I thought this might make an interesting thread. What's the funniest thing you ever saw a performer do at a rock concert (can be either a stadium, arena or showcase club). Here are mine.... 1. Mick Jagger at the Rolling Stones/ZZ Top/Fabulous Thunderbirds concert, Astrodome, 1981. Many fans had brought in rolls of toilet paper and began hurling them as streamers once the show began. After the 3rd song, one landed on the stage. Jagger picked it up and said "YOU PEOPLE IN HOUSTON SURE LIKE TO WIPE YOUR A$$ES ALOT, DOTCHA?". He then proceeded to fake wipe (in a weirdly erotic manner) and tossed the roll back into the crowd. 2. Ray Davies at a Kinks concert at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, 1983. Ray had consumed quite a few Heinekens during the course of the show. He had at least 5-6 empties lined up along his amplifier. Near the end of the show, he said to the crowd "YOU'RE SUCH A GREAT AUDIENCE, I'D LIKE TO INVITE YOU ALL TO THE BAR AT OUR HOTEL AFTER THE SHOW SO I CAN BUY YOU A DRINK. I CAN'T TELL YOU WHAT HOTEL WE ARE STAYING AT, BUT IT'S THE BIG WHITE & BLUE ONE NEXT TO TOWN LAKE". At the time, that hotel was the Sheraton (don't know if it is still there or not). The Austin American Statesman reported that after the concert, approximately 2,000 people showed up to try to get into the bar at the Sheraton, but Ray Davies was nowhere to be found. 3. Pete Townshend @ a Who concert at the Summit, 1980. Pete was pretty drunk onstage, and someone tossed a straw cowboy hat onto the stage that landed at his feet. He picked it up, put it on, and began yodelling into the microphone. Then he got a very angry look on his face, took the hat off & threw it down, stomped on it five times, and the band tore into "My Generation". ------------------ "Blues is a Healer" --John Lee Hooker
Billy Idol - Houston, Astroworld mid 80's Billy was riding high from his recent string of hits and did a show at the Southern Star Amphitheater. During a break between songs, Billy addressed the crowd with a loud long burp, using the microphone... so cool... haha ============================== Adam Ant - Galveston early 80's I didn't go, but a friend told me he was boo'd off the stage for lip-syncing! hahah ============================== Smashing Pumpkins - Houston early 90's Billy Corgan cuts the show short after being hit in the head with a shoe. What a punk. I almost went to that show. ==============================
If I'm hit in the head with a shoe, I'm stopping the show as well. ------------------ www.swirve.com...The reason Al Gore invented the internet.
Metallica Summer Sanitarium tour: At Texas Stadium here in Dallas, there was a huge all day rock concert that headlined with Metallica (who is just about the only band I was interested in seeing). Other bands at the concert were System of a Down (pretty good), Korn, Kid Rock (DIE!), and Powerman 5000 (power-who?). We are informed at the show that head man, James Hetfield, is injured and that he won't be playing with the band that night. Most Metallica fans realize that without James, Metallica would go to hell in a heartbeat. If it were up to Lars, Jason, or Kurk, the music would be crap. So, needless to say, I was concerned about how this concert was going to shape up. It was then that we were informed that they would have a makeup concert, but that night other members of the opening bands would fill in for James (Kid Rock, Korn guitarist, etc). I got my ass out of there immediately. Later I was to hear that Kid Rock screwed up the lyrics to Turn the Page, and actually tried to insert a turntable record scratching in Enter Sandman! What the hell was he thinking? ... oh yeah, this wasn't funny, this sucked! So, to stay on thread, I did see something funny at this concert, and it was me, and all my friends. In order to announce our mutual hatred of Kid Rock, and everything he does, we (about 6 of us) all wore T-shirt that had disparaging remarks written on them in permanent marker, insulting Kid Rock and his music in some way. Some of the T-shirt read "Kid Rock Reeks D*ck", "This Guy Hates Kid Rock" (with arrows drawn in every direction), and my shirt, which read "I would rather castrate myself orally than listen to Kid Rock". These shirts were actually received with much better fanfare than I expected. Apparently there weren't all that many Kid Rock fans at the concert. This makes me happy. ------------------ "Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian." Lee Simonson
Why? It was one person who did it, and they have guards standing at the front watching the crowd to see who does things like this. Odds are the guy who threw it was ejected immediately, so why punish the entire crowd for the acts of one guy? What a wuss. ------------------ "Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian." Lee Simonson
Raven: Have you ever had to actually deal with a crowd? I've played hundreds of gigs big and small and been pelted with everything from quarters to bottles to just plain soaked with water, beer or things I'd rather not know what they were. Fans have NO RIGHT to throw anything ever. My guess is that the shoe wasn't the only thing be hurled at the band and Corigan, concerned for his own safety, exited. I don't blame him. Just because people pay to get in doesn't mean they have the right to do whatever they want. It can be downright dangerous on stage. On several occassions, I've had to leave because someone threw a bottle or nailed one of my band mates with a quarter. I would've gotten out if I was Corigan too. ------------------ "I swallowed a lot of agression...along with a lot of pizzas."
