Worst gig at sheffield city hall!!!

[martinC 10]

i hope that someone out there was at the faust gig around 1974 so to prove i didnt dream it.faust brought an album out called the faust tapes and it cost 49p i think.it was full of german experimental music which at times sounded like half a dozen vacuums hoovering the carpet.anyway i went to see them and gong were the support.before the gig,gong were outside giving felt pens away,i can remember them telling people to go and paint the sky with them!!when on stage i can recall the front man saying that the next song was about a clock made of ham!!! cant remember anymore stuff about gong.faust came on stage in total darkness,no stage lights,the only light came from the tvs and pinball machine(i think) that were on stage with them.

suddenly came an horrendous noise like an alarm clock going off,absolutely deafening and after some more bizarre noises they got booed off.the house lights came on and there was a big lump of rock with a pneumatic drill in the centre of the stage-hence the noise like an alarm clock!

the bass player was still on stage sat in an armchair and said he was gonna play a song that consisted of one note and lasted 15 minutes-he got booed off rather sharpish...can anyone add anything to my recollections!! i hope so even though it was over 30 years ago..

[melthebell 862]

lol sounds brilliant

 

i love gong, seen em a few times and used to have about 30 albums

i also love that faust tapes album, wikkid avent gard weirdness

[caramac55 10]

I remember gong from the early 70s, I can remember buying their album (camambert electrique) at a cost of 50p, I still have it today.

[Bushbaby 11]

i hope that someone out there was at the faust gig around 1974 .

 

Yep, I was there too, and it was pretty much as you recollected. To call it Avant Garde would be to sell it short.

The bit about the pneumatic drill is a story I have told many times, and no-one believes me, so I now have back-up.

Afterwards we went in to the pub at the back of the City Hall (Red Lion?) and tried to work out what it was all about.

 

Mind you, I did go to a worse gig. "Dagger" (or maybe it was "Daggers") at the Black Swan 1975. Three guys, thought they were Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

They weren't.

Their magnum opus was a 7 hour version (or so it seemed) of The Who's "I Can See For Miles". Give me root canal surgery any day

[dropout 10]

Old thread. NEW Post.

 

I didn't see the 1974 Faust thing, but definately the WORST City Hall gig I went to, would've been Hall and Oates, late 1970's maybe 1980. Hated it....

and to compare, It was even worse than the Bay City Rollers gig, which I went to, on the Balcony, to look after my little sister, who was about 10! Couldn't hear for the screaming....and, as for the audience.!

Edited February 19, 2019 by nikki-red
Please dont post entirely in bold.

[Dreb48 35]

Well it seems to me that you  probably shouldn’t have gone to see Hall and Oates in the first place.

They obviously weren’t the sort of music you liked.

I saw them every time they were at the City Hall and they were some of the best gigs I saw.

The least enjoyable acts I saw there were Groundhogs or Ten Years After.

Im sure somebody will tell me now how good they both were.

Its all about your own taste isn’t it , after all ?

[Person6 10]

I've never seen a really bad gig at the City Hall, boring or disappointing yes. The only gigs I walked out of were Genesis (on two occasions, before and after Peter Gabriel left) and Uriah Heep (one song pretty much like the last), Manfred Mann Chapter 3 - self indulgent rubbish, and I felt sad for Ashton, Gardner and Dyke supporting Deep Purple, the audience never gave them a chance.

I had a friend who worked for the Harvey Goldsmith organisation and he used to get free tickets so we got to see a lot of stuff we wouldn't have otherwise looked at. Worst gig ever, due to unfulfilled expectations, was Led Zeppelin at Birmingham Uni. The gaps between the songs were longer than the songs and they just couldn't be bothered. The hall was half empty by the time they finished. New York Dolls supported by Mick Jagger's brother Chris,  a triumph of style over content, they left to polite applause. Most bizarre, Savoy Brown supported by Principal Edwards Magic Theatre. Both were rubbish and members from both ended up on stage together busking popular hits of the day. Strangest, The Osmonds! I think it was at The Rainbow. We had free tickets and thought why not! Obviously it was full of screaming pre teens so we worked our way down to the side of the stage and from there we could see that the Osmonds were "performing" in front of the curtain while behind it were a bunch of session musicians doing the actual playing. They were just sat around smoking, drinking and wearing their ordinary street clothes in contrast to what was happening out front.

