What's the worst concert venue you've ever been in?

As in, it would take an act of god and/or the greatest artist you've ever seen in your life to make you go back? I think for me it has to be the Showbox Sodo, in Seattle. (I thought of this thread because someone on Facebook had mentioned it in just this way.) Like a gymnasium painted black, without the charm. I don't know if I've ever heard a worse-sounding venue.

Never been to the Showbox Sodo, but have never heard anything nice about it. Love the OG Showbox downtown.

Going to have to call this one for the giant parking lot outside a stadium in San Fransisco with garbage flying all over the place where I saw the Rock the Bells festival.

honestly, the main space of the leonard street knitting factory pretty much sucked. i saw some great shows there and i kept going back, so obviously it wasn't bad enough to actually keep me away, but at anything close to capacity the angles of the room and the overhang of the balcony were bad for sightlines and fostered claustrophobia. not a good room.

(sound was ok, just never liked the experience of being there.)

salem armory

santa monica civic center - worst live sound i've ever heard, and i saw five different shows there so it wasn't a fluke. it just sounded like a concrete bathtub designed to accentuate odd-order harmonics.

by the time my tinnitus had gotten bad enough that i was using earplugs, though, i realized that it sounded way better with them in.

Mud Island Amphitheatre in Memphis, TN. dud dud dud!

"salem armory"

Ha! No doubt.

Actually though, I was once lured out to the middle of nowhere to perform a wilderness concert in rural Oregon. We were told it was a 40 minute drive but was more like 100. The site was a rocky hillside, with campers sleeping at a good 30 degree angle.

Also, we were told upon arrival that campfires were not allowed, and that only 3 people out of the dozen plus bands performing had brought flashlights.

It was also the new moon that night.

The chick who "organized" the whole thing was a basket case. She later admitted that he had an ovarian cyst or some other medical drama going on that left her in horrendous pain. But she kept it a secret at the time and stumbled through the fest in a haze.

Some of the bands pulled off playing by generator next to a stand of trees pretty well. But eventually, it started getting very dark and cold and weird. People were fumbling in the cold dark, drinking heavily, and fighting over the few flashlights.

After our set, I got my crew together and made the long drive home in the middle of the night. I rarely enjoy camping under good conditions. What a mess that was.

l.a. knitting factory was pretty bad, in a mini-mall, too high ceilings and generally cavernous and cold physically and emotionally, two rooms w/ sound bleeding between them pretty badly. it still wasn't super terrible but def. the least loveable place in l.a. that i'm familiar with, i'm sure there's some larger venues here that are worse. closed but 'relocating' according to the website

apart from the enormodomes of course which goes without saying...

most mid-size venues in London are pretty horrific, e.g. Brixton Academy, Shepherds Bush Empire. in Brighton, the Concorde 2 is shocking

here in Vienna Planet Music was a nightmare before it was thankfully put out of its misery in 2008

santa monica civic center - worst live sound i've ever heard, and i saw five different shows there so it wasn't a fluke. it just sounded like a concrete bathtub designed to accentuate odd-order harmonics.

OTMFM. Did see some amazing show there though (The Clash, New Order, MBV)

LA Knitting Factory was OK when it first opened and only had the one stage in the back.

Of those that are still around, I think the Greek Theater may just be my most hated. Otherwise it would be Jabberjaw in a TKO (hated hated hated that place. Glad it's gone)

Motor City Roller Rink - saw some great bands here in 1980 (PiL & Pretenders) but cavernous echo-y sound did not enhance the exp x10,000

I dunno about "worst ever", but one club that springs to mind is the West Germany club in Berlin. Really quite horrible. A very run-down former dentists with all of the white-tiled charm that suggests. Hot as hell and nowhere to sit.

http://berlin.unlike.net/locations/305905-West-Germany

But they have some great acts playing there, so I keep going back for more.

Waiting for someone to say CBGBs.