The funniest thing I ever saw at a concert was Lars Ulrich's ass. ------------------ Brought to you by the letter M.
I was at a Bruce Springsteen concert once where someone shot off a bottle rocket that exploded about two feet from Springsteen's head while he was singing. After the song was over, he announced that if it happened again, he was out of there. It didn't. ------------------ "Blues is a Healer" --John Lee Hooker
I have never been on stage, but I have been to plenty of metal concerts where the crowd got rowdy. ANd while I am sure it can be terrifying, my experience has been that it is usually something like 1-2% of the crowd who would be willing to throw something up on the stage that would do some damage. I can understand if the crowd was throwing numerous things constantly, but if it was a Smashing Pumpkins concert, I doubt that would have been the case, since these were actual fans of the show. rockHEAD didn't mention anything other than the shoe, so I assumed it was an isolated incident. And while I don't doubt that you might have had many things thrown at you and your band, Jeff, how many of them were die hard fans of your band? Usually, if that band is headlining (and I assume Smashing Pumpkins was), most of the crowd would not jeapordize their concert going experience by doing something as stupid as that. ------------------ "Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian." Lee Simonson
RR, It's not that simple. This was during the peak of the grunge wave. This is was when the mainstream came in and ruined the grunge concert experience. Not everyone at that show was there to just listen to the music. Many were there because it was cool to be there. Many were there to hang with their rowdy friends and get crazy. By this point, slam-dancing became cliche. Not only was it no longer original, it was downright dangerous at times. There was a time when everyone in the pit had respect for each other. If someone fell, someone else would help them. Somewhere along the way, the pit became all messed up. People were out to hurt other people for no reason. Anyway, keep in mind that Billy Corgan had been on tour for a while and all crowds are nearly alike (sometimes). Whether it was the first thing thrown or not doesn't matter. Do you throw shoes at an opera singer or Broadway performer?! It was inexcusable. Don't be mad at the band. Be mad at the d******d that ruined it for everyone. ------------------
That was part of my reasoning behind assuming that Corgan wasn't necessarily in danger. Most crowds are alike, and it has been my experience that while one or two people might throw something on stage that could injure a band member, usually that is it, and that person is immediately escorted out of the concert. I assumed that the shoe throwing was an isolated incident. If it was not, however, what is wrong with warning the crowd that you will walk, so they will get it into their head that they shouldn't throw things? I was in no way attempting to excuse the person for throwing the shoe. My point was that Corgan is a wuss for cancelling the show after one small incident, when I have been to plenty of concerts where bands played through worse conditions. I know they shouldn't be required to play through these conditions, and I am not saying that Corgan didn't have a right to get off the stage, I am saying that he is a wuss for doing so. However, since I, nor anyone else it seems, know the full details of what happened at this particular show, I will stop arguing this point, as it hinges on exactly how much danger Corgan was in at the time. ------------------ "Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian." Lee Simonson
Funniest thing... Red Hot Chili Peppers (some Windsor Plaza club in 1985) Showed up wearing only one tube sock each...guess where they wore it. Funnest thing... Houston '85 Joey Ramone staring down at me while I was sprawled at his feet, for a split second we caught eyes and I'm thinking...what would I do if I were Joey Ramone...he reared back and kicked me in the side. Yes sports fans, Joey Ramone kicked me in the ribs. My big claim to fame.
