Buddy Rich played here back in '78. At one point, during a solo, he stopped playing and told the spotlight guy (a classmate of mine) to keep the “goddam light” out of his eyes.
This is a very delicate position for me. I probably shouldn’t say anything because the gun brandisher is now reformed and a prominent player in the conservative [Republican] cabal. It is something that I would rather forget for the hell that might embroil me.
I can’t comment on animosity, but it’s quite apparent that he’s raving drunk during his performance of Radio on The Last Waltz.
Ted Nugent.
No, it wasn’t the Nuge.
I’m pretty sure I was on the receiving end of a piece of nastiness from Rowan Atkinson when he performed in a series of Chekov pieces in London under the title “The Sneeze” about 20 years ago. I had got tickets late from the discount booth in Leicester Square, and was sitting in the front row, right under the actors’ noses. In one piece, Atkinson played an established author critiquing the work of a wannabee writer (played by Cheryl Campbell, IIRC), and delivered a long, sneering, nasty speech about what a miserable, mediocre excuse for a human being she was (someone with a better literary education than mine might be able to identify the piece).
Thing is, I swear he delivered this quite lengthy speech (or so it felt) directly to me in the front row. This wasn’t a case of a stand-up comedian engaging in a bit of banter with the audience which didn’t go over well - these were relatively formal pieces with no overt audience interaction. The actress to whom he was ostensibly speaking was way off to his left when he did this, so I don’t think it was just a case of me accidentally getting into his line of sight. I can’t think why he would do such a thing unless it was out of pure spite. I suppose it’s possible he needed to fix on someone with the characteristics he was supposed to be talking about (in his mind at least), but in that case, you’re supposed to be a fucking actor man, use your imagination! What a jerk.
Well, supposedly both the Davies Brothers (Kink’s) and Daltry/Townsend (Who) have fought on stage many times.
My brother say the Nuge warm up for Aerosmith in Spokane around 1972? Some dude in the audience pulled a gun at the front of the stage aimed right at Ted. The audience cleared out of the way, the drummer flipped off backwards and crawled away, the rest of the band dove off stage and it was basically Ted and this guy with a gun. We all know how wild Ted looked, but then he just started growling and snarling into the mic and made these gnarly echoing noises throughout the concert hall. Finally dude with the gun started shaking and eventually dropped his gun hand down, and then the roadies piled all over him. Maybe a week later the guy killed his family and commited suicide.
I’ve seen plenty of fights between the band and the audience at punk rock shows in the early 80’s in San Francisco. Usually broken up pretty quickly. The LA scene was pretty violent. Lee Ving of Fear got just pounded on night by a big ass HB punk after his usually on stage baiting and then he walked out through the crowd. I’ve seen Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedy’s) get his pants ripped off and then performed buck naked.
The Elite Club in San Francisco used to sell beer in cans, so you would drink your beer and then wing it at the stage. There was a constant barrage of beer cans, beer spray, people diving off the stage, the pit going…Man it was fucking great!
At an Africaan Bambata “show” in SF, where he just stood around and didn’t do anything except get paid, these black women in the audience just about started a riot. Damn, I thought for sure they were gonna cut his balls off.
I saw a Rolling Stones concert that featured some great animosity form the crowd towards one of the opening acts. It was at the L.A. Coliseum back in 1981, on a blazing hot afternoon. The rowdy crowd, packed in tight on the open field in the sun, had been consuming prodigious quantities of alcohol and drugs. The first act, I believe, was Cheech and Chong, who went over very well. The next act was relatively unknown and the crowd wanted to get straight to the main event with George Thorogood followed by the Stones. This “unknown” act was Prince. As they began, the crowd turned ugly. First booing, then throwing bottles and cans. Prince tried to calm them with some message of peace, etc, and that resulted in a larger barrage of objects flying in on the band. They finally scampered off and their manager came out to cuss out the crowd. More stuff came flying at him. I remember his barely ducking an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. The crowd cheered wildly when he left under a hail of junk. George Thorogood was welcomed like a conquering hero!
I can’t compete with China Guy’s stories, but at a Dio concert 10 years ago in NYC, he prefaced his encore with “Everyone always wants us to play “Rainbow In The Dark”. Chain around my fucking neck, that’s what that song is.” Then they proceeded to play it. Needless to say, it wasn’t a great rendition. At that same show, his lead guitarist played about a 10 minute solo that would have sounded better had I stepped onstage and played it - and I don’t play guitar.
