The most intimidating live gig you've ever been to?
 

For me, it was Fuckhead. I had to leave, the performance was just too much.

One time I was at a show and I don't even remember the name of the band, it was some weird bluegrass sounding band that kinda had a Xiu Xiu vibe in songs. It's not nearly as interesting as I'm making it sound, it was very, uh, "hip" and... I've never used this word so I'm not using it right I'm sure but ... "twee". The set ranged from the most boring thing I've ever seen to mildly interesting.

Anyway, during the last (?) song, the other band members left the stage and this lead girl started playing acoustic guitar and crying. Literally sobbing. It was really uncomfortable. I stayed through it but ... yeah. Weird stuff.

Probably Diamanda Galas doing "Plague Mass" on Easter Sunday.

That sounds amazing.

Slayer when I was 12. Mainly because I was 12.

on both sides of the spectrum:

At a Subhumans gig @ the Roxy Theater in Hollyweirdin 2005, there were five bloody noses, three people dragged out of the pit, and two full fledged TKOs, also had to be dragged out the pit, though these were temporarily unconscious and took some reviving, one of them, some youngester, I dragged out and revived personally. Needless to say it was an intimidating pit, though I enjoyed myself thoroughly in its midsts.

On the mellow level, 2006 Reggae Night at the Hollywood Bowl, 19000 peaceful people loving the night, singing in chorus, it was almost too much to handle it was so pleasing..

jesus lizard on the _Goat_ tour, in a ~200 ppl capacity club filled to the gills.

Bounty Killa when I was 17. Brilliant, but I was piss-scared.

that would have been awesome

"The Elderberries". Because they sucked so much
They were french, but still spoke in English (supposedly they are born England, okay) and were proud to say that twelve people in the crowd were already at their gig a few weeks earlier. Uh

Oh god, the first opening act for Silver Jews was this fat chick low-rent carly simon wannabe in a blue halter dress 4 sizes too small that played shitty guitar and wept. Dave Berman went on stage before her and pleaded everyone to listen.
Next band was Monotonix, which were just fucking insane, I was scared for my sanity.

Other than that, Misfits from last Wednesday. So much anger...

yeah, monotonix are insane

Just going to my first hardcore shows in general in the mid to early 80s before I got comfortable with it. You quickly learn about the different cliques and bullshit. After that I wasn't intimidated by any shows and I'm rarely even intimidated by people unless they've got a gun.

Butthole Surfers NYC, Webster Hall last July. Gibby got tackled onstage by security, a riot ensued, Genesis from Throbbing Gristle got on stage and screamed at the audience to shut up. Good times

probably the upcoming Swirlies show that im going to attend

I saw her do that on Good Friday, actually. But I didn't find it intimidating, more cheesy with the fake blood and all. I really prefer her earlier stuff. Once she decided to dedicate everything to her brother who died of AIDS it just seemed to me like she could be pretty half-assed and nobody would dare be critical because of the "intense personal meaning".

I can't actually think of any show I've seen where the artist was particularly intimidating in terms of scaring me or anything. The Butthole Surfers in '88 were pretty gross with the venereal disease films, but not scary.

The scariest show I've been at was actually seeing Mother Love Bone at one of their very first shows in some skating rink in Seattle's eastside suburbs on a bill with all of these atrocious hairspray glam metal bands. I had been really into Green River and Malfunkshun both, so when my metalhead friend wanted to go to this, I was all for it. During MLB's set I was right up front rocking out and what I thought was a typical slam pit broke out. I was used to Seattle shows where everybody was drunk and stoned and some weird cross between hippies, punks, and metalheads, so when people slammed it was pretty fucking mellow and if somebody fell down everyone would stop and help them up. Mostly it was just falling into each other because we were all wasted. But at this show, suddenly there were all these gigantic metal dudes who weighed over 250 lbs in Slayer shirts up front, and they had heard this was a "punk" band, so they were ready to prove they could mosh, and I was the skinny short haired guy in the middle of them. Soon, I was doing nothing but dodging behomeths of hair and testosterone for fear of being crushed to death, and since the music wasn't half as good as the former bands MLB came out of, I bailed - fully intimidated by that crowd.

Alec Empire. The same very loud, very fast, techno beat for about an hour, with loads of feedback too.

I don't think I've ever been intimidated at gigs, not even by the audience, but then again I've never seen the buttholes or throbbing gristle or whitehouse or any of the shit hurling lot.
The sheer volume of grunt and prurient though was pretty intense.