Worst. Opener. Ever.

Since someone mentioned bad openers, here's your chance to share your opener horror stories.� These are just openers you say "ho, hum" to, but the REALLY bad ones.� The ones you may have walked out on, or cursed out, or even left the entire show because they left a bad taste in your mouth.

Worst openers for me?

TMBG: Afro Man, Moldy Peaches

Bosstones:� Sick Of It All

I already said this in the other thread but my worst is a tie between Bitch and Animal and Hammel on Trial. (Ani and Fruvous openers, respectively.)� I didn't walk out or anything...not something I do. I also don't boo or anything. I just sit there in agony until it's over.

I've had far more good openers than bad. Lots have been boring.

Yeah, most openers fit into the boring category.

Actually I think most openers in my experience fit into the "pretty good" to "cool!" category. Then a bunch, but fewer, in the boring category. And a small number in the "what the hell?" category.

But then again I really like discovering new music from openers so I make myself pretty receptive.

Yeah, see, I would say 80% of openers I've seen I haven't liked.
Heh.

Maybe I've just had bad luck.

I'd agree with those two and add whatever band it was that opened for fruvous at Northern Lights that did that "Shucking the Corn" song.

(Not to be confused with that bald guy who opened a *different* Northern Lights show ;) )

I believe that was Rocky Velvet. I almost put them on my bad list but I didn't have quite enough hatred for them. It was more of a "wtf?" thing. :)

It was Rocky Velvet...but I have no memory of the song in question.

I just remembered it said "shucking the corn shucking the corn" over and over again and I took it to be a euphemism. And a pretty stupid one at that. :)

I haven't seen Hammel on trial but I really like what I've heard. What didn't you like about him?

I mentioned it on the wall recently but pretty much tunelessly assaulting his guitar, annoying songs, and really (intentionally) tasteless "jokes".� He just grated both as a person and a musician.

Y'know, I used to hate when Hammell on Trial opened for Fruvous, too, but then, somehow after the 3rd or 4th show seeing him open for them something clicked I somehow "got" it and started to really enjoy his sets.

I'm still puzzled.

Huh. I saw him open for Ani last year and I wasn't impressed at all. Andrea pretty much nailed it with "tuneless". He didn't grab any part of my attention.

hmmm
I'm wondering if he's one of those people who are awful live, but great in the studio? I haven't seen him live, but I've liked the studio songs of his that I've heard.

Hahaha! I saw AfroMan open for TMBG in Philly and had repressed it.� My friend and I still blame one another for whose fault it was we got there in time to see it.

Other noteworthy awful openers for me were Appetite for Destruction: A loving tribute to Guns and Roses and "Kill 'em All", a loving tribute to Metallica

Do see Bloodhag if you get the chance, though.� They're awful, but they DO throw science fiction novels at the audience at every show!

ok, i don't remember her name{believe me, it was one to be forgotten!}, but do y'all remember{i know care and gordon do!} the woman who pre-opened for mike errico when opening for fruvous at the vault show the friday night of BIGASS FRUPARTY WEEKEND.

awful. horrible. sucked. i mean, i don't think i can DESCRIBE how awful she was.......

ok, i don't remember her name{believe me, it was one to be forgotten!}, but do y'all remember{i know care and gordon do!}

You expect me to remember something? I'll be honest, I forgot they exist.

her name was kim. she sucked like there was no tomorrow, *and* her set ran too long. i don't think anybody liked her.

Carey, John, and me saw Shannon Wright open for Neil Innes. She was not only bad but really scary.

shannon wright = satan. the worst part was that, since gordon and i went to both shows that night, we had to sit thru her *twice*.

for TMBG: Double Dong, Moldy Peaches
for Fruvous: the "hillbilly fag bar" guys.

those are pretty much the only ones I can remember really really hating. there have been a bunch that were just uninteresting or unmemorable, but those three were truly awful.

I was wondering if anyone would remember 'The Two Yahoos" (I think that was there name...) from the Columbus show.

I just remember Jian coming out during their set and shaking his head in disgust.

Hillbilly Fag Bar. Worst. Song. Ever.

a one-man act without his band (would he have been better with more people onstage?� *shudder*) who billed himself "white lightning" while opening for fruvous at ripleys back in '98.� he was funny, but in that pity-laughter sort of way.� i can barely remember it now, but it was quite painful at the time.

also, i've seen some bizarro bands open for 2 skinnee j's--vic thrill is quite possibly the weirdest: half performance art, half electronic beats and synth, and just way out of character for what�we came to see.

i agree that the moldy peaches/tmbg combo is wrong wrong wrong, but john--*afroman*?� dear god, i hope that was a festival or something...� --k, mildly appalled.

