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Disappointingly short gigs


Paul S

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Saw Slipknot, Machine Head and Children of Bodom in 2008, and was pretty much only there for Bodom. They played their disappointingly short opening set and then Machine Head played about 3 songs before Phil Demmel collapsed due to some heart condition or other and that was it until the headline slot. As soon as it became apparent that he was alright, we were all willing Bodom to come back out and carry on - bet they could have plugged in and made do - but nah, didn't happen.

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James Brown.

45 minutes of build up and introductions.

25-30 minutes of him on stage, shouting the title of each song while various backing singers and musicians worked their back out to make him look good.

Sadly, was more like Weekend At Bernies than Godfather of Soul.

He died shortly after.

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Saw The Ramones c1977 at Hull University. All songs were 3 mins maximum, no gaps in between them (or any audience interaction unsurprisingly) and after maybe 10 or 12 of them they were gone. If they did 40mins I’d have been amazed, but TBH that was more than enough for me. Fortunately I’d blagged tickets from the record company so didn’t feel shortchanged.

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5 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

James Brown.

45 minutes of build up and introductions.

25-30 minutes of him on stage, shouting the title of each song while various backing singers and musicians worked their back out to make him look good.

Sadly, was more like Weekend At Bernies than Godfather of Soul.

He died shortly after.

I had the same depressing experience with Mr Brown at a festival - probably a couple of years before he died. I was so excited to see him and it was awful. I think he had his daughter singing for most of it. I also had the same experience at the Phoenix festival seeing  George Clinton. Total pap. Luckily Bootsy was on in the Jazz tent the same day...... One of the best gigs I have every been to. Just amazing. Brought me right back up. 

 

 

 

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13 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

James Brown.

45 minutes of build up and introductions.

25-30 minutes of him on stage, shouting the title of each song while various backing singers and musicians worked their back out to make him look good.

Sadly, was more like Weekend At Bernies than Godfather of Soul.

He died shortly after.

God yeah - something similar when I saw him at V99

I wasn't complaining about the length of the set, if anything he could have shaved a good hour off if he just skipped all the bits he didn't actually sing, and we could all have caught some of the main stage headliners (the Manics if I recall correctly).  The best that could be said was that he was playing near the Bacardi bar

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20 minutes ago, Monkey Steve said:

God yeah - something similar when I saw him at V99

I wasn't complaining about the length of the set, if anything he could have shaved a good hour off if he just skipped all the bits he didn't actually sing, and we could all have caught some of the main stage headliners (the Manics if I recall correctly).  The best that could be said was that he was playing near the Bacardi bar

That was the one I was at... depressingly poor. 

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I remember a band called Hunters Club playing at the Roadmender in the mid 80's, I think they were the headline band on the night, either way it was not very well attended with maybe less than 100 people in what was a 1600 capacity venue....they walked on stage, demanded that everyone come forward and crowd around the front of the stage, when no one moved they kicked the mic's offstage and walked off without playing a note! I Never heard from them again!!

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When I was on stage crew at Leeds Uni we had Culture Club play at the Poly - it was not long after "Dus Tha Realy want t'hurt mi?". We all expected crowds of fainting teenage girls so they'd need help... However, turned out we weren't needed as they only played for 20 minutes. There were far more fainting girls when Kajagoogoo played later that year!

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44 minutes ago, Roger2611 said:

I remember a band called Hunters Club playing at the Roadmender in the mid 80's, I think they were the headline band on the night, either way it was not very well attended with maybe less than 100 people in what was a 1600 capacity venue....they walked on stage, demanded that everyone come forward and crowd around the front of the stage, when no one moved they kicked the mic's offstage and walked off without playing a note! I Never heard from them again!!

I hate it when bands beg an audience, if people like them they’ll go forward, dance etc.

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June 26th 1974 was the date that Bad Company released their first album, and by God was it eponymous.

September 18th 1974 they gave the album its London debut at The Rainbow in Finsbury Park. I was there, it was my first big London gig (indoors, anyway, I'd been at the Garden Party at Crystal Palace Bowl in July).

The album runs to a staggering 35 whole minutes of playtime. And it was all the material they had. 

They opened with Can't Get Enough Of Your Love.

Then they played the rest of the album. Then they played Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, again. Then they left the stage.

The crowd, predictably, went wild. After 10 minutes they came back on again. And played an encore.

It was Can't Get Enough Of Your Love.

 

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The shortest gig I've been to was Tony Bennett. It was an hour of absolute class though.

What winds me up, though is the number of bands that build unnecessary filler into their sets. The worst example of this is when I saw Slash play a 15 minute solo to Rocket Queen (in 3 acts) while Miles Kennedy stood there just twiddling his thumbs. What a waste. 

 

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Prince in Cologne in 2011. The band came on about an hour late, played one song and then left for about 45 minutes with no explanation. It's a while ago so I'm guessing a bit about the durations, but they were long. When they came back, Prince was heard repeatedly to castigate the soundman for 'not doing his job'. The band then played for about an hour, whereupon they left the stage. The stage stayed dark for about 10 minutes, no encore ensued, and then the house lights came up. End of gig, no explanation. The audience were not pleased. As I remember our tickets cost €150 each.

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The WonderStuff headlined in Brum at the place I can never remember the flipping name of (top of Hurst St turned into a roller disco) and played a shorter set than when I saw them supporting All About Eve in the same place a few months earlier. Also saw New Order there some years previously who played a very short set as well but apparently came back for encores to prevent a riot... by which time I was on the bus home...

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Me and a mate went to see Styx at rock city which was far better than we expected, full show no problems. Both being Deep Purple fans we were delighted when Styx were added to the bill at a DP gig. It was 3 bands and Styx were in the middle. However there was a major technical issue after first band and in order that DP got their full allotted time it meant when the problem was fixed there was only time for Styx to do 3 songs and they weren't long ones either. Really felt for them, they were totally professional about it to be fair.

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My wife, being a big Paul Weller fan, was overjoyed when I managed to get tickets to see him play in the gardens of Warwick Castle, for our anniversary a few years back.  Lovely summers evening, sat on the grass slowly getting sozzled, Weller comes on just as its getting dark, lights come up, audience gets up, 'this is gonna be great' ......50 mins later, lights go down..not another sausage......wife hugely disappointed, I never forgave him for that.......she still won't play his stuff at home now lol.

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From late 1979, when I left school, up to about mid 1981 I went to about 2 gigs a week, sometimes 3, mainly punk and what later became known as 'post punk' gigs.  Some of the gigs with established, bigger bands (e.g. the Damned, Ramones, Buzzcocks, Siouxsie) would last an hour or more but most bands were starting out and many hadn't released their first album yet, so a typical set would only last 45-50 minutes perhaps, and they would run out of songs. 

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I remember Nails at the Damnation Festival in something like 2016 only played for about 30 mins, which I think was about 2/3 of their alloted set.

That was however longer than the 20 minute "headlining" set they'd done in Glasgow the night before though - people were pretty whizzed off about that and true to form the singer walked off at about the 20 minute mark at Damnation. However I think one of the organisers, having heard about the Glasgow debacle, had positioned himself by the stage to remind the singer of his contractual obligations when he inevitably wandered off.

Good band, but a pain in the derrière to deal with, and I think have now split.

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