Dio wore a black cape throughout the performance. I still can make my friend laugh when I remind him how much Dio looked like Gargamel that night.
The movie DiG has a scene of The Brian Jonestown Massacre melting down on stage. The band starts fighting amongst themselves and with the audience.
The show was at The Viper Room for a bunch of record company people and the band screwed themselves big time.
I’d have killed him.
While stationed in Germany around 1990 I saw a Motorhead show in Frankfurt. The audience was kind of weird. They went crazy during the songs but in between it was pretty quiet. Lemmy and the gang probably couldn’t tell what was going on during the songs because they were busy but they obviously didn’t like the lack of energy after. (to be fair I think everyone was just catching their breath in between kicking the shit out of each other in the pit) After trying to get a reaction out of the audience for a while, Lemmy laid into them and said, “Whats the matter with you people, did Hitler turn you all into morons?”
At a Monsters of Rock show, Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes threw beer and spit on members of the audience.
I went to see comedian Steven Wright at what is now the PNC Artcenter in New Jersey. Randy Newman opened up for him. I have never seen an audience turn on someone like that before, especially someone who is a well known performer. The auidence hated him and you could feel it in the air. It was an odd vibe for a Steven Wright show.
There were two shows. I was at the first one which was on a Friday. The second show was on the following Sunday. Prince opened, George Thorogood and The J. Geils Band followed, then the Stones.
Prince came out in a full length leather trench coat and nothing but a g-string underneath. He played two songs and was boo’ed and pelted with garbage and bottles. He left the stage and an announcer came out to try to calm the crowd. Prince came out and played two more songs but it was even worse so he just left. Apparently he only got through two songs on Sunday. The whole thing was a shame and an embarrassment.
Ritchie Blackmore at the Hammersmith Odean, Rainbow’s Straight Between The Eyes tour. Damn, he looked pissed off at everyone.
I find that very disturbing
I saw the comedian Gallagher at a New Year’s Eve show (got free tickets - I wouldn’t pay for a NYE package show.) He was headlining, with Dennis Miller as his opener, and Danny Bonaduce as emcee. Within seconds of hitting the stage, he was bitching that the audience wasn’t laughing at his rather uncharacteristically (at the time) mean-spirited jokes, then screamed, “Yeah, you all laughed for that fucking Danny Partridge kid and that loser Miller.” Someone from the audience shouted “Sledge-o-matic!” and Gallagher said, “Security! Get this asshole out of here.” The show didn’t improve from that point; he went on half-hearted jokey diatribes to very little reaction, then went into the Sledge-o-matic watermelon-smashing routine, just smashing stuff with almost no commentary, then just walked off the stage.
After the show, there was a meet-and-greet in the hallway. Miller and Bonaduce were both signing autographs and taking photos with fans, but Gallagher was literally standing alone in a corner of the hallway, pointedly being snubbed by the audience. I learned later that he was at the very beginnings of an ugly legal battle with his brother, but there was no excuse for treating an audience that badly.
Oh yes, and I saw Bo Diddley pitch a hissy fit one time at an outdoor show in Montgomery, AL. He was playing at a festival, and of course everybody and their redneck grandma showed up, cause hell, this is Bo Goddamn Diddley. I wasn’t aware at the time that Diddley is a complete prima donna. He demanded (demanded!) absolute silence from a drunk, redneck crowd of thousands in the blazing sun of an Alabama summer. When due silence wasn’t given, and people shouted at him just to play some freaking rock n’ roll already, he launched into a diatribe of how “I invented this shit, and I never get any respect, and y’all can go to hell.” He then stalked off the stage to the (richly deserved) accompaniment of boos, screams, and pelted garbage.
I’d like to think that my shouting “Yeah?! What about Sister Rosetta Tharpe, motherfucker?” broke the camel’s back, but realistically, I suppose he could never have heard me.
Oh yeah: there was also the time I saw, oh heck, I don’t remember exactly who, but it was one of these young, modern-day blues singers that Rolling Stone chooses every couple of years to be the official Bearer of the Blues Torch. Chris Thomas King, or Keb’Mo, or somebody. These guys always strike me as indifferently talented. Anyhow, a buddy of mine and I went to see him at a bar. A regular old belly-up-gents-what’ll-ya-have bar in DC. Not a theater. Not a formal entertainment venue. They moved the foosball table so the dude could set up. It was a BAR. We bellied on up, ordered a beer, and listened to the music for a few minutes, then sort of lost interest. We turned back around to the bar and started talking. Not loud. No shouting. This guy (some self-righteous Yankee Blues Aficionado, I suppose) marched up to us from a little further down the bar, and declaimed, “What you’re doing is very disrespectful.”
