Worst Support Act

Roland Butter · 19 Jan 2018 at 17:39

Have you seen some stinkers ?

Who is deserving of a lobbed plastic bottle of **** ?

I thought Jona Lewie was bad when he supported Jack Bruce in an early 80s gig but at least Jona had had a hit single and he could hold a note.

Current holder is a terrible singer/guitarist/songwriter Edgar Broughton who supported the excellent Roger Chapman [ ex-Family ] in a recent gig.

His tuneless dirges made a 40 minute set seem like 40 decades.

Grandmaster Fap! · 19 Jan 2018 at 21:42

Donington 1986, Ozzy Ozbourne was ****, the Comic Strip band Bad News played that year and they were better than him, shocking how bad he is live even back then!

ianh · 19 Jan 2018 at 23:02

I've two, a serious one and a not so serious one -

Serious - Foo Fighters - Ozzfest 1998 at Milton Keynes Bowl - Considering their fame now back in '98 they were mid-festival and just couldn't get the crowd going, so the crowd got bored and because the MK Bowl is a banked area those (inc myself) on the bank started a Wembley Wave of litter being thrown in the air and the crowd in front of the band, almost to a person, stopped watching the band and instead watched the litter wave. After a few minutes Dave Grohl stopped the set and said words to the effect of "well if you'd rather watch that then see ya" and walked off in a huff before coming back on a few minutes later to finish the set. To be fair if a band is so poor that people would rather watch litter being thrown the band can hardly have any complaints!

Funny - Daphne and Celeste - Reading 2000 just before Slipknot - Fair play to the "Ooo stick you, ya mama too" girls for staying on the stage while a rain of urine filled bottles and other random stuff landed on the stage around them but who on earth thought it would be a good idea

Scam · 20 Jan 2018 at 00:25

I was there for Daphne and Celeste too. First thing that came to mind

Otherwise I remember Cancer Bats supporting someone. God they were awful. Just noise, and way too loud. It was a mass exodus. Almost embarrassing..

Zefan · 20 Jan 2018 at 00:34

Not a support act by any stretch, but in a similar but much more extreme version of that Daphne and Celeste @ Reading incident; I saw 50 Cent get bottled off at Reading 2004. It was total carnage. Have a look on YouTube, I won't link as I can't find one without swearies

Whoever thought it was a good idea to have 50 Cent on Reading main stage?!

The_Bullet · 20 Jan 2018 at 16:25

Saw Jethro Tull in 82 at a festival near Wakefield. The organisers thought it a good idea to have Huang Chung (Later Wang Chung) come on after Marillion. This didn't go down well to a field full of stoned hippies. Many cans of wee wee were thrown at the stage.

MagicBoy · 20 Jan 2018 at 16:36

I can't remember the main act ... got a last minute free ticket from a mate as someone dropped out for a gig at Manchester Apollo in probably mid 1998. The first warmup act was short lived Moss Side girl band Cleopatra. They were awful!

Pawnless Endgame · 21 Jan 2018 at 18:00

The Prodigy was supported by an act called Ebow Man back in October 1996. It wasn't tooo bad but all the same very underwhelming compared to the main act. Ebow Man must had been obscure because the act isn't coming up on Google now. I preferred it when the Prodge was supported by the Chemical Brothers before they got really big themselves. Must had been early 1996 or some point in 1995.

Scam said:
Otherwise I remember Cancer Bats supporting someone. God they were awful. Just noise, and way too loud. It was a mass exodus. Almost embarrassing..

"Cancer Bats"... what a name for a band, like they're the cancer of music

explicit4u · 21 Jan 2018 at 18:05

Scam said:
I was there for Daphne and Celeste too. First thing that came to mind

Otherwise I remember Cancer Bats supporting someone. God they were awful. Just noise, and way too loud. It was a mass exodus. Almost embarrassing..

Haha I remember seeing Cancer Bats support someone a couple years ago. Strangely enough there was a decent amount of people there just to see them so they basically had the pit to themselves while everyone else was at the bar/standing around near the back of the venue.

uvarvu · 21 Jan 2018 at 19:35

Saw Kasabian last month and Slaves were their support act. They were the worst band I've ever heard - just noise with no substance!

cheesyboy · 21 Jan 2018 at 20:07

Was also at reading that year with Daphne and Celeste. Didn't actually bother going to watch them though.

Tell you what, though, those girls had serious balls. Gotta respect actually going through with it.

SexyGreyFox · 21 Jan 2018 at 21:50

Hard question to answer, first gig was in 1971 and I always remember mostly good things about support acts but there were a lot of gigs where I thought "Why did they put that artist as support?".
eg most of the support at Led Zeppelin's Knebworth concerts, all good acts but didn't suit the main act.

