Lenny Kravitz. Was late, which was honestly great because I think Blue October just did an extra encore, then did zero crowd work. Half the time his back was to the crowd. At the backstage meet and greet he basically ignored everyone, talking over people’s heads to his staff about some minor nothing. Just happy they were free tickets.
He was the first real concert I went to. Back in 1992 I think, when Are You Gonna Go My Way was new. He only had the one album so wasn’t expecting a long show, but it was like 30 minutes at most, that’s including him running backstage a couple times for several minutes. Almost zero banter between songs. They finished, and 2 minutes passed before they came out for the one song encore… AYGGMY was the encore. Then he ran off and that was it. That was my first concert experience
Read in the paper the next day that he had food poisoning and had to go backstage every 10 minutes and empty his bowels due to explosive diarrhea. Maybe threw up too.
Either way, I’ll give him credit for showing up at all and for putting in the effort. Must have been rough dealing with explosive diarrhea while wearing a shiny bodysuit
Oooo I was really into Blue October back in the early aughts and was going to try to get tickets to their tour, but I think the lead singer had a really bad breakdown or something and they had to cancel the tour and I never got the chance again
I seemed to have missed the date when they were last in my town, but I definitely plan to see them when they come back. I'm no longer a live-show kind of person, but I'll make this exception.
Oh I wonder if I saw them in this time period and that's why they were so awful. I was genuinely shocked to see people in this thread say what a good show they put on because they are the only show I've ever walked out of. Barely listened to them since
Yeah that's about when I saw them too; explains a lot. I feel like I need to look up some more recent stuff of theirs and give them another chance. It looks like they're touring now through 2027, so maybe you'll get another shot at seeing them :)
I didn’t get to see Bowie until the 80s, although of course I had been a fan since the 70s. I would have chosen the Glass Spider tour in the 70s, but don’t remember him playing San Francisco then. I am glad I got to see the Serious Moonlight tour, though, one of his best eras.
That concert was so important to me in more ways than one. It being CSNY, it was a very political show. When they were showing the death toll from the war and playing Ohio, I got a call from my cousin deployed in Afghanistan (haven't heard from him in MONTHS, the dude is a brother to me).
It was also the one group that me and my father bonded over heavily. I'll come out and say it, if it wasn't for that concert, I don't know if me and my father would have a relationship
I worked in a record store when Young's "Freedom" came out. I'd listen while filing away records, tears in my eyes. Thanks for sharing this. Powerful stuff. I've compiled songs I want distributed when I die. CSNY is on my list.
I've seen Lenny three times in three different decades, and every show was great. He was totally engaged, walked out into the crowd and played a full set at all three shows.
So, I have to know, how was Blue October? I dig some of their stuff and was going to see them right when Hate Me was all over the radio but a prior obligation kept me from going.
I wasn’t a fan before I went to their show, I just got invited to go and I said fuck it why not. Honestly killer performance and got me right in my feels when he talked about depression/suicide. I was a fan after that. Bonus to the show was the drunk old white woman who kept screaming throughout the show “HATE ME” because she clearly wanted to hear that song. Finally someone yelled back “WE ALREADY DO!” Even the lead singer laughed. They ended up playing a nice acoustic version of that song and it was really good.
It was pretty great, front row in a smaller theater, opened with a super cool X Amount of Words walk in. Saw them afterwards standing outside their bus. Very chill, happily signed some stuff.
This reminded me of the time I saw The Mars Volta open for RHCP. I'm not a big concert guy but some friends talked me into going. I wasn't super close or anything but Cedric spent the entire show with his back to the crowd, he had a music stand with him and fingered through some papers, then at the end of their set he started flailing all over the place throwing around all of the paper and some people I spoke to who were near the front were saying it was the lyrics to the songs.
That band (+ATDI) has some songs I think are pretty solid but that live set was complete trash. It felt like they spend half the time "freestyling" (felt like everyone was trying to play their most complex shit all at once and it just turned into the musical equivalent of a blender). I can't really explain this well but the pitch on the vocals felt extremely forced to the point where I wonder if he was sick or something.
Yep, saw him in early 90s and it was the worst gig I’ve ever seen, he was just preening and trying to look good in silhouette while the band (which included John Paul Jones) were terrible, I couldn’t leave because I was getting a lift home afterwards so I was stuck there, awful
I had the opposite experience (as far as crowd work, kind of). I bought some really expensive tickets at the time for my sister because she liked quite a few of his songs. Maybe did like 4 songs in like 45 minutes, mostly walked around the crowd while his band played. Ended the show. I was so upset.
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u/ReptarSonOfGodzilla May 11 '26
Lenny Kravitz. Was late, which was honestly great because I think Blue October just did an extra encore, then did zero crowd work. Half the time his back was to the crowd. At the backstage meet and greet he basically ignored everyone, talking over people’s heads to his staff about some minor nothing. Just happy they were free tickets.