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[ayakoholic]

Sunday night was my first time seeing them live, and I had an excellent time.  I gotta say, though, Cass McCombs may have been saccharine and lifeless, but they certainly weren't the worst opening act I've ever been subjected to.  That dubious honor goes to Triumph of Lethargy, who opened for Modest Mouse this summer at The Pines in Look Park, Northampton.

Ten or twenty years ago, ToL would have been a performance art piece about testing audience tolerance for atonal singing and guitar feedback.

Amusingly enough, Of Montreal's opening act was also pretty disappointing, considering that it consisted of everyone from Of Montreal except Kevin Barnes.  As I wrote in a review of the concert elsewhere, "It's like they had no idea where our collective musical clitoris was; they seemed to be enjoying themselves, though, so we just sat back and let them do their thing, and when they were done, we made appreciative noises, and we're just not going to call them again. They also seemed to be going with the "well, we can't engage them musically, so let's just play really loud" approach."

[mizaktik]

The worst opening act I've ever seen was at a Big Bad Voodoo Daddy show.  They had a couple open acts of local Jazz muscians, and the sax player felt that the only way to play any solo or song was fit as many notes into each second as possible.  The best description would be it sound as if the sax had the runs and was just constantly leaking out notes....

[Thrillho]

Elbow.

Put all the effort into their show that a tortoise puts into lifting its head. Pretty disgraceful really, especially when they were supporting Muse.

[iamtheaznman]

Huh. I thought that Cass McCombs wasn't that bad of an opener. Sure, it was boring, but still some nice background music. That girl did look like she didn't want to be there though...

Also Jeph, word on the Decemberists forums is that the Northampton show sucked because of the crowd. It was supposedly very very...unactive. I went to the Avalon show last night, damn was it good. People were jumping, dancing, singing, screaming. And they played "The Tain". Holy shit, can the Decemberists get heavy. Only problem was, they didn't play Legionnaire's Lament. If they did that, that would've made the show. Oh, and I think Colin pulled his neck muscle the previous night of the Northampton concert because of a "Dance party in the trailer", so that might have explained the tiredness.

[StrikeThePostman]

And they played "The Tain".

WHAT

If they had played that in Providence, it could've made up for Cass McCombs.  Not only did he and his band start a half-hour late, they were boring as hell.  However, we got commended for being the most "respectful" audience they'd had so far.

[decklin]

My vote would have to be for Morningwood, opening for Gang of Four (also at Pearl St.) NO, WE DO NOT WANT TO SEE YOUR TITS. YOU ARE NOT FOOLING ANYONE. THANK YOU.

[soak]

Elbow

Jesus man. I saw Elbow opening for Placebo (I went for Elbow) and they were awesome. Maybe they were off that night or maybe they didn't play any of their stuff from their first album but I think this is a case of a bad combination of opening act and headliner.


The worst I have heard of is when Papa Roach were opening for Red Hot Chilli Peppers, I would have been pissed.

[RUMBLEMOOSE]

I feel dumb not remembering the name, but I saw the Mighty Mighty Bosstones once when some weird goth-lite (like Orgy with less makeup) band opened. Before one song they brought out an acoustic guitar, did not play it, and then smashed it.

And they kept yelling, "GET THE FUCK UP" at the people sitting in the back. Nobody got the fuck up.

Oh and they sucked. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I can't remember how badly, or why beyond the brain-dead nümetal stage antics.

[JP]

I saw that band Wheatus open up once at Lupo's in Providence, and they played "Teenage Dirtbag" not once, but twice, consecutively. Worst opening act ever.

[jennyvalentine]

there was a band that my band played with in winnipeg called JAW that were pretty terrible.  musically, just really bad nu-metal....and for some reason even though it was freezing about half way through the first song all of the dudes had their shirts off.  they gave us a copy of their cd, and lyrically they were also ungood.  they were one of my many reasons for hating winnipeg.  and why the weakerthans "one great city" became a theme song for tour.

[La Creme]

Tough battle between Dashboard Confessional opening for Weezer (I was 12, ok?) and Digital Unicorn opening for the Aquabats. Both were horrid beyond beleif.