That aside, I cast a second vote for the Knitting Factory on Leonard Street in NYC. That, and Jones Beach - exactly the kind of concrete bathtub described above. Horrible sound, staff who apparently think they're prison guards, and the stench of rotten seawater wafting into your nose the whole night.

A good enough band can just about transcend anything, but I really hate venues where an architectural box designed for another purpose has been made into a 'music venue' through the addition of foot-high stage at one end. The Edinburgh Corn Exchange is a classic example. Another pet peeve is venues sponsored by shit corporate lager, with bars staffed by lethargic zombies. (Come to think of it, most student unions have all of the above pretty well covered.)

Smelly, dirty, delapidated, crowded and even violent are all things I can cope with, but I want to be able to see and hear the band, and obtain liquid refreshment with ease.

do you think corn brokers have a thread on their msg board called "what's the worst corn exchange you've ever been in?"

Roseland Ballroom in NYC. The place was built for big bands and dancing, not rock concerts. It's cavernous, with Godawful sound. It's like seeing a band play in an airplane hangar.

the Gerard Philippe, in the former East Berlin, 1995. big ol 2- or 3-day festival goin' on there, we were part of it. 10,000,000 bands playing each day of course. a former high school gym I think, no ventilation, every man woman and child in there smoking two cigarettes minimum at once, no conditioning for sound at all. evidently, the day after the festival, it burned to the ground.

http://www.andreas-praefcke.de/carthalia/germany/images/berlin__kinos.jpg

Islington Academy. A box in a shopping centre. Terrible sightlines. Little or no atmosphere.
Never understand how Brixton Academy always wins "best venue in London" polls. The only thing going for it is the raked floor, which means even the shorter among us can usually see something. But the sound is a reliably horrible bass-heavy sludge, probably the worst sound in London, gig after gig after gig; it's impossible to get served at the bars; the toilets are routinely disgusting.

Planet X in Liverpool. The old one. I mean I loved it and saw Extreme Noise Terror, Gorilla Biscuits, Electro Hippies etc etc there but I was on the dancefloor once and got soaked by a waterfall of urine from a leaking toilet pouring through a hole in the ceiling from the floor above.

I saw Soundgarden & Tad play in the Lexington Avenue Armoury on .... 28th street, i think?.... back in the mid-90's. For a start, you couldn't buy beer (always a drawback). Secondly, it was swelteringly hot with no air conditioning. But worst of all, the place was not built for music. A massive, cavernous airline-hanger sized room. The definition of sound just got lost. It was a sonic mess. A dull blur of noise. And no beer.

The Marquee Bar - not the actual bar that's now above the Marquee Club, but some other place that was around the corner in 1996. Cramped, dark, claustrophobic, concrete pillars blocking the view of the stage, aggressive atmosphere from the crowd, floor slick with beer so people were slipping all over the place, dreadful toilets (including a steep couple of steps down immediately after the door to the gents which many guys fell down), terrible sound.

so what makes for a good venue besides good acoustics...?

No branding. Not owned by beer company like carling. Good door staff. New PA. Interesting architecture. Good bookers.

The Roundhouse in London makes a welcome change to the normal shitty venues we have.

Terminal 5, i've seen good shows at, but the place is kinda awful. The sound is really muffled, and it usually smells like shit. I never really like going there, even if some of my favorite bands are playing.

the only time i was at terminal 5 they insisted on shining their brightest white lights directly in the crowd's faces for half the show

I saw the Stooges at Terminal 5 a year ago -- dreadful, dreadful place. Terrible sight lines. Cramped, crowded bar areas & because of union laws -- or so I'm told -- the show started half hour after the doors open (when most of us were still getting drinks) and wrapped up early. Sucked all around.

Hollywood Palladium, Sonic Youth, 1990. sound: calling it mud would be much too kind imo. realizing this--after playing a full set, mind--Thurston proceeded to scream into the mic for what seemed like 15 minutes or so at show's end; soundguy behind the boards saw me laughing my ass off while pointing at Thurston and started laughing along with me. good times.

