What is the most disappointing concert you've ever seen?

Not to be confused with "worst concert", it doesn't count if you saw something you knew you wouldn't like. This would be something you had some expectations for, and it fell far below them.

Mine may be Oasis. I saw them on the Standing on the Shoulder of Giants tour, and found Liam to be insufferable. His snotty attitude to being a front man really turned me off. It has impacted my enjoyment of them since that night.

The other one I often mention is The Waitresses. I loved the first album, but I saw them shortly before they broke up and just felt like there were two different bands on stage. They just didn't sound cohesive. But in fairness to them, I was really young and maybe just didn't grasp the Bruiseology material.

What is yours?

For me its probably seeing Motley Crue live, love their albums and their hard rock sound but live at Jones Beach a couple of years ago was painful.
They sounded terrible and their was a strange buzzing coming from the amps.
The headliner Aerosmith sounded great so it was something going on with the Crue's sound system.

Two come to mind.

Hate to speak ill of the recently deceased, but the Tom Petty/Bob Dylan True Confessions tour at MSG in 1986 was dull and sloppy. I left really early.

Pat Benatar at the Beacon Theater, 1991, her True Love tour. Song after song, it became increasingly clear she would only be singing blues covers, and none of her hits. Loud booing and shouts of "REFUND!" overwhelmed the music. Walked out early on that one too.

Neil Young has disappointed at times because on some tours he doesn't do the "hits" or he is into that distortion sound with Crazy Horse. But that's Neil.

The Bee Gees at Madison Square Garden in 1979, for the "Spirits Having Flown" tour. They played only to the first few rows, making every other seat in the house feel miles away, and it seemed so rehearsed and choreographed that even the between-song banter sounded like it was scripted. It was the complete antithesis of a rock concert, but I guess they weren't really a rock and roll group by that point anyway.

Apparently for the Dennis DeYoung version of Styx it was.
He preferred it that way.

3 Aerosmith 70's shows; though only the first really fits the topic because I half way expected the other 2 to suck. I wrote a song about how bad they were at the time!

Tubes Love Bomb tour due to the worst in concert sound ever.

An 80's Tubes show where they had some dweeb with glasses replace Fee as lead singer.

CSNY 1974

An 80's Foghat show where Tone Stevens was the only original member & he had obviously done way too much coke.

Many many more that aren't quickly coming to mind.

The most disappointing and the worst for me was Fleetwood Mac in 1980 or '81, the Tusk tour. I was a big fan of the band but I was bored out of my mind. I wasn't and am not a drinker, but I bought 2 or 3 beers thinking they might help me to enjoy the show more. They didn't.

Morrissey in 1991 at Riverbend in Cincinnati. He played a set and then came out for the encore (which at other venues had been 6+ songs) and announced he could not continue because "the security at this venue was too strict", then walked off the stage. It took me years to forgive him.

I saw Book of Love at Bogart's in Cincy in 88 or so. The entire show was lipsynced and quite disappointing. In the same vein (but not entirely unexpected in this case), I saw When in Rome in 1989 at a club, and they lipsynced like Milli Vannilli. I knew the regular DJ at the club, and he showed me the tape they were using. They played The Promise 3 times in a 9 song set. People threw things at them.

Ozzy in 1986 at the Spectrum in Philly.

Came on way late due to a 76ers playoff game and phoned it in for 75 minutes, no encore and forgot the words to several songs including "Flying High Again" which he obviously was.

This was also The Ultimate Sin tour and that album is an abomination to me (and Ozzy).

Saving grace...Metallica played 65 minutes and this was the Master of Puppets tour and the last with Cliff alive.

Also...Alan Parsons Project in 1995 at a YMCA in Philly.

Yep, quite a prestigious venue.

The show was advertised as having a revolutionary stage design and had...a curtain and a cloth backdrop with the band's name.

Ouch.

Yes/Toto in 2015 in Atlantic City.

Toto were awesome as always and rocked hard.

Yes were a debacle and this was only two shows after Chris Squire had passed.

It was no longer Yes for me and Jon Davison was pretty bad, Alan White played horrendous and Steve Howe went through the motions.

We left and that was my 23rd and final Yes show.

No more unless Anderson comes back.

springsteen at the old cleveland municipal stadium. the place was a cavern and the sound reflected all over the place. the chairs on the infield were made for kindergarten children, they were strewn everywhere. people peeing in the dugouts because the bathrooms were so far away (no porta-potty's on the infield). hot sweaty and loud. terrible show.on top of everything else.

rod stewart at the old shed in pittsburgh (star lake amphitheater) just a terrible concert in every way shape and form...music was bad, singing was bad, band was bad, stewart was bad, and the endless photos of rachel hunters legs were annoying after about 30 minutes,,,,they went on the whole show.

stephen stills at kent state university gym in about 1975 or 76,,,,stills was really fucked up, tried to play "4 + 20" on an electric guitar and it was wretched. bad show, bad bad bad,

If you exclude the Montreal Riot, which was at least a great rock and roll story, I have to go with Joan Jett. Never have I seen someone so disconnected from their own material. I get wanting to get paid, but lord if it bores you that much, do something else...