I have been to a lot of shows in the 80s and 90s. I wouldn't say these are really in the "funny" genre as more as they are "interesting". Metallica@Houston - forget which tour...probably Ozzy/Metallica Tour for And Justice For All. Metallica is rocking out, a fan throws a small vial bottle and it hits Lars on the head. The band stops playing, starts finger pointing in the crowd, they start b****ing at the floor fan in the microphone. James basically says, "You think your tough throwing **** at us? I see you dude. I know who you are. Why don't you meet us over here on the side of the stage after the show and we will see who's tough? We will KICK YOUR ARSE!!!!" They were pretty pissed off but they did continue. That was a glass vial that hit Lars...not a shoe...and they kept playing. Lars was pretty shook up about it as was the band. They wanted to beat the crap out of that fan. Lars may have even been bleeding a little. -------------------------------------------- Van Halen@Houston - 1984 tour - 2nd show Before Van Halen took the stage, like 3 different chicks each took turns dancing to a spotlight on the PA system at the back of the floor while the lights were off with a spotlight shining at them. They took their tops off and danced around to music. It looked staged. We questioned whether these were chicks at all...we were thinking they had some luggage where there shouldn't have been. Uh huh. Right.... . They did appear to have nice cans, though, but I was upper prom on the side so what do I know. --------------------------------------------- Deep Purple@Houston - Perfect Strangers tour I had really bad seats way high on upper prom sort of behind the stage on like Row X...total nosebleed. Could see the drummer really well ! Anyway, there were a lot of suspect people at this show...mostly loser types. The entire show was mostly dark but, occassionally, bands like to turn on the house lights either too get a good look at the audience OR during songs as some part of choreographed stage light show. Everyone was blitzkrieged out of their minds and NOONE was expecting the house lights to come on. At that point, they had not. When the house lights came on, I looked down and around and there must have been 1/4 of the audience with trays containing weed and bongs and the like. These people were getting toasted with a lot of pot. It was so funny because they were scrambling after that to put that stuff out of sight. I couldn't believe the amount of illegal contraband I saw at that show. -------------------------------------------- Iron Maiden@Houston - Powerslave tour A nice mexican fellow came up to me walking through the hallway just above the lower promenade while myself and a friend were walking to our seats. People were all around us. He mumbled something to me and I was kind of out of it. I was a teenager. I go "WHAT?" and he goes, "Give me your shirt!" . He wanted me to take off my shirt and give it to him with all these people around...he was trying to rip me off. This was a big, fat Mexican guy. I did nothing of the sort....I just walked away. What did he think he was going to do in front of all those people? It was pretty funny. Same show - my friend pulled out a twenty dollar bill and some other bills to buy a shirt. We were standing at the shirt counter and, for some stupid reason, he leaned over to point at the shirt he wanted and was letting the money dangle in his hand behind him. Umm...dumb move. As I watched, like twenty hands came in and grabbed his money. He was like, "hey....that guy took my money!". I was like, "duh...nice move sherlock!". What happened was they ripped his 20 dollar bill in half so he took the twenty, layed a five over the 20 to conceal the tear, asked for the shirt he wanted, layed the money on the counter, got the shirt, and walked off. The guy at the counter picked up the money and found the 20 to be ripped in half. He was like "HEY!" while we just walked off. Too funny! -------------------------------------------- Pink Floyd@Houston Astrodome - Learning to Fly tour(whatever that album is) My friend and I went to this show with a few of his brothers' friends. We stopped at a store to get beer and these Mexican guys at the store needed a ride. Some how, he said yes but there wasn't enough room in the 4 door car to give them a ride. So we crammed like 6 people in the car and the other two got in the trunk of the car. The cabin light would not go off so one of the stranger guys shorted out the cabin light(glad it wasn't my car). So, we proceed to Astrodome and stumble upon pure gridlock on freeway. We were drinking and everyone had to piss really bad. So, they were hanging out the door on freeway taking a leak in a traffic jam on the freeway...pretty funny. These guys smelled and they were not fun to be around. We finally made it to the show. After the show, we rushed out of there so we didn't have to meet up with these suspects again to give them a ride home. That was a big mistake giving those suspects a ride in the first place. At the show, my friend and I were feeling really goofy in our nosebleed seats at the Dome. We were pretty high from all the smoking going on at the Dome. So, we had a flashback to Woodstock and the "bad acid" problem they had. So, we started yelling and walking around saying, "Don't eat the purple acid while we were holding our stomachs! Don't eath the purple acid!" . It was pretty funny...everywhere we went we did that. People were laughing at us...hell, we were laughing at ourselves. There were a lot of old-time fans at that show who apparently knew exactly what we were referring too. It was like a comedy routine in our section we had going on. -------------------------------------------- Triumph@Houston - Never Surrender Tour @ Coliseum My first concert. I was very young wearing my blue jean cut-off jacket. Anyway, great freaking show...still one of the best choreographed light shows I have ever seen in my life. They had so many lights it was crazy. Anyway, after the show, this dude is running as fast as he can followed by like 10 other dudes who obviously want to beat the crap out of him. We could tell the one guy stole the other's shirt and had all these people after him. My friend sticks out his foot and trips the dude up. He proceeded to get his butt kicked bad. It was pretty funny but not for that poor guy. He shouldn't have stolen that shirt...eh? I'm sure I have many more but I will save them for my book. Thanks. Surf ------------------
HeyP, Did you here where Joey is fighting cancer? Pretty sad! I too met him here in New York Last summer. I was sitting in a bar with pictures of rock stars and I was staring at an old picture of Joey and Debra Harry doing a duet at CBGBs and as I looked down, lo and behold, who walks in, but Joey himself. He was very nice and open. http://wallofsound.go.com/news/stories/joeyramonesick031901.html ------------------ Everything you do, effects everything that is. [This message has been edited by mc mark (edited March 21, 2001).]