I once played a squat in this shithole town in Bosnia called Banja Luka - a brutalist concrete basement, broken glass and stale beer all over the place from last month's show, fascist graffiti in the "toilets", and - the clincher - a circular patch of burned grass next to the building that housed this place. "What was there?" we asked innocently. "That was the mosque" they replied.

lol @ the O2 Arena

Another Seattle venue that is on my no-go list: Qwest Event Center or whatever corporation has bought the naming rights this year. Saw Daft Punk there and have seen more atmosphere at a kids birthday party at McDonalds. It's a giant concrete room separated by plastic curtains and pull out bleachers. Tickets are always insanely expensive and that fucking prick Paul Allen has something to do with it. That's 3 or 4 strikes against it. I will never return.

so what makes for a good venue besides good acoustics...?

xpost: ambience, staff, sightlines, beer...

saw radiohead at the Bill Graham Civic (sf) ~'97 and vowed to never go back to that hole. no sightlines, crappy sound.
saw Dylan in the gymnasium where Cal plays basketball a few years ago, that was even worse than the Bill Graham

x-post At Shepherd's Bush Empire the first balcony is one of the best places to watch bands in London: quiet bar, great sightlines and tolerable sound. Unfortunately, that's usually the bit the labels buy up, so it's hard to buy admission to it. And everywhere else in that venue is terrible.

Koko's a shocker, too. It looks amazing from the stage - all that ornate Victoriana, and the boxes and so on. From the room, however, only about five people can see the stage, and because of the overhang of the balcony, anyone in the back half gets terrible muffled sound. In the balconies, only the front row can see anything. I once waited 40 minutes to be served at the bar, the only time I've ever lost my temper with bar staff. Getting out is a nightmare, too - everyone filtering out of one narrow corridor. To make it worse, after Friday night gigs, they let the Club NME 12-year-olds in even as the gig crowd is filtering out - through the same narrow corridor. One day, hundreds of people will die there.

Tramps was a big venue in the late 90s in NYC. I saw dozens of bands there and the sound was great, but they had these two gigantic steel poles right in the middle of the floor that wreaked havoc on sightlines.

Koko isn't that bad, as long as you get there early enough to stand by the railings. Same for the scala.
I don't like the Forum. Unless you stand right at the front the audience chatter frowns out everything else.

Another Seattle venue that is on my no-go list: Qwest Event Center or whatever corporation has bought the naming rights this year. Saw Daft Punk there and have seen more atmosphere at a kids birthday party at McDonalds. It's a giant concrete room separated by plastic curtains and pull out bleachers. Tickets are always insanely expensive and that fucking prick Paul Allen has something to do with it. That's 3 or 4 strikes against it. I will never return.

― brotherlovesdub, Sunday, January 24, 2010 9:04 AM Bookmark

Never seen a show there, but I worked at a big ticket fundraiser there for Gregoire with Michelle Obama and I can't for a second imagine wanting to see a concert there.

The Forum is shocking. Although, I'll be there watching Slayer in March.

xpost: most venues are okay if you get there early enough to get the best spot ...

the one time i went to the O2 arena in Dublin, it turned out to be a pretty disheartening experience. no athmosphere at all and the sound didnt travel well. i was stuck up in one of the nosebleed seats too. it was even worse when it was the Point Depot though.

Yes I saw Heaven & Hell with Neurosis at Qwest Center in Seattle. Dio was able to command that horrible place, but Neurosis wasn't up to the challenge.

