Concert Bummers (part 2)

With another tip of the hat to Speedy and 'So Many Roads to Ease My Soul', I present part two of the ten most disappointing concerts of my concert-going career. 

As always, comments are welcome.

5. Yo La Tengo/Buffalo Tom/My Bloody Valentine Vic Theater 6/24/92 The most telling thing about this entry is that despite the presence of Yo La Tengo and Buffalo Tom on the bill this show still made the cut.

In the right hands, volume can be a wonderful thing. It amplifies a chord or a riff or a drum beat and makes it larger than life, sort of like a Charleton Heston or Kirk Douglas monologue. It is thrilling.

In the wrong hands, it is a taser. It numbs your neural network, leaving you oblivious to any and all external stimuli. And experiencing stimuli is kind of the reason we attend concerts in the first place, isn't it?

Like you, I adored My Bloody Valentine. And as a certified musiholic leapt at the chance to see them. But after ninety minutes of being bludgeoned by a sound system more appropriate for Glastonbury than a 2,000 seat theater, I was done.

If hearing loss was the point, it was a rousing success.

If hearing one of the most innovative bands of their era was, it was a failure.

Anyone can turn it up to eleven. Not everyone could compose a piece of music like Soon. 

Pity MBV opted to be the former. And every time I listen to Isn't Anything and Loveless I regret it.

4. Johnny Adams Legends 10/22/94 I was hooked on Johnny Adams from the first time I heard his spectacular 1969 rendition of Reconsider Me. It was easily one of the most awe-inspiring things I'd ever heard.

But success was hard to sustain. It was the usual story of singles and the occasional album released on small, obscure labels that disappeared without a trace. It wasn't until Adams signed with Rounder Records in 1983 that his fine and soulful albums began to appear on a regular basis. They even remained in print.

But seeing him live was another matter. However hard I scoured concert listings in those pre-Internet days, I could never uncover one for him. That is, until he landed at Buddy Guy's Legends for a weekend in the fall of 1994.

After a decade of waiting, I was beyond eager. It didn't matter that none of my mates wanted to attend—with Adams' voice for company nothing else was required. 

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm didn't guarantee an unforgettable show.

Adams came on and ran through a pedestrian set of covers, the nadir being Sweet Home Chicago. The *$#@! Blues Brothers have made that the unofficial anthem of Chicago, and too many performers feel obligated to perform it whether they can or not.

I hated seeing Johnny Adams join them.

A second set was marginally better, but for whatever reason it was clear that this flight wasn't going to get clearance for takeoff. Adams seemed determined to avoid the inspired material his Rounder albums overflowed with.

Never mind Reconsider Me.

I gutted out a second intermission. It was getting late. I was tired. The third set began. Nothing. I conceded defeat and left.

After he died in 1998, I learned Adams had struggled with prostate cancer for years. For all I knew, he had just finished a grueling round of chemo before his appearance at Buddy Guy's. As a self-employed musician, he was likely in a financial free-fall following surgery.

I don't know. 

What I do know is that it was a very long walk to my car.

3. New Order Aragon Ballroom 11/21/86 Nothing like the burden of great expectations, is there? 

So it was for New Order when a Chicago concert date intersected with something I rarely possessed—disposable income. Truth is, after missing them in '83 and '85 I would've sold a body part to attend. Long-addicted to the astringent synths and steely bass lines of their austere yet propulsive music, I had been waiting for this show since I first heard Temptation five years hence.

So imagine my disappointment when I was greeted with an indifferent performance, an awkward, meandering set list and sound that could best be described as the aural equivalent of mud. Even for a band that traded in a certain icy remoteness, this was a chill I didn't need—especially with winter approaching.

I had been warned that New Order was a hit-or-miss proposition live, and as any experienced concert-goer knows a live performance is nothing if not a crap shoot. While the show was one of dozens for New Order on that tour, it was a one night only deal for me.

I left feeling as overcast as the weather and as barren as the trees in front of the Lawrence Arms hotel.

By the time they toured in support of the disappointing Technique they had dumbed-down their sound to appeal to a broader demographic. The magic was gone. And lest I forget rule number-one of concert-going, if you don't like the new LP think twice about seeing the show.