Actually, the show was the worst TMBG show ever in terms of openers.

Moldy Peaches/Afroman/TMBG.� Electric Factory show in Philly back, the most recent one they did.

I PURPOSELY showed up late to that show.� I love being up front for TMBG, but to sit through Afroman and the Moldy Peaches?� Completely not worth it.� I showed up just as Afroman took the stage.� Then made a mad dash to the bathroom and was not in a rush to get back out.

The place was not even half full for TMBG.� Very sad, but the openers sure didn't help.� Screw you Electric Factory concerts.

And it's too bad you didn't see the best band ever to open for 2 Skinny Js, Professor Plum! :)

I was at that TMBG show, and I'll agree that Afroman was the most misplaced opener, but I'm glad I saw him just for the novelty value. I like the Moldy Peaches. I saw them open for TMBG twice, but I think they were better as a duo than with the full band, which played really loud and made it kind of hard to hear the lyrics. Their costumes were cool, though. My least favorite TMBG opener was the Gravel Pit, and I've heard horror stories about Double Dong and Goat Boy, but I haven't ever seen or heard them.

oooh, Goat Boy! I completely forgot about that. that's another to add to my list. "I am Goat Boy! I will put you on your ass!" was pretty much the entire content of one of his songs.

I agree with Nathan Mulac DeHoff on the novelty value of Afroman. During and soon after his performance, all I could think was "wuh?" but later on I realized that his being there was so unusual that I can laugh and be glad that I was there. As for the Moldy Peaches, I was really amused. When I saw them open for TMBG again two weeks later, I even bought their CD. I like them now.

I've never seen Goat Boy, but I've heard stories. My friend said he looked like Bill Maher and that he was straddling the microphone. {g}

I can't think of any openers I've seen that really really annoyed me. Normally I just get bored. So yes, I have nothing to contribute. {g}

dude!� had no idea you guys opened for�the j's!� :D� how cool!� --k, who be thoroughly impressed, arrrrrr.

ok.......when i saw one-man act without a band i IMMEDIATELY thought of that weirdo-man/'bad sad dad' guy from FRFF 2000 with the machinery thing that came to the budgiedome EARLY sunday am......the one with buttercup??? the

care---member him? i know leah and i got pix of him---LMAO

nonono, the borg guy and buttercup were two completely different scary men.� I have pictures to prove it.

DWD!! i forgot to tell you, or anyone, really, that neal and i saw the bad sad dad guy again this year! he was inflicting his music on some other unfortunate camp, and we got out of there as quickly as we could. :)

Went to see Dan Bern at the Fillmore a couple of years ago, and the opening act was some band where they all came out in white linen outfits and GIANT sombreros. The act went downhill from there, and by the time Dan came out everyone in the place was in a foul mood.

The worst opener I've seen was The Cutters, opening for none other than Moxy Fruvous for a few shows on a midwest swing.� Their only redeeming quality was that their drummer was a dead ringer for Animal.� I think even Fruvous commented on how bad they were after the show.

I remember the Cutters from their Bogart's show in Cincinnati (My first Fru show).� The Cutters are.were based in Bloomington, IN (my hometown).� My thought at the time was 'I'm glad I drove three hours to see a Bloomington band. *sarcasm*'� My second thought was 'I'm glad I was late enough to miss most of their set.'� Cutters are townies in Bloomington (see Breaking Away for details)... they give us a bad name.

I love breaking away!!!

best line: "I want some American food! I want French Fries!"

AGREED! I saw them in Cinci. The venue was like eight miles long and at the very back it was still impossible to hold a conversation for all the crazy, painful noise going on. Bleargh.

Gordon and I saw this random couple that SUCKED opening for the Burns Sisters...� and I found Sarah Slean pretty brutal, too.� Please don't kill me.

I seem to have seen far too many of the bad openers.

A classic for me was John Hammer opening for Rennaisance. His idea of art was to put as much distortion in his guitar as possible, use a wa wa pedal, and crank the amp up to 11. Even in the lobby he was painfully loud. There was a torrential rain or we would have left the theatre.

Yeah, you're not alone.
:)
I found sarah slean to be an awful opener as well.

While we're on the topic of "please don't kill me" worsts:
I couldn't stand Martina when she opened for the lads for the Fr�con IV weekend show (I think that's the right year for that, right?)