Actually during the early days of Punk there were some shockers and during the early days of NWOBHM.
There was a god awful band called Iron Maiden supporting Judas Priest, I don't know what happened to them.

Nitefly · 21 Jan 2018 at 23:54

I once saw a hip hop group called Blade support Feeder... Hammersmith Apollo iirc. I didn’t think they were that bad but the crowd absolutely hated Blade and they got booed off.... I felt really bad for them!

I once saw Babymetal before a main event and all I could think of was @IronWarrior and his bloomin’ ‘battle cruisers’ or whatever they are called

Saw deadmau5 and thought that was pretty poor... just playing the exact same mix I’d heard him play previously to the same light show. Err....

Shamikebab · 22 Jan 2018 at 00:47

Only support act I've ever seen booed off stage were Eighties Matchbox B-line Disaster who supported System of a Down. They were ******* terrible, called the crowd ***** and then got booed off

rids57 · 22 Jan 2018 at 04:22

I went to see Journey in Cardiff a few years back and was really looking forward to what should have been a very strong bill. First up were Thunder, who were brilliant as always. They were followed by Whitesnake, which I have always been a fan of. Trouble was they turned all of the amps up to 11 so that the sound was just a distorted mess and Coverdale was incapable of anything above an indecipherable, pathetic croak - I couldn't wait for their set to finish, they were absolutely awful. Last on was Journey and lo and behold, the sound was crystal clear again and they played an absolute blinder of a set.

SexyGreyFox · 22 Jan 2018 at 07:37

Nitefly said:
I once saw Babymetal before a main event and all I could think of was @IronWarrior and his bloomin’ ‘battle cruisers’ or whatever they are called

I love Babymetal.
Their backing band is absolutely superb and I get intoxicated by the choreography.
They are the one band when a video comes up in my You Tube feed I watch but I couldn't listen to their records.
And just to put the record straight there is nothing sexual in it or do I think they are battleships.

Tk7 · 22 Jan 2018 at 11:23

ianh said:
Serious - Foo Fighters - Ozzfest 1998 at Milton Keynes Bowl - Considering their fame now back in '98 they were mid-festival and just couldn't get the crowd going, so the crowd got bored and because the MK Bowl is a banked area those (inc myself) on the bank started a Wembley Wave of litter being thrown in the air and the crowd in front of the band, almost to a person, stopped watching the band and instead watched the litter wave. After a few minutes Dave Grohl stopped the set and said words to the effect of "well if you'd rather watch that then see ya" and walked off in a huff before coming back on a few minutes later to finish the set. To be fair if a band is so poor that people would rather watch litter being thrown the band can hardly have any complaints!

Hah I remember that, I was near the front and was facing away from the stage watching the hail of rubbish thrown in the air! Dave wasn't happy! Was there also the next year for Big Day Out, which if memory serves me right, Metallica chose the lineup. There was some garbage that day but Metallica were alright.

Mak3R · 22 Jan 2018 at 11:40

Scam said:
I was there for Daphne and Celeste too. First thing that came to mind

Otherwise I remember Cancer Bats supporting someone. God they were awful. Just noise, and way too loud. It was a mass exodus. Almost embarrassing..

Saw cancer bats supporting someone as well once. Grim. Absolutely grim. And I can get behind screamy metal sometimes if the music is good.

Scam · 22 Jan 2018 at 12:46

uvarvu said:
Saw Kasabian last month and Slaves were their support act. They were the worst band I've ever heard - just noise with no substance!

Wuuuut! Slaves are awesome, I saw them support someone a few years ago and they're one of the rare occasions I had to go look up a support band afterwards, they were that fun.

cheesyboy said:
Tell you what, though, those girls had serious balls. Gotta respect actually going through with it.

I actually don't think they realised what they were getting into. They seemed like the type of girls that had never been to a rock gig in their lives and didn't know what it might entail. They probably thought the audience was going to be seated

Nitefly said:
I once saw a hip hop group called Blade support Feeder... Hammersmith Apollo iirc. I didn’t think they were that bad but the crowd absolutely hated Blade and they got booed off.... I felt really bad for them!

It's these that are funny. Why would you have a hip-hop band support a rock/pop band? I've fairly eclectic taste and happy to try anything, but I'm sure a lot of Feeder fans would be turned off the moment a beat drops rather than a guitar

Mak3R said:
Saw cancer bats supporting someone as well once. Grim. Absolutely grim. And I can get behind screamy metal sometimes if the music is good.

So basically we all agree they are terrible?

Shamikebab · 22 Jan 2018 at 12:54

Scam said:
Why would you have a hip-hop band support a rock/pop band?

I like seeing different support acts. Trent Reznor usually has quite different stuff supporting NIN. I remember when I saw Saul Williams support him. I'd never heard of him and he blew me a way, I don't even like that kind of stuff usually but I've been a fan since.