scariest shows you've ever seen

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mine's here is metal the new indie rock?

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Friday, 10 February 2006 16:57 (nineteen years ago)

twin peaks

― ,,, Friday, 10 February 2006 17:07 (nineteen years ago)

I saw the first Dillinger Escape Plan show with their new singer. It was at Downtime in CMJ 2001. Hardcore kids--scared of change, as is their wont--were heckling him before he even said a word. Then the show takes off--strobelights blinking, kids piling on one another. Someone standing within a foot of me makes some face or motion or comment to the very very bulky new singer dude, and he PICKS UP THE MONITOR and throws it at him!

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 10 February 2006 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

Rolling Stones. I swear Jagger's made out of rubber bands.

― beanz (beanz), Friday, 10 February 2006 17:14 (nineteen years ago)

The one where the lead singer of a skinhead band left the stage to kick my balls.

― Collardio Gelatinous (collardio), Friday, 10 February 2006 17:17 (nineteen years ago)

Nico, Trade Union Club Sydney, 1986(?)....heavy.

― stu (stu), Friday, 10 February 2006 17:20 (nineteen years ago)

crash worship, jewish community center/school, pittsburgh PA, 1992/3?
so much fog you couldn't see, incessant pounding rhythm, random bursts of LOUD firecrackers right in front of you, someone swinging a huge mace-like thing with a flaming torch on the swinging end. the friend i was with slowly backed into the corner of the room and stayed there until the end.

― something less threatening (heywood), Friday, 10 February 2006 17:23 (nineteen years ago)

all the shows at the china king, in knoxville, TN - it was a chinese restaurant on the university strip - no one ever ate the food - EVER - but bands played there every weekend - metal and punk mainly - things got so rowdy there that the proprietors eventually put up a sign - "no slam dancing"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 10 February 2006 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

Crash Worship at the cooler nyc 1994. Identical to above experience, except for the bloodletting/drinking of a shaved, nude vampira with filed-down, sharp teeth on a silver plate of fruit and honey. I thought was going to get AIDS.

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Friday, 10 February 2006 17:31 (nineteen years ago)

P.E., NWA, EPMD, TooShort - Oakland '88. There were metal detectors at all the entrances, and as soon as NWA hit the stage the place went ballisitic with violence (kids just getting mobbed). They immediately stopped the show, bringing up the house lights, which did not deter any of the perpetrators. I saw guys ripping the seats out of the floors to use as weapons. It was riotous, everybody running everywhere, I hate to add to stereo-types on the genre, but that's the way it was at the big shows here in the late 80's. (and consequantly why hiphop shows were uninsurable for about a decade, and promoters had to go back underground).

― Bobby Peru (Bobby Peru), Friday, 10 February 2006 18:26 (nineteen years ago)

I saw Lanternjack at a Motor City Blowout at some cowboy themed bar in Hamtramck, and apparently someone in the audience didn't like the lead singer. So he (the 5'4" scrappy singer who looks like an insanely muscled Freddie Mercury) went right into the audience and started beating the fuck out of him. The guy starts reeling, and someone from the balcony must have objected or said something (despite being, like, five feet away, I couldn't tell what the fuck was going on), so the singer goes up the stacks like a monkey to the balcony (which runs sidelong through the venue), and pulls the guy from the balcony and they fall 15 feet to the concrete floor, where the lead singer keeps punching him until enough bouncers can pull him off. By that point, most of the crowd had turned into a freeform brawl (which felt weirdly appropriate for the Wild West theme of the venue). That was teh most WTF Violence show I've seen (though I've seen Lanternjack, especially in their Misfits tribute outfit start fights with bikers for percieved homophobia. "Yeah, I'm a fag, and I'm gonna stick my cock right up your ass!" followed by random swings).
Aside from that, it might be when Jucifer collapsed a coal shute no one knew about at a show in Ypsilanti, filling the entire venue with black, century old dust that meant no one could see more than six inches and was coughing their lungs out. That was scary in a large boom/thick smoke way. Or, and this is diminishing whatever hipster cred I have, I remember seeing the Beastie Boys at Lollapalooza, and because the venue was a weird lawn hill, there were drunken fratboys who decided that peeling up chunks of sod and throwing them was a good way to appreciate the band. This turned into a raining hail of sod, rocks, bottles and clods which made being stuck in the walkway turn into a medieval stoning. People had blood streaming off of them as the band tried to get the crowd to calm down, to little avail until they left the stage.
I was also at a Tool concert where more than a few people got trampled, and paramedics had to be called because people were getting crushed by the push of the crowd, but I managed to get out of that by not being afraid to punch people.