I also want to nominate the Nyabinghi in Youngstown, OH for worst ventilation AND worst bathroom.

the echo is hugely popular in los angeles but it kind of sucks. they double-book, the "name" act of the evening often goes on first and the local acts go on later, which has led to me missing a couple of shows thanks to the echo's practice is being a little vague about start times. and they'll charge $6 for a beer that ends up arriving in a small plastic cup rather than a regular sized glass. i still go there for shows because they get a decent share of the good acts who roll through town.

the avalon in hollywood has the same double-booking issue. they tend to have early shows with acts and then kick everyone out (in a pretty aggressive and unfriendly manner) as soon as the band leaves the stage so they can let a bunch of kids in to watch some crappy local DJ. i've been there three times and it happened each time, which is why i only go there if i've got no other chance to see the act in question.

i don't like the hollywood bowl that much but i think it appeals to a scene that's not really mine.

the knitting factory sucked.

the troubadour is a hassle and the crowd has always sucked and they're overpriced but they get good shows.

conversely, the henry fonda, the wiltern, the el rey, spaceland, and mccabe's are all awesome.

the one time i went to the O2 arena in Dublin, it turned out to be a pretty disheartening experience. no atmosphere at all and the sound didn't travel well. i was stuck up in one of the nosebleed seats too.

I saw AC/DC at the O2 in Dublin and had a great time, but I was down on the floor. No idea how the sound is in the upper decks. I kinda liked the "atmosphere" of the place from where I was standing - w/the seats going straight up the curve of the wall, it looked like Thunderdome to me.

The old Leopold Brothers in Ann Arbor.

Former battery factory, a big brick box twice as long as it was wide. For some reason, the stage was near the entrance, facing across the narrow way, which meant that it was, like, 20 feet between the band and a flat brick wall. I remember seeing the Waxwings there, a jangly reverb-laden pop band, and I think they would have sounded better in a bus terminal. The reflection just killed all the warmth from the reverb and left everything a cacophonous haze, closer to Wolf Eyes than The Byrds.

I once played a squat in this shithole town in Bosnia called Banja Luka - a brutalist concrete basement, broken glass and stale beer all over the place from last month's show, fascist graffiti in the "toilets", and - the clincher - a circular patch of burned grass next to the building that housed this place. "What was there?" we asked innocently. "That was the mosque" they replied.

― Ork Alarm (Matt #2), Sunday, January 24, 2010 11:37 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

holy shit at this awesome story

jealous you got to play Bosnia, that's a hell of a thing to have on the CV

it was even worse when it was the Point Depot though. - lol, when the term "airplane hangar" was first used on this thread, The Point was exactly what I thought of. I saw two shows there during my year in Dublin (00-01), Primal Scream & someone else who I can't recall. PS actually sounded pretty good there, but the other show was absolutely dreadful.

The old Leopold Brothers in Ann Arbor. - I actually have a bit of behind the scenes info on this. Leopold Bros. was never intended to host shows - it was first & foremost (A) a microbrewery & (B) a German-style beer hall. The only reason they started having shows is b/c relations soured b/w the booking agent at the Blind Pig & a local collective of bands/management/promoters who were looking for a change of scenery. For a while (01-04 or so), these bands would regularly play there & it always sounded phenomonal, but we had our own in-house sound guy w/ powerful enough equipment & the know-how to maximise its usage. After we hosted some successful gigs there, the guys at LB decided to start opening their doors to other musicians, & I don't know if they bought their own PA & hired someone to run it, or if they outsourced the whole package, but yeah, whoever was in charge did not have the proper juice for the amount of space (a classic mistake in such circumstances) or just plain did not know what they were doing, b/c I saw Of Montreal play there at some point & it pretty much sounded how you described The Waxwings.

the o2 in london is actually fine for the vast majority of artists big enough to fill it... the NIN/JA tour + tina turner shows i've seen there were superb and the sound is actually fairly great for such a big shed. its just when people like dylan and cohen play there that it gets silly.

Ah The Point, yes that was a horrible place. Technically of course it was an actual warehouse, just with a stage and some new seats added. The O2 redevelopment of the building is a damn sight better; the sight lines are perfect and the sound is impressive (though I haven't been to a concert there yet).

