They flew over to Australia, didn't do any headlining gigs, and supported Midnight Juggernauts on their Australian tour. The venue was full of teenage girls who talked about their myspace photo's for the whole set. It was fucked... completely fucked.

If it's the band/artist behaving tragically, I would say Catpower a long time ago, playing alone and being unable to finish half of the songs she started.

If it's tragic for the band because no one in the venue cared, I'd say Superstar Disco Club opening for Low. Obviously no one knew them and actually wanted to listen to them. Tragic because they were ace !

ended up with what, 5 people plus the opening band?oh god.

that time in the john peel tent = trainwreck.

Courtney Love's first gig after Kurt died at the Reading festival. She had a break down on stage and just started hurling abuse at the crowd. It was like watching a drunk at a wedding.

I've never been so bloody bored in my entire life.

upstairs in Kro Bar in Manchester with an audience so small they actually curtained off most of the performance space, giving an absolutely amazing (and loud) performance to about 10 people, only 5 of whom weren't in either of the support bands.

Most tragic part was when he turned up his sampler thing even louder at the start to compensate for the lack of people in the room, then a guy from downstairs came up to tell him to turn it down...

Waiting for the big name to come on and having to stand through 3 shite support bands for what seemed like an eternity (admittedly one was Teenage Fan Club but if you came from Glasgow chances are you'd already seen them several hundred times). Finally the Pixies came on - launched into Rock Music, got their way through Debaser, started River Euphrates....then the barrier at the front broke down and the gig was cancelled. And then they split. Feckers.

only 7-8 people watching, though it was part of a clubnight with hundreds of people upstairs listening to a DJ play nu-metal/pop-punk. i wept

two hours late

so bloody loud i felt nauseated

they were total brats

at norwich arts centre. despite their total awesomeness there were only about 30 people there. very sad because they were probably the best band ive ever seen live.

all seater venue, most of the audience stayed in the bar next door so they proceed to blast through Roots BLoody Roots etc to about 700 hundred mostly disinterested people in a 2000+ venue.

what made it more tragic was how good they were.

but footage i've seen of Refused playing something called the Sun Cafe or something in Ireland looks horrible.
5 people pouring their souls out with some of the best hardcore ever written to about 10-15 people who couldnt give less of a shit sitting round drinking coffee (most with their backs turned).
ohfuckingdear.

It was free, but not many bothered showing up. I have never seen a less enthusiastic crowd in my life.
Music was fantastic though!

dreadful live band

and his rubbish band opening for my friend's band, playing really embarrassing contrived 'stadium rock' to 4 people. Tragic in that it was Sting's son and he was but a pale imitation of his dad, in that it was Sting's son and nobody wanted to see him, in that it was 'stadium rock' and in that it was 'stadium rock' in a small venue to 4 people. The dirt wont wash off.

band from sweden called khoma (http://www.myspace.com/khoma) with cult of luna guitarist playing with them. they absolutely blew the roof off the place but there was literally five people there, only me and my mate were actually there to see khoma i think. felt bad for them.

when they were supporting lightspeed champion last year at king tut's. the biggest, yawning canyon of space between audience and band i've ever seen. and that fred les fellow was trying to get everyone to come forward, to bridge the gap, but no one was having any of it and just kept talking amongst themselves. i don't like that band at all, but i just couldn't help but acknowledge the tragedy of the thing.

They only plated 4 songs

Sunday evening in december, playing (i believe) their first ever gig in England and there were about 15 people there, the majority of whom had been in the support bands and at 11pm midway during a song with a few left to go the bouncer came upstairs and turned on the lights.

They had only earlier been saying what anglophiles they were

the first gig i went to - dirty pretty things ages ago, a guy with a guitar came out and managed to play about half of a song before he left covered in beer. the same happened at the maccabees at the roundhouse when some guy was jeered off the stage after a few tunes. I didnt even know thier names.

opening for coldplay right after their first album came out -- no one knew who they were nor really cared, but the band put on a great performance.

the cooper temple clause at curiosa festival -- it was literally my friends and i plus about 5 other people who had just happened to show up early. granted, CTC was the first act playing the second stage but it was still pretty sad. needless to say, they never came back to the states. :(

Idiots in the crowd, few people knew the words and he was a bit moody and the doors took almost 4 hours to open!

...christ what a load of sh*t.

i refuse to believe that ex models were not amazing

the worst thing was I went to see it with drownedinsound's very own Raz. I still can't walk properly to this day.

mary margaret o hara @atp

not particularly tragic but everyone was standing around looking bored and the singer went "err enjoy your Futureheads" at the end of their set and I did.

being supported by some lad from Barrow or something called Jon Byrne. This lad come on, has the audience eating out his hand and John Bramwell is still visibly shook three quarters the way into his set. Horrible to watch.