. The crowd was not into it either. It was disappointing performance from a talented guy.

The Black Keys weren't necessarily bad, just incredibly boring and by the numbers. I saw them both at bonnaroo and locally and was left pretty disappointed.

Nickelback....is not a good bad. But do you know what is even worse? Nickelback live. This is primarily through their stage presence and how they conducted themselves. The entire thing was such a drag I remember being frustrated being there and unable to leave. They don't quite sound as good as they do on their albums, but I don't remember them sounding terrible-er.

A lot of my favorite bands or artists also happen to be good live. I'm honestly drawing a blank on this one. Most of the live performances I would label as bad mostly involve the bands themselves, like Nickelback or <random-djent-band-that-was-never-my-thing-to-begin-with>.

Danzig.

I don't know. I saw Fear Factory during the Obsolete tour and Burton's clean vocals were pretty solid. Not studio quality, but close enough. These days? Yeah, he sounds fucking terrible and it just hurts my soul.

I adore The Flaming Lips, and Arcade Fire, but their vocals are really bad live. The slight off-key, homely, real vibe works amazingly well on the studio albums, but live, it's bad.

Jacob Banon shouldn't be able to do anything with his vocal chords after recording Jane Doe. I mean, there's your average death growls, your average hardcore screaming, and then there's the otherworldly banshee wails that come out of Banon's mouth.

Uh... I rarely go see bands live so I don't really have an example for this. I dunno, I like my metal but I tend to prefer it in the comfort of my own home.

As much as it pains me, Perfume Genius. I fucking love all four albums he's put out (the new one is incredible, can't recommend it enough) and the first time I saw him live was a really intimate venue with just him and a keyboard so his inconsistencies kind of worked there, but I've since seen other performances of his and just yikes... he's a very soft, introverted dude and he's trying too hard to pull off this fierceness that doesn't translate well on the live stage.

Van Halen repeatedly played live drunk off their asses. Some shows had to be stopped. Their live music was just a shadow of their recordings.

You know who performs live to musical perfection, I mean every note and beat, consistently? Rush...even as the guys are now in their 60's, they have continued to improve and refine. They are phenomenal.

I imagine touring is probably the worst part of being a performer. You have to be really into it or at least accustomed to it.

@ikilledthebeast: So, I've been fortunate enough to see a bunch of amazing bands live. I LOVE live music.

That said...

Nine Inch Nails bummed me out when they lost their edge. Their tours up through probably The Fragile were amazing.

System of a Down burned bright and briefly. Those first two major label albums were great, as were what I saw of them live. I saw them play a show with Slipknot, Rammstein, and Mudvayne, and they sounded lifeless.

Lastly, and most painfully, I saw Primus at a club when they were touring for Tales from the Punchbowl. They played a trippy set eschewing anything with tempo for slow, listful tunes. It was a bummer, as I know they're often better.

Best shows I've seen, off the top of my head:

Gogol Bordello

90's Nine Inch Nails

David Bowie

...I'd spell out a more, but it'd be a waterfall, I've been to 100s of great club shows, and some good shows in bigger venues...

Acts I've never seen and would most like to:

Dirty Three

William Elliot Whitmore

(somehow) Clutch

Probably not popular opinion but, if they were "great" bands, then they would be able to perform live.

Just a thought.

Angels and Airwaves is a good band that I enjoyed for a while, but man, Tom cannot sing well at a live show. He does this weird, infliction tone at live shows and it just sounds so weird...

That makes me think of a local band back in the day. I literally forget their name, but they were an incredible Psych. band that had several solid good songs featured on the college radio I listened to. Everyone looked forward to their coming out live performance, which I guess fell flat.

Steely Dan was considered a studio band for a while (or so I heard). Apparently, one of the founding members had stage fright. But in time he conquered it, and the band was more centered with live music.

Production, even in a live setting, is sometimes really crucial. Plus you get guys like the Wu Tang Clan who can sort it out in the studio and, as soon as they get on the road, they decided to rap over each other at once like idiots.

Yeah, its pretty amazing that the dude can still speak after all these years. After seeing them live I assumed it must be some kind of studio trickery, just throwing his voice through hella distortion or something, but like I said I've seen other videos of them and he does in fact sound like that. I'm convinced he's possessed. I mean the dude's from Salem, MA theres probably witches and shit haunting that place right? Gonna see them next time the roll through here and hope he's been drinking lots of honey tea.

Portishead. Standing in a crowd listening to them was awkward as hell, especially when everyone was just waiting for Coldplay. Great band though.

@shagge: I saw them a few times, as early as touring in support of Portrait. I've seen better acts, but I haven't seen anything quite like the tour supporting Antichrist Superstar...wild shows...bomb threats, bon fires, the most intrusive frisking I've ever witnessed, and police presence for days...and that's before you even got into the show, which was crazy.

Angel with the Scabbed Wings was a great opening song...maybe one of the best opening songs I've heard. It started those shows right.

@hippie_genocide: The only act to ever blow me away in a venue bigger than a night club was David Bowie.

The intimacy of a club and the sweaty masses within it are a HUGE part of a live performance for me.

Man, I envy you, haha. The Dead To The World tour is legendary, and I always wished I could have seen it in person. Really, any of the triptych tours. I love modern Manson and all, but that stretch from ACSS to Holy Wood... absolutely brilliant.

Yeah, that was...1995 into '96? I was 16 at the time, so that was a pretty good age to be sucked into that zeitgeist.

I drove around to shows, catching 3-4 a week on average. This was JUST before all the rock package tours started, so every club had something worthwhile going on almost every night. I'd drive around Providence, Boston, Hartford, New Haven, and into New York or New Jersey catching whatever I could. The half a dozen or so shows I saw by Manson in that era were otherworldly. Ferocious playing and screaming, and the theatrics were like nothing I'd seen.

I've seen an incredible Bob Dylan show and I've seen a horrible Bob Dylan show.

Van Halen followed by Mastodon

All these Marlyn Mason posts reminded me of one of his shows i saw at a festival in Belgium where he greeted the people with saying "hello Germany!" With him getting instant heat and being booed for the rest of the show. Also DragonForce live is always Hilariously bad.