Astounding Concert Mismatches

Knitting Factory NYC. maybe like summer 2001.

A "double headliner" and an unmitigated disaster. About 40 people were there for Mr. Barlow.

For me, the Pixies opening up for the Throwing Muses in 1987. I know they were friends and all, but it was a joke. The Muses were never much of a live band and the Pixies were absolutely astounding.

I would have loved to have been at the show where Klaus Nomi opened for Twisted Sister...

-- gear (speed.to.roa...), January 25th, 2006.

see also Rage Against the Machine/U2, on the Popmart tour

No, I swear this really happened.

The In-Out, who were pompous and dreadful, playing what seemed like a 1,000-year-long opening set for Cibo Matto.

And although it makes a certain McSweeney's kind of geek-rock sense to me, I recall a great many They Might Be Giants fan being horrified by The Magnetic Fields as their sardonic, audience-baiting openers.

-The James Cotton Band opening for the Runaways, 1976 (Chicago)
(The Cotton Band was supposedly booed. Actually, during the hippie era, Cotton opened for rock bands all the time, and went over well, but by the time of the Runaways show a new generation was slowly taking over, and a middle-aged blues harmonica player opening up for five teenaged girls in a punk/metal band young enough to be his daughter wasn't gonna get it.)
- Howlin' Wolf opening for Alice Cooper, 1972 (San Francisco)
(Apparently both acts went over well, although God knows what the Wolf thought of Alice Cooper.)
- The Grass Roots and Santana, 1968 (San Francisco)
(And this was at the Fillmore, too. As someone who wasn't there, I always wondered how a bubblegummy band like the Grass Roots managed to still get booked at some hipster rock venue like the Fillmore, but this guy I know who was a teenager back then insists that while the FM rock crowd weren't big fans, the Roots were at least tolerated, for some reason.)

That sounds like a contender for the most awesome concert ever, though!

I've mentioned it before, but I saw Screaming Trees open up for Soul Asylum open up for … SPIN DOCTORS in 1993.

And really wish I could've been a fly on the wall backstage at the US Festival, watching David Lee Roth and Joe Strummer go after each other's throats.

Thin Lizzy & BOC.
Kiss, Teenage Lust, Stooges & BOC.

great bills IMO

If you read BOC as Boards of Canada then the inclusion on this thread makes much more sense.

Teenage Lust < not gonna google this, but who are they? Some sort of MC5 offshoot?

dolls wannabe's from back in the day.

http://teenagelustband.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/image-39.jpg.w560h452.jpg

drat

Tripod strikes again! (but thanks anyhow!)

Astounding Concert Mustaches
has been done!

I've mentioned it before, but I saw Screaming Trees open up for Soul Asylum open up for … SPIN DOCTORS in 1993.

― Pleasant Plains, Tuesday, March 8, 2011 12:09 PM

Yeah, I was at that show somewhere in northern New Jersey. Giant amphitheater filled with people... I wonder how many those bands could draw these days?

http://www.kissfaq.com/KissFAQ-wiki/images/c/cb/Teenagelust.jpg

xpost

I've mentioned it before, but I saw Screaming Trees open up for Soul Asylum open up for … SPIN DOCTORS in 1993

Yeah, this was a weird one. I went for the Screaming Trees (who did not disappoint!) but I met the Spin Doctors, who were just bumming around hoping to meet fans. They were really nice guys - security had confiscated my friend’s camera batteries, and the drummer went backstage and brought her a ziploc full of of AA’s.

Oddest I ever attended was Beans/Ex-Models/Tortoise

I've mentioned it before, but I saw Screaming Trees open up for Soul Asylum open up for … SPIN DOCTORS in 1993

me too...haha. i also caught a glimpse of my friends gf's bush this day.

Are you sure it wasn't Chris Barron?

B-52s and The Who, 1982.

circa 1993, Sun City Girls and Thinking Fellers opening for Bettie Serveert at the Off Ramp in Seattle.

one, two, bushes kneel before you.

BOC & the Faces.
Triumverat & BOC.
Thin Lizzy & BOC.
Kiss, Teenage Lust, Stooges & BOC.

I used to see BOC quite a bit.

― Thus Sang Freud, Tuesday, March 8, 2011 12:06 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

The Jam's first US tour was as BOC's opening act. I like both bands, but apparently there wasn't much overlapping interest in the audiences.

I don't see exactly what the mismatch was with Miles Davis and the Steve Miller Band.

Simple: Steve Miller was a non-playing motherfucker.

I saw the Melvins Open for Rush... I thought this odd. Yeah, the Melvins got bo-ed when they would feedback for 10 minutes at a time.. I rerally think they only played songs..

Primus would do their NYE shows here in the bay area and one year had them, Tool, and with Everclear opening up..

My mom swears she saw the Kinks open for Roy Orbison in the mid-60s, before their US touring ban i guess.

I saw Elliott Smith open for Tindersticks, and I remember US Maple opening for Pavement during maybe their last tour.

And didn't the Beastie Boys open for Madonna in 85 or so?

american music club and pearl jam, 1993 or so.

american music club and smashing pumpkins, 1994 or so

mark eitzel opening for everything but the girl, 1996? doesn't seem bad on paper but it went over with a thud and EBTG's audience was surprisingly hostile.

Didn't see it but Voivod supporting Rush was a big deal for us underground metallers who rooted for Voivod.

Not completely off the wall though since both were proggy Canadians, but I still had to ask Alex Lifeson what he thought of them. He said they were okay.