If you are talking about the Triumph show that Foghat opened, then I was there. He didn't steal the shirt. There was more than an hour wait between shows, and there was a gang of people (probably the ones you saw) who were the ones stealing shirts. If you resisted, they beat the crap out of you. I saw it happen three times that night. It was a scary situation all around. My brother and I each had shirts, as well as other people around us, and we had to put them on under our regular shirts to hide them. No security guards to be found. The show rocked, but the wait between shows and the roving gangs ruined it for us. ------------------ Behad Sergeant at Arms of the Clutch BBS
That is the show and I do not believe this was a band of roaming shirt stealers. People who buy their shirts wear their shirts. This guy was running with a shirt in hand and these guys were yelling "stop that guy he stole my shirt". I guess they could have been lying...who knows. It was a good show, though. I didn't trip him so I don't feel bad if it was shirt stealing monguls. This was just outside the Coliseum near the entrance. I remember some fights breaking out at the show but I never ran into a band of psychos stealing shirts. Surf ------------------
Surfguy - I was at that Metallica concert - I think it's the same one. It was August of '89 and The Cult opened for 'em. Since Lars got hit that night, they haven't written one good song. ------------------ The Badministrator
Guess it was that one...I lose track. I remember that one sort of. I thought the Cult seemed like a glamour band at that one when the lead singer came out on some platform singing "Fire" with fans on either side of him. It almost looked like he was putting on a hair show...or shall I say....pony show . From lower prom center, it looked kind of funny. It seemed like the Cult put on a terrible show and then Metallica came out to smoke the house. I remember Metallica's guitar instrumental well enough from that tour. Ah...the memories. Oh did I mention some drunk biker dude threw up on me at a Aerosmith show. I was row A upper prom center and I'm watching the show. Then, suddenly this dude directly behind me lets out this huge blow of chunks. It sprayed so far it went over the railing. I was hugely pissed off and was ready to punch whomever it was until I got a look at that guy. He was so out of it I would have probably damaged his brain. Not to mention he had a biker gang with him. He and his friend apologized but I was pulling chunks of puke out of my hair. Fortunately, it wasn't so bad to where I looked like Mr. Puke Head but it smelled something awful. That's when I decided Aerosmith sucks in concert. I won't be back. They did suck, too. Surf ------------------
Last fall I saw the Marvelous 3 with Dynamite Hack at a club called Trees in Dallas. DH played first, not many people were into them. There was this one chick though that was. She was completely smashed. At one point, she actually got on the stage and started dancing around while they were playing. She then slips the dress she was wearing over her head and throws it on the ground, and is now only wearing a thong. This chick is actually pretty raunchy looking too. What's really hilarious is that nobody was really into Dynamite Hack, so there all just standing around watching this girl make a fool of herself. She then dove into the crowd, and nobody tried to catch her! At the last second some guy put his hands out just to break this chick's fall. Security immediately got her and escorted her out. What's even funnier than that is that the band stopped playing to make fun of this chick! They were like "man, that's pretty bad no one even tried to catch her!", and "that's the first time anything like that's ever happened to us". Just a very weird experience. ------------------ "There's a lot of things you can say about playing with Dream, but I get to say, `I played with the Dream.' That speaks for itself." --Walt Williams "****!" --Kenny Thomas