But the worst venue in Dublin surely has to be The Ambassador (mercifully closed a year or so ago), which had the worst acoustics of any in the city. I went to the first show there when it was opened as a music venue some 10 years ago, Steve Malkmus & The Jicks supported by Quasi. I'm an S-K fan so I was mostly there for Janet Weiss, but when Quasi's first song started and I couldn't hear her drums, I knew I was in for a bad evening - all the sound went up into the dome above the stage and floor!

I only went to a handful of gigs there, but almost all of them were rubbish (I left a Godspeed show early, the sound was so muddy, I couldn't hear a thing). In fact the only good show I remember was Tenacious D, and only because that's a comedy gig masquerading as music, really.

Just remembering that the most memorable show I saw at the old Point was that big metal festival that took place about three weeks after 9/11. Most of the big headliners (most notably Pantera) pulled out at the last minute so it was just Biohazard (who I missed), Cradle of Filth (who were hilarious with their stiltwalkers and all) and the mighty Slayer, who put on an awesome show despite the fact that the place wasn't even half full (most people took the offer of a full refund). Rubbish sight lines from the side balcony, but the sound wasn't half bad.

the echo is hugely popular in los angeles but it kind of sucks.

― ('_') (omar little), Sunday, January 24, 2010 12:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i like it cause you can roam alot, the whole 'community' that springs up out back can be friendly (or not), and the bar is relatively chill and a good place to see/feel the show if its not too busy. the big room below gets super hot and stuffy, only been in there a couple times though. i like spaceland but it gets claustrophobic. ur right about avalon, i don't like to be shooed. hollywood bowl can be a nice experience, not the best place to cut loose but it's fun to watch people try

I was at the NIN/JA show at the O2 London...yes, the sound was excellent (JA particularly, who are pretty much the ideal arena band IMO), but fuck if I'm ever sitting 120 yards from a performer again

should have got floor tickets, was super sweet

I went because a friend couldn't go and wanted someone else to buy the ticket from the person who'd bought it, otherwise awkward owing situation would arise. Never spending £35 on a gig again

plus, NIN were kinda not great - if I hadn't seen Mew at the start I'd have felt even more ripped-off

in Brighton, the Concorde 2 is shocking

there are some seriously shitty venues in Brighton but C2 is definitely not one of them.

Always ALWAYS hated the Astoria with a passion and was pretty bitter every time a band I wanted to see was playing there. Now feel a burst of serenity pride every time I pass tott court road tube station and look above street level.

i like it cause you can roam alot, the whole 'community' that springs up out back can be friendly (or not), and the bar is relatively chill and a good place to see/feel the show if its not too busy. the big room below gets super hot and stuffy, only been in there a couple times though.

The Echo is OK when you've got some breathing room, but when it's packed it's miserable, hard to see, and doubly hard to hear - especially when the band is loud (seeing Spiritualized there was near-comedy)

I like the Echoplex downstairs a lot for anything (everyone from Stars Of The Lid to The Raincoats, even Eddie Izzard.)

salem armory

― french fried (jeepski), Saturday, January 23, 2010 10:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Worst ever. Terrible sound.. and in the hot summer, it was one sweaty bastard. That place should burn down.

Neumos kind of sucks too.

there are some seriously shitty venues in Brighton but C2 is definitely not one of them

Well I've always had a shitty time on the many occasions I have been there, not least because of its weird shape with the stage off to the side and the pillars in the way. When I saw American Music Club there a few years ago it was one of these "two-shows-in-one-night" affairs whereby the gig is put on at an absurdly early hour so that they can get the punters in and out quickly and have a separate club night afterwards. So AMC were shunted on at 7pm or something when it was still light outside and the light came streaming in through the windows. They tried to block the light out with some sorry excuses for curtains but it hardly made for a conducive atmosphere.