I saw Elliott Smith open for the Tindersticks, too, with a subtle but still noticeable pre-Sticks exodus. I also saw Elliott Smith open for Run On open for Will Oldham.

x-post Rush, like Morrissey, is one of those acts only generally impressed by bands that sound influenced by them. (My sister's theory is that Morrissey picks acts that sound vaguely influenced by him but nowhere near as good as opening acts, and if you're too good - say, Suede - you get the axe.)

Peter Hammill opening for Marillion in 1982-83. Because they're prog and he isn't. He got booed ffs

I saw that Marillion tour with Hammill. The gig I was at he was studiously ignored. Not surprised the music he was playing then didn't go down well with Marillon's crowd. Fish had quite adventurous taste with supports - the next year Marillion took out the Cardiacs, who also went down very poorly.

Yea, then it was shit like Beltane Fire after that.

Geddy Lee comments on how in Canada there was a show where Genesis opened for Lou Reed at Genesis' first gig in Toronto.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBZY_loemUw?t=2m24s

(It starts at around 2:24)

Geddy left after Genesis... :(

Wasn't there some extremely mismatched bill in London a few years ago with Leonard Cohen? Like, Boredoms/Cohen or something? I can't remember the particulars.

not sure abt that, none of Cohen's recent UK shows have had a support band afaik

Coil opening for Sigur Ros at the Festival Hall was quite a weird one. Me and all the Coil fans adjourned to the bar after their set.

Two I saw that were a bit strange:
Enon opening for The Mars Volta, circa the first Mars Volta record.
Neil Hamburger opening for Danielson, circa Ships.

And one I wasn't there for: Peter Ivers opening for Fleetwood Mac in the mid-70s.

B-52s and The Who, 1982.

― Josefa, Tuesday, March 8, 2011 1:36 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was in a stadium in Orlando. The B-52's got booed off after about 15 minutes.

Other wacky Who bills:

- the Who opening for Herman's Hermits (the Who's first US tour, 1967)

- Toots & The Maytals opening for the Who (1975 US tour, at Townshend's insistence. By most accounts, Toots didn't go over too well, sadly)

- Rahsaan Roland Kirk opening for the Who at the Boston Tea Party in 1969. Great story about it in Pete's autobio, where Roland first thanks Townshend for writing an opera about a blind kid (and stays listening to the Who's set for all three nights), and then recognizes Townshend's voice as the one that heckled Kirk in London a year before.

Wasn't there some extremely mismatched bill in London a few years ago with Leonard Cohen? Like, Boredoms/Cohen or something? I can't remember the particulars.

This was the John Cale / Boredoms show mentioned upthread somewhere I think.

I adored seeing the just reformed and country as hell Earth open for Autechre a few years ago.

I guess they do share some fans but there were a lot of confused pilled up guys in the toilets after Earth's drone-athon.

Misread that as "a lot of confused piled up guys in the toilets".

if i could attend one past concert this might be it:

http://o.b5z.net/i/u/10023017/i/byrdsbluetc.jpg

This was the John Cale / Boredoms show mentioned upthread somewhere I think.

― ~ (Matt #2), Tuesday, October 16, 2012 11:14 AM (45 minutes ago)

Ah yeah, that's the one I was thinking of, thanks. Not sure how Cale morphed into Cohen in my head.

second me in on the Byrds, BOC Mahavishnu show. I could make an argument that that is a very logical show.

His Name is Alive
Adult
Ectomorph
Knitting Factory NYC. maybe like summer 2001.

^ awesome!

Kid Rock / Kool & The Gang / Uncle Kracker
Tuesday 07/09/2013 @ Susquehanna Bank Center (Camden, NJ)

I don't plan on going.

Just found this stub on eBay:

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/K~kAAOSw~gRV060a/s-l1600.jpg

That seems pretty... Diverse...

once saw a show in 99 that was Sevendust/Kid Rock/Creed/Metallica

and then there was the Black Sabbath tour where Andrew WK "opened".

wasn't so much a weird pairing given what WK *actually* did (heavy metal dj). but a weird pairing given that those of us who didn't really read up on the bill prior thought WK was actually going to play his own music and then he just took the stage playing heavy metal songs for a half hour.

Deicide had a strange bill in Orlando in 2010 where this local math-rock band (ie late-era DEP) opened, and then (probably only because he produced their album) the final opener was this band that sounded like Chaos-AD Sepultura if they had a shitty generic power metal vocalist singing over their riffs. not a single other death metal band was on the lineup, like, at all.

kiss opened for the new york dolls early in their career.
john cale's first solo gig in '71 (with one of the incredible string band backing him) was opening for pink floyd.
mr. bungle was for some reason booked on the "snocore" package tour in 2000 with incubus and system of a down. this was while they were touring to support _california_. they did not go over well with the audience.
this happened a lot in the prog era. gentle giant opened for black sabbath in '72 (a few months after their tour opening for, seriously, a concert film of jimi hendrix). sabbath fans did not take well to their madrigals.
i also have a very film transfer of '70s king crimson where the title text reads "KING CRIMSON and BLACK OAK ARKANSAS". i have never seen the black oak arkansas portion of the film. weirdly the two bands actually played together a number of times during this era.

Barenaked Ladies + Howard Jones + OMD touring the US together this year. Is this a strange combination or is my assumption of what BN are like completely wrong?

http://olivier.landemaine.free.fr/vu/live/1971-73/vu_ticket_721130.jpg

... Doug Yule led Velvets, but the original band played with a lot of interesting people too: Dr. John, Chambers Brothers, Sly & the Family Stone, Tim Buckley, Taj Mahal, The Nice, the Allman Brothers...

PJ Harvey opening for U2 like 15 years ago was kinda weird.

'72 elo were an interesting band. here's them on a bill with a bunch of italian prog bands (osanna, jumbo, rocky's filj, banco, alan sorrenti, etc.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq5GCrpx7bw