Sam Brown's backing band, supporting Sam Brown. I believe they were intentionally confrontational, playing at the highest volume imaginable, to such an extent that the venue emptied completely. That must have been around 1990.

Most recently, Jaymay. It was like reading a teenager's diary whilst listening to a cat being washed in a sink.

The Stranglers, Sheffield City Hall, 1984ish, the Aural Sculpture tour. The support act was... a puppet show. I kid you not. The audience were not best pleased

supporting the Pretenders in the Olympia in Dublin, easily the worst of the current crop of folk rockers currently destroying Irish music (I'm looking at you Damien Rice and Glen Hansard), he massacred Prince's Sign O The Times and, if that wasn't bad enough, Chrissie Hynde brought him back on at the end, claiming he has a great voice. He was, and is, awful.

Point of Information: Casey was under Paul McGuinness' wing at the time, i.e. U2's manager, this may explain a lot with regards to the press and praise he received. Bloody awful.

a wet Thursday in Glasgow up Rooftops supporting 20 Flight Rockers (who?)

if it's any consolation the headliners were pish too

Minty were the band formed by provocateur performance artist Leigh Bowery. He was not long dead when I saw them support Pulp, who were pretty much at the height of their fame, at their hometown gig at Sheffield City Hall in the mid-90's.

The crowds of teenage girls in the front, brilliantly dressed in Netto bags, witnessed Bowery's replacement (dressed as some kind of devil) "give birth" to Nicola Bowery, covered in "placenta".

Was this worse than the thousands of no-mark shoegazing support acts I've seen? Probably not, but they sounded awful and were just really irritating.

supported fellow A&M labelmates Supertramp at the Empire Pool - can't remember when , the date escapes me and so do we about three songs into his set - the mighty Tramp were excellent though !

Wembley Stadium, Summer 1987.
Supporting (whisper it) U2. Who were (whisper it) great.

I still wake up in a cold sweat thinking about S.O.D, though. Post traumatic stress, I suppose. Like a crazed Vietnam vet, muttering 'They'll never take me aliiiiiiiiive-ah' though permanently gritted teeth.

Newcastle City Hall 1978 .
Twice !!

Blue Oyster Cult. Dont Fear The Reaper. Lasers. Five guitarists. Godzilla.

Japan. Art rock.Make up. No musicians. Micky Mouse.

Heckled and booed on the first show. They just made it through.

Second night they only lasted two songs. Geordies not fooled twice. Mega strop. Threw down guitars ( most tuneful song of night ). Stormed off.

BOC played/recorded We Gotta Get Out of This Place for live album. Apt !

supporting REM in Oslo in 1995. Terrible. Wonder what happened to them? Sunk without a trace if there's any justice.

supporting Howard Jones, Hammersmith Odeon, 1984 or 1985. I hated Howard Jones' music but went because a friend bet me I'd enjoy it. I didn't. Jones was shocking, but the support act was like listening to two atonal singing mice. Bloody awful night all round.

and twice for god's sake...both times they were supporting the infinitely far superior in every way Shack, well far superior except in record company hype of course.

I think they were the worst band I have ever seen, and I've seen a few that's for sure...would never have guessed they would go on to sell millions and Shack would be ignored - there's no justice!

Thompson Twins, at Murrayfield, supporting David Bowie on the Serious Moonlight tour. There was Vanilla Ice supporting too. That was a very long day to be in the rain.

Santana, supporting Bob Dylan at Wembley Stadium , 1984. Maybe it my religious education which equates baking on the hottest day of the year with this terrible, interminable noodling as a vision of hell.

Supporing Joan Armatrading, Southampton Gaumont, 1985.

A rather sedate audience, lots of women in pairs, but nearly a riot when this lot came on. They were truly awful and so wrong for the crowd. And they knew it, it just got embarrassing in the end.

But Joan chided everyone for being so mean when she eventually came on.

pretty much my favourite ever band circa 1992-94 until Bernard walked, went through some truly dreadful support bands in the years i saw them. Goya Dress anyone? SharkBoy? Shed 7? All sucked.

Supporting Neil Finn (or it might have been the Finn Brothers).

Dull as a very dull thing trying deliberately to be dull. Trading in on her name? Surely not.

It seems a bit pointless to name bands who were crap but didn't make it, too many of those anyway, bad support bands I've seen who did make it include Duran Duran and Duke Special (I know lots of people respect him but I can't see it personally).

Supporting the Buzzcocks at the Portsmouth Locarno in 1978. Horrible, deliberately bad noise which sounded like they had a serious hatred of their audience. Just over a year later, and with the addition of the wonderful Budgie on drums, they produced Cut, an astonishing album that still sounds magnificent today.

..supporting Bob Dylan in Sydney.
Doing things to "Rockin' In The Free World" that made me hate it even more.

Thin Lizzy's late 1976 Tour saw them supported by a country type band called Clover.
It was never gonna work. I saw them in Newcastle and they were very poor and got a lukewarm reception, which was a hundred times better than they did in Glasgow.
Ironically their singer must have learnt a lot from the tour and Phil Lynott in particular, as he went onto front another far more successful live band, Huey Lewis and The News.

One year later Lynott decided to have punk band Radiators From Space opening for them, and again they bombed. Eventually split to form The Pogues, a top live act.

1978 brought another great future act John Mellancamp supporting Lizzy. Shame on that tour he was called John Cougar, and not at all scary.

So while I suffered for their art, some of these support acts must have actually learnt something playing with one of the best live bands of the 1970s.