The Worst Live Performance In Rock History
So I'm scrolling through the internet, and the link to a live performance from Dexy's Midnight Runners pops up. The tease in the link was this was the worst performance they ever did, and it was uploaded to their own YouTube account... Surely there are some shenanigans afoot... As it turns out, the information teased is 100% legitimate. This is one of the worst live performances ever of a classic jam. Who doesn't give into the temptation to sing along with Eileen? That one click of the mouse got me thinking, who else has had some famously bad live performances?
I think Puddle of Mudd is probably the most recent with their failed attempt to cover Nirvana a few weeks ago. Courtney Love had a gold level fail a few years ago, just search Courtney Love Isolated Vocals. But all in all, the universally agreed "worst live performance in rock history" belongs to Led Zeppelin and their incredible 1985 Live Aid show in Philly. Robert Plant sings as if he's experiencing second puberty, a coked out Jimmy Page set his phaser peddle to eleven, and John Paul Jones rocks the beat as usual... It all makes for one spectacularly bad performance in front of a stadium of fans that probably don't care anyway. After all, this is way back when sound quality didn't matter. Bass wasn't a thing yet, and even the best live audio speakers weren't built to stream clear audio. All in all, everyone seemed to have had a good time.