― js (honestengine), Friday, 10 February 2006 18:28 (nineteen years ago)

Buttholes in Chicago, right after "Another Man's Sac" came out. Gibby was in a dress and he was bloody (but I am guessing it wasn't real) He had clothespins in his hair and it was really demented. The whole thing left me uneasy. The band rocked though.

When I was a lad I saw Black Flag in Chicago (at the Metro, before it was called The Metro. I think it was called Stages?) right after the TV Party 7" came out. At one point Henry Rollins leapt off the stage and crawled around the floor of the club. I didn't know where he was until my friend next to me shrieked. I looked down and Henry was biting his (my friends) ankle. Later on, Henry pulled a girl up on stage by her hair. By that time, I was cowering in the back of the club, ready to go home.

And...one more. The Dead Kennedys at Club C.O.D, also in Chicago. I must've been only 17 or so. The club was jam packed and, after countless opening bands, the DK's decide to play very loud polka music over the PA for an hour or so before they come on (I think it's about 1am by this time)The punks were hostile and, once the DK's took the stage and kicked into their first song, the crown erupted into a violent mob. Needless to say I got caught in the fray and escaped with a few elbows to the head. Later on however, some girl let me feel her up during "Kill the Poor."

― kwhitehead (stephen schmidt), Friday, 10 February 2006 19:06 (nineteen years ago)

one more Crash Worship anecdote, identical to above posts. 1989 show, I managed to make it somewhat to the side of the stage where I could hear the music without getting pummelled by gasoline, when I was noticed by one of the topless dancers, who was taking huge swigs of vodka and spitting them out through her torch over the audience. she took one look at me, age 19, took a huge swig from her bottle of vodka and aimed her spit for my head, direct hit. a bit landed in my right eye, which stayed bloodshot for a week.

― milton parker (Jon L), Friday, 10 February 2006 19:11 (nineteen years ago)

Gravy Train!!! was pretty terrifying for the uninitiated.

― WillS, Friday, 10 February 2006 19:33 (nineteen years ago)

Neurosis. Memphis. Times of Grace tour.
A friend of mine (who is a huge Neurosis fan) was dancing funny during their final song. He dances funny, it's not his fault...it's just his nature.

They had some problems with the monitors all night and appeared to be in a somewhat bad mood. (The turnout wasn't super awesome either).

Apparently Scott Kelly of Neurosis (who we always referred to as "The Scary Guy"....[other guitarist is The Gnome...bass player is The Snow Beast...etc.]) thought my friend was making fun of them, as the sound problems continued up on stage. He took his guitar off and slammed it into the monitors and then decided to jump off the stage directly onto my friend. He proceeded to hold goofy friend down screaming into his ear about blood or life cycles or the permeation of the earth's spirit through a lake of molten rock for close to five minutes while the other guys finished up on stage. From the back of the pit (poser), I was pretty sure that my friend's soul was being sucked out of him.

Good and scary.
My friend later proclaimed that he got his money's worth.

― bobby.lasers (bobby.lasers), Friday, 10 February 2006 19:58 (nineteen years ago)

Butthole Surfers, Hammersmith Clarendon 1987. Nude and shaven headed dancer, autopsy films, flaming cymbals, usual stuff but I left the club reeling in shock (I'd been going to see bands like Marillion a few months earlier which could explain my reaction). Not scary so much as very disturbing indeed.

