who surprised and who disappointed

SNS - Have you seen Seinfeld's "Bizarro Universe Episode"?

I saw The Who's Quadraphenia tour at the Pontiac Silverdome ca. 1975. Much of the music was on tape, Keith Moon had just died, and the crowd booed the opening act (Toots and The Maytalls) off the stage. In particular, the less than accepting suburban Detroit crowd may have pissed off the band, which sleepwalked through the concert. While this may have been one tour after the one you so enjoyed, this was a TERRIBLE show.

OTOH, Todd Rundgren NEVER fails to delight me, even when his choice of material roams into the margin (quite often, actually).

Is this an official bizarro inversion of the time-space continuum?

Rocked!

Jethro Tull in the 70's....unbelievable

Fleetwood Mac 70's..rumours was hot

Blue Oyster Cult 70'S...with about 500 other people...no shows loss!

Stephen Stills in the 80's in a small bar in Atlanta with a four piece band was maybe in the top 3 shows I've ever attended

Neil Young with Booker T and the MG's in the 90's

Genesis in the 80's

Heart in the 70's - that is one righteous rock band by any standards

Eric Clapton in the early 90's - I mean front row seats and he strolls out with some adlib into to White Room with a duke hanging from a string on the axe....journey man....nuff said

Believe it or not Bryan Adams rocked everyones noogies off

Kenny Rogers...ouch...in the round in the 80's was damn good...

Allman Brothers....fagetabotit

Stones in the 70's and the Steel Wheels tour

Lets Leave:

Joe Walsh...he's drunker than me...

Hootie and the Blowfish...chick flick

Righteous Bros....OMG!

Beach Boys....I'm gonna spew!

Jimmy Buffet - STOP THE MADNESS!

Beatles in the 60's......just kidding

The rest are a blurrrrrr......

Probably the most disappointing show I saw, relative to my esteem for the performer, was Albert King in a NYC club in the mid-80's, but this may be unfair since he might not have been in the greatest of health anymore. Nevertheless, backed by the competently polished local blooze-boogie band who opened the set, he came out with his electric guitar cranked up to godawful volumes, about twice as loud as the whole rest of the band put together (I'm not kidding, I mean literally -- the disparity was so enormous it would have been comical if it hadn't been so painful), played through a horrible sounding solid-state amp with a piercingly discordant tone, kept what sounded like both a phaser and a chorus turned on one setting the entire night, completely inappropriate for the material, and proceeded to sloppily repeat the same licks over and over in each and every song, with no regard for the songs themselves, and continually wandered out of time away from the changes since he was so loud he couldn't hear the band during his solos. At one point he did apologize for his rather disconnected demeanor, saying he'd been ill. I've been to a few shows that were even harder to sit through for me than this one (Dave Alvin & the Guilty Men, Evelyn Glennie, James Blood Ulmer, Foo Fighters were some squirmers I'd rather forget), but won't detail them because my expectations weren't as high. (Well, there was that legendary DC show where Minor Threat opened for UK punk heroes The Damned and wound up basically blowing them off the stage, to our hometown delight yet major disappointment...)

Biggest surprise at a show? When Robert Plant made an impromptu mid-set appearance at a club where the Stray Cats were playing (again mid-80's), spontaneously joining them onstage after his own concert at the local arena for rousing off-the-cuff renditions of 50's rockabilly standards. I initially feared the Zeppelin-esque banshee overkill worst, but he was actually much better at singing in the authentic style than Brian Setzer, and clearly having a total ball wringing out "Be-Bop-A-Lula" and the like. Have you ever heard a packed-house crowd all of a sudden become twice as loud? I think the most shocked guys in the whole joint were the Strays themselves.

Dave Alvin & the Guilty Men, Evelyn Glennie

I'm speechless.

Zaikesman's mention of Brian Setzer reminded me of perhaps the biggest positive surprise I've ever had at a concert.

We saw Brian Setzer's Big Band at the House of Blues in Chicago many years ago. He was phenomenal, and his band was exceptionally tight from the first note, but Brian's demeanor was wary. He didn't know how the audience was going to react to his new music and the big band style. By the third song, the crowd was completely won over, and Setzer and his band proceeded to blow the roof off the place. He looked like he was having the best time of his life.

Outstanding show. I've seen the Setzer Big Band twice since then at their annual Christmas shows. Yup, definitely the biggest surprise in my concert going history.