Have you ever been embarrassed for an artist?

electronpirate

Axe-Master
I just had a runback of a AUDHD (US thing) that showed a Dickie Betts Band concert. A return after a 5 year hiatus for them.

I gave up after 10 minutes. He can't solo...his son Duane did most of the work (will have to look him up...he had skills.) When Dickie played, it was below most cheap bar level renditions. He sang, and it was...horrible. I love the guy. Great songs, came into his own when he had to step up with songs and playing back in the day. But this...was just...sad.

I understand the creep of age. He had a very able band (with double drummers, etc,) but they were propping up someone who should have never stepped on the stage. I really don't know if he's still struggling with the whole booze/pills/drugs thing, but it sure looked like he hasn't pulled past that.

Sad. I despise negative posts, but damn...painful to watch.

R
 
Was it as bad as his performance here?



Hard to say if it's age. Age seemed to negatively affect Chuck Berry and BB King both...
However, age has not really affected Jeff Beck or David Gilmour or Eric Clapton.

It's hard to tell with Dickey, in the video I posted his right hand looks oddly positioned, maybe arthritis?
Or, yeah, maybe it's too much booze.

Hard to know why age seems to affect some guitarists but not others who are even older.
 
meatloaf
grand final (footy)
melbourne 2011
omg the poor bastard



I just had a runback of a AUDHD (US thing) that showed a Dickie Betts Band concert. A return after a 5 year hiatus for them.

I gave up after 10 minutes. He can't solo...his son Duane did most of the work (will have to look him up...he had skills.) When Dickie played, it was below most cheap bar level renditions. He sang, and it was...horrible. I love the guy. Great songs, came into his own when he had to step up with songs and playing back in the day. But this...was just...sad.

I understand the creep of age. He had a very able band (with double drummers, etc,) but they were propping up someone who should have never stepped on the stage. I really don't know if he's still struggling with the whole booze/pills/drugs thing, but it sure looked like he hasn't pulled past that.

Sad. I despise negative posts, but damn...painful to watch.

R
 
holy shitbags - must admit, he did well considering no autotune ;-)
I sort of follow Steve Hughes ethos on Australia and sport so I miss most of that crap.
thanks
pauly

I remember watching that live in absolute amazement.

This one is a pearler too.

 
Went to see Dokken several years ago. Had backstage passes. Don was smoking like a chimney before the show.

He spent the majority of the show with the mic pointed at the audience trying to get everyone to sing along. When he did song, truly cringe worthy.

I left before it was over so we didn’t have to lie to him when he got off stage. It was not a great show.
 
Oh - also - myself
some pub in Melbourne (the shoppingtown hotel)
three piece blues band, with all three having the flu.
terrible terrible gig... I will always be ashamed
thanks
pauly

I still cringe regarding some of the hideous performances I was involved in during my stint as a binge-drinking lunatic. Even today! ..hit me.. "Ooooooohhh-dear-LORD..I ..noo! ..uhh!" ..and that's after 25 years of sobriety! :D ..you'd think you'd get over it! ...but.. noooooo!

But, hey! I remember a line from an interview with Joe Satriani, which I once saw. He was asked if he ever crashed and burned.. "Sure.. If you push the envelope, you'll crash and burn sometimes" was the gist of what he said..

Sorely lacking Satch talent - still - I take comfort in this! :0)
 
David Lee Roth in recent years makes me feel bad for not only him, but the people who paid to hear him.

But probably the most embarrassing performance I've witnessed was my own. About 7 or 8 years ago, I was asked to sit in with some friends at a local bar. I hadn't performed live in 30 years or so, and my playing had dwindled down to about 1 or 2 hours per year at that point. My previously strong chops were non-existent. To make matters worse, I had just moved back to my hometown, and there was quite a bit of buzz about the fact that I was going to be playing that night, so a lot of friends were there. I absolutely sucked out loud. But I channeled that embarrassment into some serious practicing and eventually joined the band. Been gigging steadily with them ever since. My chops still aren't what they were 40 years ago when I was playing 8 hours per day, but at least I don't have to hide my face in shame after a gig anymore, lol.
 
I think this thread would benefit from all of us recalling our own embarrassing Onstage moments....weve all had em...i have several particularly humiliating ones lookin back at my checkered careers and more I am sure I have suppressed....the costuming choices( both imposed and chosen) alone is reviving shivers of shame....
 
By far the most cringe worthy live is late era Vince Neal, he couldn't even Get out 25% of his vocals the last two times i saw them.
Luckily for me the last time i saw Motley Crue the Scorpions open for them and killed it. Three songs into Motley i decided id'e heard enough.

My most embarrassing moment was when our drummer lined us up to play our high school dance. We told him that it was not a good idea, he insisted. We played Slayer (seasons of the Abyss) and Pantera (Cowboys from hell).
Lets just say the crowd were the Furthest thing from metal heads that you could get. I have never seen a group of people move in unison so fast in effort to get away from the noise we were making. By the 2nd song there were maybe 10 people out of 300 left in the hall.
Last Time i played with that drummer!!!
 
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Copied this personal worst on stage moment that I shared on TGP:

A long, long time ago in this very galaxy. My band from my high school days was doing one of our first ever gigs. We were playing a big teen drinking party on a buddy’s property while his parents were out of town.

First we built our “stage” using sheets of plywood and milk crates (the property was on a dairy farm and had thousands of crates laying around). We did not do a very good job of it either.

Second, hours before we were to go on stage a cold front blew through central Florida and the temperature was plummeting.

Third, we gave our drummer a bottle of JD before the show. He demolished it before the show.

Fourth our vocalist was so nervous his voice was breaking up... before we took the stage.

So now it was time to take the stage. We get up there, and start playing. The instruments will not stay in tune. I am talking badly out of tune. Our vocalist could not carry a tune in a bucket. Our drummer in his drunken stupor had forgotten how to drum. Myself, the bassist, and our other guitarist were simply mortified by the **** show that was unfolding.

Then it happened. We hear a loud crash. The drummer has passed out and fallen backwards off of the stage, tilting the sheet of plywood he was sitting on and sending his drum kit crashing around him. Then in slow motion the entire stage just started collapsing. Amps crashed to the ground. We all fell off stage. Our vocalist broke his arm.

The moral of this story? We sure knew how to build a freakin’ buzz. We were the most talked about band in 5 different high schools in our area after that. Everyone thought no one could possibly suck that bad and that we had planned the whole thing out.
 
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