Faust at the Garage in London, 1998? Their grand finale involved setting off some kind of smoke that rapidly filled the venue. I had a moment of real panic when I realised I was choking and trapped in a crowd. I mean, you couldn't breathe in this stuff, there was almost a stampede to get out. The club was totally cleared in minutes as the band obliviously played on and the fire brigade arrived...

Costes in London a couple of years ago, everyone was cowering at the back cos no-one could tell if it was real or fake shit they were covered in, and no-one wanted to find out the hard way.

― Matt #2 (Matt #2), Friday, 10 February 2006 20:04 (nineteen years ago)

At Wolf Eyes at the Knitting Factory in New York yesterday there was a mosh pit full of kids who clearly listen mostly to Bright Eyes and finally found a band they could express all of their inner most rage through without losing any hip cred and basically pushed and packed together into a dense, sweaty pile of denim jackets that was crushing me into the front of the stage. My friend, who is really small passed out, for a little bit. Later on that night I was tapping an empty beer bottle on the stage in time and shattered in my hand and I got all bloody.

― ~~~~~, Friday, 10 February 2006 20:24 (nineteen years ago)

Or rather, last year; not yesterday.

― ~~~~~~, Friday, 10 February 2006 20:25 (nineteen years ago)

The bloodletting/drinking of a shaved, nude vampira with filed-down, sharp teeth on a silver plate of fruit and honey. I thought was going to get AIDS.

Wait, what happened?

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 10 February 2006 20:43 (nineteen years ago)

I think my scariest experience, albeit slight compared to some of the above, was seeing the Dwarves for the first time in 91.

They came on stage, and the guitar player was naked, except for some mask. And he kept lifting his guitar and shaking his wang at the audience.

The singer was very confrontational, going out into the audience, punching people in the head, grabbing people by their hair and singing in their faces, etc.

Towards the end of the set, the singer shoved a girl, who want across the room and hit the wall. The guitar player stumbled off the stage and cut his leg somehow. He was bleeding like a motherfucker. Then the drummer stood up and started throwing his drums at the low ceiling.

This all took place in about 17 minutes. I was scared.

― Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Friday, 10 February 2006 21:13 (nineteen years ago)

Bobby Peru OTM: Eazy E / NWA / Public Enemy at the Spectrum in Philly, 1988. No security at the venue. Ever been in a riot?

There was a gang circulating the floor, fucking with different people, chasing them around the floor, beating up others. When NWA hit the stage, they started attacking white kids. A bunch got hauled up into the cage with the soundboard. Me and my friend high-tailed it to the upper levels.

I saw every Butthole Surfers show in NYC from '88 to '92. That was truly some fucked up shit, and you had the feeling that anything could happen at one of them.

Costes shows could be frightening, but I knew him so that kind of mitigated the risk.

― Edward III (edward iii), Friday, 10 February 2006 21:20 (nineteen years ago)

The Butthole Surfers at the Marquee in NYC in '89 or maybe '90 (prior to Pioughd) was pretty fucked up. But I was pretty fucked up, too, so that may have added too it. Beer and cough medicine (I actually had a really bad cold, but decided to drink anyway).

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Friday, 10 February 2006 21:27 (nineteen years ago)

Once saw a Neil Diamond impersonator at a guest house in Blackpool in a bar that held, at most 12 people. I was only a child and found the whole thing a harrowing experience. Way too loud, way too realistic and a lot of spit flying around with nowhere to hide.

Whitehouse at some club in London a couple of years back.

My Bloody Valentine at Colne Municipal hall in 1989 when I had taken a mixture of bad things and couldn't find the door.

New Model Army in 1990 at a punk club in Bradford called the 1 in 11 club. I was wearing a white ski jacket and stonewashed jeans and was terrified I was gonna get beaten senseless at any moment but couldn't leave as I was with friends and had no way of getting home.