Plus, I've always been ordered by the bouncers there to get out of the main hall after the gig and retreat to the bar area. No thanks, I've paid my money and I'll stand where I like.

The Forum is shocking. Although, I'll be there watching Slayer in March.

Erm, no you won't... they've cancelled/postponed.

Seconding shittiness of Shepherd's Bush Empire.

not least because of its weird shape with the stage off to the side and the pillars in the way.

I'm assuming there's been a change of layout since you were last there and not just an incommensurable difference of perception, as when I've been there the stage has been in a pretty normal, centre position.

probably Aston Villa leisure centre to see Blur's warm-up for their Alexandra Palace show. literally a sports hall/ gymnasium with some lights.

Talking of which, Alexandra Palace is a shit venue.

Mind you I'm finding it hard to think of a medium-to-large London venue that isn't shit. Hammersmith Apollo maybe?

when I've been there the stage has been in a pretty normal, centre position

It probably is a difference of perception – here (pdf) is the current floor plan and the stage is indeed off to the side, i.e. next to the outside wall. No biggie but it makes for an uncomfortable, disorientating effect when watching the bands.

Mind you I'm finding it hard to think of a medium-to-large London venue that isn't shit. Hammersmith Apollo maybe?

That place is worse than the Empire. I would say that the only decent medium-to-large venues in London are the posh ones, i.e. Barbican Hall, Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Oh right, I thought you were saying it was where the lift is. I dunno, that's not that off to the side, it's really only one door to the left. And I've never had a problem seeing the bands from any position in there, but I guess I have only been to about three shows there.

xpost

That place is worse than the Empire.

No way! I went to see Motorhead there a few months ago, it was sold out, but I got served really easily and there was no queue for the toilets, could walk around the place without tripping over people etc.

Strangely, the 02 is one of the better venues in London at the moment, though my view is coloured because I've only ever had really good seats there. Would doubtless feel different had I been in the gods. That said, one has to leave early, or spend an hour queueing for the Tube.

coming back from the o2 on one of the (many) weekends when the jubilee line is down was probably the second most distressing london journey i've ever made, after coming back from the o2 at a particularly freezing 6am morning after a night out at matter. fuck that place and its location imo.

The Forum is shocking. Although, I'll be there watching Slayer in March.

Erm, no you won't... they've cancelled/postponed.

Erm, yes I will. Third time lucky for thrash codgers I hope. UK dates here.

Although I should have said May.

Or June actually.

Brixton is great i think, but everyone in London seems to have a beef with it. I wish there was a venue as good in Manchester. Bar at the back, loos at the side of the stage (NOWHERE else has this), slanted floor, nice lights, good backdrop, slightly battered but nice enough.. i love that place.

Their own PA is terrible so on the odd occasion that some cheapskates haven't brought one with them or rather the promoter hasn't booked a decent one (The Cult, Public Enemy) the sound is horrible. Otherwise Brixton Academy has hosted so many great gigs.

>I wish there was a venue as good in Manchester.

I've always thought the Apollo in M/cr has a similar vibe to Brixton, and it has all those features, although I'll grant that the pitch of the floor is not as steep (left stage side bar and toilets have been a godsend on several occasions previously).

My biggest beef with any venue is when the stage is off to one side, or there are restricted sight lines - M/cr's Club Academy (ie. University basement) only opened a few years back but commits the cardinal sin of having pillars quite near the stage so unless yr forward of them it's super annoying. It's had shit sound the times I've been there too, so marks off for that as well.

Of the large, scuzzy theatre venues in London, I'll take Hammersmith Apollo over Brixton every time. Hammersmith also has loos at the side of the stage.

brixton acad can get disgustingly gross and hot, too - the sloped floor is literally the ONLY positive thing about that place

Another vote for Shepherds Bush Empire as the worst. The stage is so low (just barely above floor level) that it's incredibly hard to see anything unless you stand in the front row or back under the balcony, where everything sounds like a muffled fart.