Although, her drunken duet with Jian the next year was fun ;-)

Another don't kill me, although I don't apologize for being one of the few to see how bad this band is.

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.� Saw them opening for the Breeders (with Velocity Girl pre-opening).� After three minutes of a decent rhythm section, Jon started chanting "Bluezesplozhun� Bluezesplozhun."� I kept waiting for it to get better... it never did.� I left the hall, came back in 30 minute... the chant was still going.� I swear those are his only lyrics.

On the bright side, Chris and I mocked that show for years after the fact.

Dude.. this was years ago but.. gah!

Cowboy Mouth.

God they were absolutely painful.

And the drummer/asshole was the worst of it.

whoa, they came to my school once...and some actually liked them.� As with most bands that come here, I totally avoided them like the plague...

Oh, please do.
Granted, I only saw the one show... but the drummer guy's thing was to be shirtless and drunken-fratboy-like, and do stupid faces and act like a general asshole.

:P

It was... embarrassing.

I didn't much care for Reid Paley, who was one of three openers for Frank Black and the Catholics when I saw them.� I thought he was kind of scary, and he spat on the stage a lot (although I've been told that that was largely an act).� I don't remember much about his music, but I don't think I particularly liked it.� That didn't stop me from being really annoyed at the guy who heckled him throughout his entire set, though.� Come on, even if you don't like the opener, let the guy play without harrassing him!

called Moxy Fruvous that opened for the great Mojo Nixon in Santa Cruz.

Hey I saw that band open for the Violent Femmes.

Hey I saw them too. . . .didn't the lead singer slit his stomach with razor blades?

mark kleinburgh I think his name was ....he opened for TMBG who are really great at picking horrid openers...Moldy Peaches, Afroman, some other dude who was so bad I had to block him out of my mind

Some Halifaxian.... I can't even remember his name..Mike something or other, I think. The only thing worse than a whiny chick with a guitar is a whiny guy with a guitar, and this guy was king of them all. It was excruciating.

Thankfully, Sarah's set more than made up for it.

Melissa and I just saw June Fool open for Jason Trachtenburg and I think they have to rate as one of the worst openers I've ever seen. They would change chords once every couple of minutes. They were painfully loud. There wasn't anything I liked about them.

I saw this guy open for Mike Doughty at Pearl St. in northampton.

Hoooleeee bajesus he was boring.

Ugh.

Every time he ended a song, we were all leaning forward waiting for him to say "thanks and goodnight".... but no.. just another freakin song....
It was painful.

I think that was his name. Why do I still remember his name? He opened for Dar Williams on her UK tour in 2001.� I had to stand him twice or even 3 times. And his whole set was always the same. Word for word. Songs and pointless jokes. *shudder*

I should have been eligible for some sort of refund. Yeah.

HAHAHAHAHAH!� oh my god, I just won his CD from >play (that's the second thing I've won from that show. I really think I'm the only one who enters these contests).� I haven't listened to it much though.� It doesn't sound incredible. maybe that's why they were giving away free ones.

Welcome back!
I call this a coincidence. Heee.� Let's hope that he belongs to the artists who are better recorded than live. However you don't have to put up with the in-between song banter :)
Or I was�in a hypercritical mood. Even Dar plugged him (which was beyond me...).
Tell me what you think when you've given the CD a careful listen.

Rochester, NY�11-24-1999: Martin Sexton - Not the performance, mind you, though the Joe Cocker/Van Morrisson vibe and the large face did not work for a Fruvous crowd. At various points, there were people casting shadow puppets on him, with shadowy hands grabbing his crotch!

Fredonia, NY 4-28-2000: Improv Society - not a band, but an improvisational comedy group in the style of Who's Line is It Anyway? I was one of the members of the group. Despite three great shows earlier that semester, this one (my last with the group; I graduated that year) was a dud. The person chosen to host that particular performance did a bad job of picking improv activities, leaving the rest of us with no material, and embarrassing us in front of the theater snobs from another improv troupe. Fortunately, there was a jam band between us and Fruvous. I apologize to anyone who saw us perform that day.

Fruvous show in Dayton, OH. Canal Street. A band called Radio Bikini. The lead singer was sloshed, and drinking during the show, and the more she drank the flatter she got. It's legend in our household, immortalized in the phrase "Eh, it's better than Radio Bikini" if we don't particularly care for something, but it's not the worst thing ever. So far nothing's ever been *worse* than Radio Bikini. I fear the day. :)