― Ant., Friday, 10 February 2006 21:39 (nineteen years ago)

a movie about a haunted spaceship called event horizon

― jonathon, Friday, 10 February 2006 22:11 (nineteen years ago)

small basement bar @ Leeds UNI - 1986

place is packed to see The Godfathers. their entrance music (Godfather theme of course) starts, and the band have to make their way through the packed crowd. they are dressed in their trademark suits and look very differrent to 'typical' student crowd. however, this being Leeds 1986 there were a few people who obviously liked Sisters of Mercy/Mission.
Upon getting on stage, small brooding intense Peter Coyne, looks over the crowd, leans over the front rows glaring .. and then proclaims in his strongest london accent : 'Where are we? Oh Yeah - Gotham City. I fuckin' hate goths' he then spots a few at the back. Points at them 'What the fuck are you fuckin' Goths doing at my fuckin' gig, fukcin' hate goths'

at which point they let rip into a blistering 'Cause I said So' or something as equally visceral. the place was charged.

awesome opening and rather intimadating for a a kid from the countryside who was scared of cows getting to close.

then a couple of years later .. Leeds Polytechnic - The Godfathers

during encore - some poor innocent kid tries to climb on stage while the band are doing their thing. Peter takes the microphone stand and lays into the kid, 'no-one comes on my stage while i'm on it, this is my fucking gig, they're here to see me' now fuck off' all while he is brandishing the stand against the kids body. not holding back.

next time i see him, he's an entrant to "Who Wants to be a Millionaire".

and then there is my foetus story - which i have told before, where Jim jumped into the crowd after a lot of interaction between the mosh pit and the bass player from the Swans (a large beast of a man), Jim gets pissed off and dives in and beats the living crap out of someone while the band just pound away .. after a few minutes, Jim climbs back on stage and continues. many years later - i get the chance to ask about it ..

nothing like the stories above - but hey, i'm still scared of cows getting too close.

― mark e (mark e), Friday, 10 February 2006 22:16 (nineteen years ago)

Crash Worship, Funtjar Gallery, aka the space above Speak In Tounges run by Ralph, Cleveland, 1995 or so. They wouldn't start till all the lights were off, including the emergency exit lights. That's all I need to say. I mean, they were shooting roman candles at the floor

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 10 February 2006 22:44 (nineteen years ago)

Jeez . . I'd forgotten the Godfathers. Saw them when they were still the Sid Presley Experience and they were great, doing this Heartbreakers/Link Wray hybrid at the height of post-punk anti-Rockism and confrontational with it.

Kwhitehead - this will win me no friends whatsoever on ILM, but growing up in Edinburgh, I could have gone to see the Scars, Josef K, Associates and so on, but really wanted to be in LA or NY seeing the DKs or Black Flag instead.

― soukesian, Friday, 10 February 2006 22:59 (nineteen years ago)

As for being physically scared, it would be local psychobilly and punk acts where their roadcrew just went off or there was a band/audience conrontation and blood on the dancefloor. Industrial acts have never scared me that way - it's just professional wrestling and/or sideshow geek acts.

― soukesian, Friday, 10 February 2006 23:04 (nineteen years ago)

Social Distortion / D.I. / The Mentors / House Of Cards at the LA Music Machine in 1984. Crowd was a mix of mostly straight-edgers and skatepunks, old guard LA punks, and random Hollywood rocker types. House Of Cards was sort of a gothic-X knock off - not bad, crowd getting into it, so far so good. After them came the first WTF moment, a 20 minute movie of Bauhaus wandering around some forgotten Northampton industrial zone while "Bela Lugosi's Dead" played over and over. Instant irritation to the non-goth audience who after 10 or so minutes of this began yelling various "turn this shit off!" complaints to whoever.

The film goes off, the screen goes up, and then the Mentors start playing. Most of the crowd (including myself) didn't know who/what the hell they were and the second El Duce challenged someone to "ARRAARRRYOUFUCKWITHMEILLFUCKYOUBACKHARDERAAARAR!!" a couple punks took a swing at him. No real effect though, Duce probably outweighed all the angry punks combined so Duce returned fire by stage-diving on top of them. Instant melee! I have no idea how long the set lasted... maybe 15-20 minutes? I was too busy trying to stay out of the fight.