2. Tracy Chapman/Neil Young Poplar Creek 8/16/88 I don't believe there is a more stubborn performer in rock and roll than Neil Young. Neil does it his way and damn the consequences. That he continues as an artist capable of filling arenas is a miracle given the capriciousness of audiences and their tastes.

My girlfriend and I decided that a beautiful way to pass a summer's evening would be in the company of Mr. Young, then touring in support of This Note's for You. Nearing the end of his most challenged—and challenging—decade as a performer, tickets weren't hard to come by.

While aware of the potential for disaster, I naively hoped that the signs of reemergence on his latest offering weren't a mirage.

The concert began well enough, but soon veered into a listless, indulgent quagmire from which it never recovered. Its nadir was a twenty-minute-long acoustic dirge seemingly inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh.

I recall feeling like a parent tolerating the creative excesses of their offspring at a middle school talent show. Young almost seemed to be punishing his audience by offering up the most mundane material he could muster.

The insertion of After the Gold Rush in the middle of the set almost felt like a bribe—or an apology.

When the lights came up afterwards, we all looked at each other. We were flummoxed. We hadn't a clue what to make of it. Beforehand, such a show seemed like an impossibility for someone as abundantly talented as he.

Now we knew better.

We were rewarded two and-a-half years later with a show as fiery and as passionate as this was disappointing.

As the man once said, you pays your money and youse takes your chances.

1. Bob Dylan Chicago Stadium 10/18/78 As someone who grew-up in the throes of Beatlemania, the rock and roll of the sixties influenced me greatly. The Beatles, the Stones, the Yardbirds, the Who, the Kinks and the Animals. 

The Doors, Sly & the Family Stone, Motown, Soul. Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin.

Theirs was the music by which I would judge so much else.

I neglected to include Bob Dylan. He cast an enormous shadow over the sixties, and even if you maintain he didn't influence you, he probably influenced the musicians who did. He pushed the Beatles towards more introspective and topical songwriting, which in turn yielded two of their most highly regarded LPs—Rubber Soul and Revolver.

So yeah, he was a big deal.

Then he disappeared.

When he re-emerged, he was a living legend. His 1974 tour with the Band was eclipsed in media coverage by little else. And while it has its critics, it clearly renewed him. Blood on the Tracks showed up that winter, followed by Desire. They were his strongest back-to-back offerings since Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde.

With the creative juices flowing again, Dylan envisioned another tour. A revolving band of traveling minstrels, joining when they could and leaving when they had to. It would avoid the well-worn population centers of traditional tours and opt for out of the way venues in out of the way places.

The Rolling Thunder Review was arguably the highlight of his career. To my ears, Dylan was never more expressive a singer, nor were his rearrangements ever more effective. Surrounded by influences and peers he was loose and ready to try anything. The music was airborne and magical.

So I was beyond excited when plans for a nationwide tour were announced in 1978. I knew the Rolling Thunder Review had been retired, but its magic just had to rub-off on its successor. 

Didn't it?

After a train ride from downstate, my buddy and I arrived in Chicago just in time for a walk through the remnants of skid row to the old Chicago Stadium.

The glitzy, streamlined staging provided a remarkable contrast, and not only to the wizened, emaciated souls on Madison Avenue. One of rock's greatest chameleons had reinvented himself yet again.

No longer part of a band of traveling minstrels, Dylan was now a polished showman, coiffed and suited. As the show unfolded, it was hard not to feel betrayed. (And no, I didn't stand and yell “Judas!”)

I tried to appreciate this new incarnation of Dylan and his music, but after the soulful, ragged-but-right ecstasy of the Rolling Thunder Review this sounded plastic and rote and fake. Only an overnight wait in a downtown bus station could (and did) compete.

A recently-surfaced bootleg revealed the show wasn't quite as bad as I thought all those years ago. But at an age where passion ruled and everything was felt so keenly, I cannot forget the Dylan I didn't see. 

And my disappointment upon the realization that I had been the kind of fan who put an artist into a box and expected him to stay there.