Me: “Bwuh?”
Him: “This guy is trying to share his music, his Blues (you can bet your ass it came out capitalized)! He’s baring his soul, and you’re turning your back and talking!”
Me (irritated): “He kinda sucks, dude. Besides we’re not being loud, and this is still a bar.”
Him: “Do you know where he comes from? You couldn’t possibly understand!”
Me: “Yeah. About 50 miles away from where I grew up, you idiot.”
Self-righteous prick. The performer never turned a hair. If he’s ever played a bar in the South before (and I know he has,) he’s used to playing in a chaotic environment, and probably never even noticed two guys quietly chatting in the corner.
I had a similar experience as LifeonWry at a Gallagher show when he played my college in I think 1995. He was very angry and aggressive with the audience, openly insulting all of us for “laughs.” I was pretty taken aback by the ugliness, since he had always seemed like a pretty decent guy.
I was also at a Fugazi show that turned pretty nasty for a while. Their opening act was some local socially important message “band” that was positively dreadful. Just off-the-charts terrible and preachy and the sound was bad to boot. A fourth-grade school play would have been more interesting and professionally done. The audience was patient for maybe 15-20 minutes, then started heckling, then booing, then just chanting “FU-GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-ZI!!!” to drown out the group and make them leave. Which they did–very obviously cutting short their set to do so.
Fugazi came out and starting scolding all of us for being rude fuckers and told us they weren’t going to play if we didn’t finish listening to this group! Then the audience starting booing Fugazi (!) and Fugazi was yelling at us and everything was starting to melt down. Eventually they just started playing and we didn’t have to hear an encore of the socially important message band, which is good because if we had, I would have started a riot myself.
Lessee, a few I can remember inlcude:
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ZZ Top playing at the War Memorial Arena in Johnstown, PA; the band was about three seconds into their first song when an M-80 firecracker sailed onto the stage and went off in mid-air, just in front of the bassist. He tumbled backward into his amps, the music stopped and all the lights went out. A few seconds later the lights come back up, the band announces: “hey, no problem, we’ve seen worse” and launch right back into the same song.
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Rickie Lee Jones, telling some poor schlub in the audience to “shut the FUCK up” whilst she was playing an acoustic set at a theatre in Santa Barbara.
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I think I’ve mentioned this one before, but the Replacements, playing an abbreviated concert at the Lawndale Arts Center in Houston. As I went in the door I noticed a filthy guy in a T-shirt laying in the dirt at the front of the building. This turned out to be Paul Westerberg, who was staggering drunk. He attempted to sing a few songs but could barely croak out the words. About the fifth song in, the organizers pulled the plug, and a chair-hurling riot ensued.
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Some buddies of mine who played in a local band that specialized in Lynyrd Skynrd covers got a gig playing for some sort of family RV camping convention at the Cambria County fairgrounds in Ebensburg, PA. They were met by a stone-faced reaction from the adults in the crowd, who apparently expected something a bit more, er, wholesome. The kids liked 'em pretty much, though.
During the first break, one of the parents goes looking for his daughter. He opens the door of the band’s van, and is immediately enveloped in a huge cloud of pot smoke. Guess it could have been worse; at least his underage daughter wasn’t there (er, at that exact moment).
The band goes back to play their second set but just as they begin, the organizers show up (clearly, upset Dad had gone looking for them) and threaten the band with arrest if they don’t stop playing RIGHT NOW. One guy grabs hold of some speaker cables and threatens to yank them them out. The lead guitarist says, “sure, go ahead if you want to electrocute yourself”. The guy dropped 'em like a hot potato. Heh.
The worst audience-toward-band animosity I’ve ever seen was at a Something Corporate concert, where just like the other examples, the audience didn’t like the band performing and wanted SC to come on sooner.
Their method? Sitting down. On the floor. Front center. Where the most dedicated fans usually are.
Okay, it’s not as bad as the other examples, but you know you hate the band when you risk being tripped over by moshers at a rock concert just to express your dissatisfaction.