After the Mentors played, the screen rolled down again and then an early Survival Research Labs video (the flamethrower-equipped go karts) started playing guaranteeing WTF moment #3.

Oh yeah, D.I. and Social Distortion rocked mightily.

― The Equator Lounge (Chris Barrus), Friday, 10 February 2006 23:15 (nineteen years ago)

Second show I ever went to was in '91 I think: Sadus, Obituary, and Sepultura at this little place called the Axiom in a rough part of Houston. During Obituary's set, in which the singer was doing this seizure dance thing while screaming the vocals, I noticed that there was broken glass all over the floor in the pit, from busted beer bottles I guess. I saw some people with blood on them, but no serious injuries. Just a really messed up atmosphere in the place.

Another show I saw that got hairy was Wrathchild America, Dead Horse, and Pantera at this club that used to be a big grocery store. After waiting for at least an hour and a half between Wrathchild and Pantera, the sound went out about three songs into Pantera's set. They tried to play anyway, but it sounded like shit and people started getting riled up. Phil started yelling about the club and telling everyone to get up on stage while they were playing. There were probably fifty or so people on stage, and people in the crowd were acting like they were going to start rioting. My friend and I took off at that point.

― ugly and stupid, Friday, 10 February 2006 23:30 (nineteen years ago)

a movie about a haunted spaceship called event horizon

OTM. This movie creeped the fuck out of me.

― cdwill, Saturday, 11 February 2006 03:53 (nineteen years ago)

for my brother it was Stephan King's "IT". Probably to this day too!!

― xgurggleglgllg (xgurggleglgllg), Saturday, 11 February 2006 11:08 (nineteen years ago)

Front 242

― snowballing (snowballing), Saturday, 11 February 2006 11:09 (nineteen years ago)

The Axiom was probably my scariest show as well. My first punk show - Jawbox/Shudder to Think, March 1992. I thought it'd be fun to go into one of these "pits" I heard so much about. Got the shit slammed out of me. A couple minutes later, I noticed a guy putting an empty beer bottle *into his pocket* and getting into the pit.

I backed out, slowly. I never did figure out what he was going to do with that bottle. Four Crash Worship shows didn't scare me as much as that.

That supermarket place was the Unicorn. I saw Anthrax/Public Enemy there amongst other shows. Not very scary.

― ddillaman, Saturday, 11 February 2006 11:36 (nineteen years ago)

godflesh/napalm death/nocturnus at the country club, reseda. several people were stabbed, which seemed to be the culmination of months of more and more gang members coming to shows and getting pointlessly violent. bad shit.

― baby, disco is fuck (yournullfame), Saturday, 11 February 2006 11:45 (nineteen years ago)

Agnostic Front, CB's 1985-coming down after a night on E in room full of angry skinheads--Batallion of Saints/Murphey's Law/UK-Subs show some Ballroom by the docks in NYC, New Years Eve 1986--friend stage-dived from the balcony 30 feet up and noone caught her. Was beneath a raining shower of beer bottles throughout. Never did get the bong passed to me.

― x-terra, Saturday, 11 February 2006 18:27 (nineteen years ago)

Arab On Radar at the Knitting Factory's smaller downstairs space. The singer started wandering out into the crowd getting in everyone's personal space and then some, with his kind of "gimme a buck or I'll touch you" demeanor. Then he grabbed a chair and threw it backwards over his shoulder, hard. It missed the drummer's head by about half an inch. The drummer chased him out of the building. End of show.

― Douglas (Douglas), Saturday, 11 February 2006 18:35 (nineteen years ago)

seconded, I was there too - Oct or Nov '98 I think - also saw Tim Gane and (sob) Mary Hansen outside after the escape. it was a flare that they set off, but as far as we knew - because of the thick smoke (couldn't see the person next to me) - it could have turned into a scenario like the later Great White inferno/disaster in Rhode Island. people were trying to come IN the exits as we tried to leave - the evacuation was so slow we woulda been toast. this after a Neubaten-esque 'the works' show - power saws, fires, on stage, etc.