[will: wanton sex god]

HRMM
hidden hand or
dr.dog

[1patheticloser]

Wow, Le Creme, you just made me feel wicked old.

For mine, it would have to be Simon Sez, a terrible rap/rock band that I saw not once, but twice in front of...well let's just say less terrible nu-metal/rap-rock bands. But yes, they sucked as much you think they would.

[ImRonBurgundy?]

one of the worst bands i've ever seen was a band called Codename: Rocky opening for the Aquabats.  just the most generic poppy ska-punk ever.  it was really gross.

[Thrillho]

Elbow

Jesus man. I saw Elbow opening for Placebo (I went for Elbow) and they were awesome. Maybe they were off that night or maybe they didn't play any of their stuff from their first album but I think this is a case of a bad combination of opening act and headliner.

Well the music was okay - I'm lucky in that most of the supporting bands I've seen have been good - but they just sat there and politely sighed their way through it with no effort or passion. It sounded great, it'd be a fantastic live show for radio. But looking on stage I just saw Guy Garvey sitting, bored, strumming an acoustic guitar like he'd given up on life.

Of course, if they'd played their cover of Independent Woman I'd have instantly forgiven them.

[caveat puellae]

I saw the Decemberists last Friday at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia. They played The Tain, Legionnare's Lament, Mariner's Revenge Song, etc. It was pretty damn awesome. They didn't seem tired at the show, but that might've been because it was before yours.

[JLM]

I don't remember everyone that these bands opened for, but my list of awful opening bands (and some pretty bad performances):

Dr. Dog (who for some reason played AFTER Head of Femur...who the hell has ever heard of Dr. Dog??) opening for Architecture in Helsinki
The Zutons - Opened for Muse?  Can't remember
Quasi - Opening for Stereolab
Elefant - Don't remember.  Lead singer's rock star attitude was way out of line for the 8:00 p.m. slot.
The Bennies - Opener #1 for the Pixies...Terrible.
TV on the Radio - Their opening performance for the Pixies: by that time they'd been touring non stop for months and their voices were just shot.
Dream Warriors - Really bad Canadian Hip-Hop
Monster Magnet
Dungen - Opening for The Go! Team...Maybe it was the redeye flight but I was NOT in the mood for psychedelica as my opening act that night.
The Golden Republic - Opening for Sondre Lerche
Sleater-Kinney - Opening for Belle & Sebastian - not a great performance.
Aphex Twin - Opening for Bjork - Again...a lackluster performance...Like the annoying guy at the party who keeps playing Toby Keith to piss everyone off.

That's pretty much it.

[sjbrot]

Whoa. JLM, some of those sound like pretty cool combos.

[est]

i remember going to see a band play about five years ago.  i can't remember who i was there to see, and i can't remember the name of the band that opened, but the opener was absolutely awful.

they were an Aussie rap group who completely typified everything bad about Australian rap.  ie: they rapped with fake American accents, pretended to be gangstas, thought way too much of themselves and on top of that, couldn't rap for shit.

i remember one song where some guy beatboxed the sound of a steam train starting up and running faster while another guy "rapped" along to it, both getting faster and faster until you couldn't even understand what the rapping guy was saying because he was slurring the words together so much with his fake American accent.  at the end they stopped and some other guy yells out "YEEEH, THOSE WERE WORDS, MAN.  CHECK THE ALBUM SLEEVE MAN, THOSE WERE WORDS!"

it's like.  dude, when you have to tell people that they were words then they aren't words.  they are things that you have written words for but do not have the talent to enounciate clearly.  kthxbai.

[KharBevNor]

Minus opening for Sikth and Pitchshifter. Unmemorable music that did not fit the bill, a Bon Jovi cover, and their lead singer was trying to pretend to be Axl Rose. THREE CARDINAL SINS.

At the opposite end of the equation would be Ephel Duath opening for Poison the Well and The Dillinger Escape Plan, utterly blowing both those acts out of the water.

[Se7en]

Pretending to be Axl rose is a sin second only to actaully BEING axl rose.