[dropout 10]

19 hours ago, Dreb48 said:

Well it seems to me that you  probably shouldn’t have gone to see Hall and Oates in the first place.

They obviously weren’t the sort of music you liked.

I saw them every time they were at the City Hall and they were some of the best gigs I saw.

The least enjoyable acts I saw there were Groundhogs or Ten Years After.

Im sure somebody will tell me now how good they both were.

Its all about your own taste isn’t it , after all ?

Seems to me that you are probably right, in that respect. It wasn't obvious though, as I went with a mate who had some tickets, and I obviously had nothing better to do.

 

If I hadn't have gone, I wouldn't have known how crap they were, (live, leastways).

 

Glad you enjoyed it though.

 

btw, never heard of either the Groundhogs or Ten Years after so cannot say if they were/are good, or not.!

[Dreb48 35]

That’s fair enough.

We’ll just have to agree to disagree about Hall and Oates being crap live.

Seeing as you’re a fellow Wednesdayite , I’m prepared to let it go !!

[Ontarian1981 10]

On 20/02/2019 at 00:33, dropout said:

Seems to me that you are probably right, in that respect. It wasn't obvious though, as I went with a mate who had some tickets, and I obviously had nothing better to do.

 

If I hadn't have gone, I wouldn't have known how crap they were, (live, leastways).

 

Glad you enjoyed it though.

 

btw, never heard of either the Groundhogs or Ten Years after so cannot say if they were/are good, or not.!

Ten Years After were one of the standout acts at the orignal Woodstock Festval.They were fronted by the late Alvin Lee,an outstanding rock guitarist and originally from Nottingham and Mansfield.

[jad279 11]

Yes FAUST were the worst , When the concrete block and road digger came on ,the staff pulled the switch and stopped the show , they should have done it earlier. But i thought the Ham Clock was someone else , a band dressed as wizards. My mate Bothamlad knows the name.😎

[shanes teeth 10]

On 06/05/2006 at 19:01, martinC said:

i hope that someone out there was at the faust gig around 1974 so to prove i didnt dream it.faust brought an album out called the faust tapes and it cost 49p i think.it was full of german experimental music which at times sounded like half a dozen vacuums hoovering the carpet.anyway i went to see them and gong were the support.before the gig,gong were outside giving felt pens away,i can remember them telling people to go and paint the sky with them!!when on stage i can recall the front man saying that the next song was about a clock made of ham!!! cant remember anymore stuff about gong.faust came on stage in total darkness,no stage lights,the only light came from the tvs and pinball machine(i think) that were on stage with them.

suddenly came an horrendous noise like an alarm clock going off,absolutely deafening and after some more bizarre noises they got booed off.the house lights came on and there was a big lump of rock with a pneumatic drill in the centre of the stage-hence the noise like an alarm clock!

the bass player was still on stage sat in an armchair and said he was gonna play a song that consisted of one note and lasted 15 minutes-he got booed off rather sharpish...can anyone add anything to my recollections!! i hope so even though it was over 30 years ago..

Yes,I was there and I agree it was terrible. We sneaked in up the fire escape leading to the balcony,only to find that the balcony had been closed due to a lack of ticket sales and we were the only ones up there as everyone else had been moved downstairs! We did stick around long enough though to witness the concrete drilling song before being thrown out! I recall it being a catchy little number that we whistled all the way home on the bus!

The most disappointing gig I remember was Led Zeppelin when Robert Plant had laryngitis but tried to sing anyway. What a trooper. But I think really he should have gone home to bed with  a Lemsip (or something stronger!)