― Paul (scifisoul), Saturday, 11 February 2006 18:38 (nineteen years ago)

Probably Sham 69 at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, when all the skinheads gathered en masse at the back of the hall, threw tear-gas grenades into the rest of the audience, and started kicking crap out of everyone else as they tried to escape.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Saturday, 11 February 2006 21:00 (nineteen years ago)

Butthole Surfers at the Chestnut Cabaret in Philly (88?), low, cork-tile ceilings, Gibby doing the old drumstick to the burning cymbals, flames going higher and higher up on the ceiling - shoulda been the first Great White scene by a long shot. I remember a dude in a wheelchair in the pit slam-dancing with the chair itself.

― Brian Turner (btwfmu), Saturday, 11 February 2006 21:04 (nineteen years ago)

in terms of being scared for my body, the winner is the Anal Cunt show i attended in 7th grade. chairs and bottles flying everywhere, blood all over the floors, ear-destroying feedback. totally fucking awesome, though.

in mental terms, the first time i saw Gang Gang Dance, the sound made me feel like i was in the throes of the worst acid trip ever-- i think, though, that it was sort of what they were going for at the time (04). saw them last summer and everyone was actually dancing (for once) and there were all these middle schoolers there to see Comets on Fire and I was like, "what the fuck?"

― Thomas Rees (treesessplode), Saturday, 11 February 2006 22:17 (nineteen years ago)

Cypress Hill @ Lollapalooza, Randall's Island, NY. I was already exhausted, dirty, and dehydrated and suddenly these huge wannabe gangbangers just appeared out of nowhere. I was getting knocked around hard like a pinball and knew if I hit the ground I'd be trampled to death. Managed to scramble to the side. My feet were bruised for a week.

― Je4nn3 ƒur¥ (Je4nne Fury), Saturday, 11 February 2006 22:31 (nineteen years ago)

Not so much scary as "fuck, this is not what I paid for" irritating -- I went to see the Jesus Lizard and the opener was some band called the Diarrhea of Anne Frank. The lead singer occasionally reached into a bowl and flicked some stuff that had the look of loose, runny shit out at the crowd, mainly at the pit. I was not interested in them, their music, or their bowl of shit, but I didn't want to go outside and wait for the Lizard because I had a position I liked with a good view, leaning against a pillar. So I just willed myself invisible like Bernie Casey in Sharkey's Machine and dodged when necessary. (It wasn't really shit, unless it's possible to completely deodorize shit.)

― pixel farmer (Rock Hardy), Saturday, 11 February 2006 22:55 (nineteen years ago)

I was at that Crash Worship show Dan describes above and can vouch for its scariness.

But scarier still was a Glenn Branca performance I saw in Detroit in 1982 in a large theater. I thought the building and my head were going to explode from the loudest sound I'd ever heard in my life.

― brettino's bounce, Sunday, 12 February 2006 22:04 (nineteen years ago)

the vibe at the Eyehategod show I saw in SF circa 1999/2000 was so evil and ugly and violent and AWESOME...baiting the shit out of the audience, playing this loud hideous wonderful squall...I had to leave, it really felt like some bad shit was gonna go down.

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Sunday, 12 February 2006 23:07 (nineteen years ago)

Jim Valley (Paul Revere and the Raiders guitarist) played for my small elementary school... I'm still haunted by "(I've Got a) Rocket In My Pocket"

― Tape Store (Tape Store), Sunday, 12 February 2006 23:19 (nineteen years ago)

The EHG shows I've seen have like a neutered version of that vibe going on. Maybe it's the hometown thing where like half the people are friends with Mike W so his antagonistic/insane ranting is more clearly a schtick.

Scary/amusing last night at the Hold Steady show in BR was a drunk dude SCREAMING at two guys wearing suit jackets, all "FUCK YOUR JACKET! THIS AIN'T YOUR PLACE! FUCK YOUR JACKET!" (during the HS's set)--but he himself was wearing an argyle sweater. ???

― adam (adam), Sunday, 12 February 2006 23:19 (nineteen years ago)

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