After my original post, I went back deep in my memory banks and remembered one of the few shows I ever walked out on.
Shortly after Tom Petersson left Cheap Trick, he played a show with Terry Reid at Madame Wong's in Chinatown (Los Angeles), which was a restaurant that hosted some incredible bands.

I must have been 16-17. Tom came out in his rock star leather pants, but I can't remember if he had the 12-string bass. Terry appeared really drunk, and the two of them seemed to wing it, with apparently no rehearsal. We were so embarrassed for Tom, we walked out about 40 minutes in.

Mine was definitely my only time seeing Gil Scott-Heron at BB Kings, New York in 2009..He was roughly 2 hours late, was only him and a keyboard player when the stage was set up for a full band, he rambled on for about 20 minute....then only did 6 songs (one of which he took a break and was only the keyboard player).....and the show was over.

Eric Clapton during the Clapton/Beck shows 2010 at Madison Square Garden. Jeff Beck was really good.Clapton was going through the motions like he was looking at his watch to see when to get off stage.The set together was interesting, but no Yardbirds or anything they're more known for, and then the encore was a fast-paced I don't give a crap and want to get off the stage version of "Crossroads."

I've been lucky, no concert has been a complete disaster but I did see Aerosmith back in 1978 during the Draw The Line tour and they were a disaster on stage completely blown out of their socks, falling down etc but it was still fun and so rock n roll so its not a bad memory.

I'm always surprised how polished they are these day. Too polished.

Paul Young late 1980s
The only time I was at a concert when the screaming girls were louder than the music

That reminds me............. I was working an auto show around 1978 for a radio station. The tween age girl screaming to Leif Garrett lip synching was frightening.

Bob Dylan, some time in the mid-to-late 1990's in Melbourne, Australia.

He plainly didn't want to be there, there was not one second wasted in between each song, many songs were sped up (presumably so they'd be over more quickly), and his delivery was so indistinct that it was difficult to tell whether or not he was singing the actual lyrics or just sort of making vowel sounds at appropriate intervals.

He didn't once engage in any form of banter, didn't say hello to the crowd, just started playing. He didn't even speak to introduce any songs, nor did he thank the band or anyone else. He played the last song (a sloppy version of Tangled Up In Blue) and literally put his guitar on the floor of the stage and just walked off!

The only positive thing I can say is that his harmonica playing skills remained undiminished.

I was a huge fan of the guy, and was thrilled to be hearing him play live...until I actually did.

Tears For Fears, late September 2016 at the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery. The show was originally supposed to be in June, but the tour was postponed due to family issues. The weather was cold and lightly raining, and they were tired. Curt couldn't keep up with the music on most of his vocals. The audience wasn't into it. They usually do a 4-5 song encore, but they played Shout and got the hell out of there.

It was bad. I went to a Kaiser Chiefs show where Ricky Wilson had laryngitis and tried to muddle through, but at least he was trying. TFF totally phoned it in that night.

I'd seen a lot of Elvis Costello concerts and enjoyed them all, until I decided to see the "Spike" tour in 1989-1990 and took friends. Costello was clearly angry at something, because the concert we saw was angry and uninterested. After my build-up with my friends, they saw a real suck-fest on that tour. I never went to see him again.

How could i fail to mention my Dylan Disappointment(s)

First time I saw him was on the Slow Train Coming tour, where he only played those (and newer) songs. However, I was a fairly new fan so my expectations weren't as deep as they would have been if I was a few years older.

Second time was at the Greek in 1988 with The Alarm. Every song sounded the same, and the songs only revealed themselves after trying to decipher the lyrics.

Fortunately, I saw him again on the Time Out of Mind tour, and many times since then, so I finally got some quality Bob shows under my belt.

Paul Westerberg: Circa 1999, he played at a record store in Seattle supporting his lame and miserable Suicane Gratfication album. I went with cartoonist Pat Moriarity, a Minneapolis native who got a much better story than me (he designed the cover for Let It Be, and asked Westerberg to sign it. Westerberg exclaimed Twin/Tone still owed him money, and scrawled, "Fuck you!" on Pat's copy of the record.) He listlessly played sad bastard songs from his new album to an indifferent audience, who livened up only briefly when Paul dug up a 'Mats classic, only to clam up for the next new song. Finally, Paul snarled, "All right, I'm going to play two more songs from the new album, and then I'll go back to playing the same old shit." I felt terrible. But they were the best songs in the show.

Bob Mould: Speaking of sad bastard music, that same year I saw Bob Mould, supposedly on a "heavy acoustic" tour with a bass player, in support of his miserable then-new album. It was just him though, playing every downbeat, depressing new song, and not a note from Husker Du, Sugar, or even his earlier, better solo records. I sat through the entire gloomy set, constantly itching to leave, but not wanting to read the next day about an encore of Zen Arcade played in its entirely or something similarly awesome. There was no such finale, and on the way home, a dunk driver struck my car head on, totaling it. Thanks a lot, Bob Mould.