This isn’t one about being too drunk, but in 1990, I think, in Charlotte, NC, Jimmy Buffet was giving a concert. People started throwing “stuff” on stage, which really POed Buffet, who told them, ‘This ain’t a @#!!* KISS concert!” and then left the stage—not to return. I have no idea what the “stuff” they were throwing onstage was, though, since I wasn’t there, but it’s the stuff of legends in these parts.
Back in '86 (?), Bob Dylan was touring w/ Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers as his back-up band. I saw him at Rich Stadium in Buffalo on a bill with the Grateful Dead. The Dead played an set starting at 2pm or so and went to about 6pm. FOUR HOURS LATER, Bob Dylan stumbles on stage with a clearly embarrassed Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. Dylan slurred incoherently through one or two songs, then pretty much disappeared. Petty took over the rest of the show.
A few years later, Steve Miller played the same stadium and was pretty clearly reeling around the stage in a daze. He barely managed to finish his set.
The book “Gotta Revolution” about the Jefferson Airplane / Starship describes an Airplane show at the Fillmore East in which a drunken Grace Slick abruptly stopped singing to insult the audience. She snidely remarked how she was staying at the Waldorf-Astoria, ate shrimp cocktail for dinner and was ferried to the show in a limo, and remarked how the hippies in the audience probably blew their last $5 to afford their ticket. The rest of the band stomped off stage and left Slick to verbally fight with pissed-off audience members until Bill Graham came and escorted off stage.
And then there’s Jim Morrison legendary Miami outing. I bet the show didn’t continue on very long after that!
Grace Slick also personally tried to start WWIII when she, in a drunk stupor, taunted a German audience with things like “Who won the war? Who won the war?” The crow eventually rioted and cost the band tens of thousands of dollars in equipment.
I’ve never seen the Dead too grokked to finish a show, but I’ve seen them grokked enough that I’d wished they finished it earlier.
John Prine came out onto the stage of the Mosque one evening and got about a third way through a song and said, “Well, enough of that.” He stumbled off. To quote Queen Victoria, “We were not amused.”
Sublime, Halloween night 1995, at a very cozy venue in Arcata, CA. As it was in Humboldt County, Brad Nowell was at least drunk and stoned out of his mind, and had problems finishing many songs, resulting in a very short set.
I still had a great time and was sad when I learned he’d died the following May. 
A DVD I watched at one point had some clips and anecdotes about Bradley from Sublime being so far gone in several shows that he just sat on the edge of the stage wearing his guitar (but not playing) and just rapped (as opposed to sang) the lyrics to their songs. Meanwhile, the drummer and bass player (the only other two guys in the band) went on playing diligently.
Wow. Interesting simulpost (well basically simulpost)
I remember reading something about Sam Beam doing something like this from a previous thread. Wilco as well. No details, though.
But he finished the show!
I have a friend who used to work with Liza Minnelli. A more appropriate question was who ever saw her sing sober?
Another friend saw Tim McGraw so loaded on stage, he had his lyrics taped to the floor and when he bent down to read them he fell off his stool.
That was late June '86. Second time I used LSD. First time it didn’t turn out to be mostly strychnine. The brevity of Bob’s performance was a blessing, in this case.
I rode home on the back of an open-top '70 Catalina.
The Kinks were famous for being drunk during their shows. Ray and Dave Davies regularly got into fights on stage. They’d also sometimes throw beer on the audience, I’m told. I never heard of them not making it through a show, though.
I saw Aerosmith during the 70’s. Joe Perry was so fucked-up he played half the show on his knees, the other half laying down. The crowd almost burnt the arena down, setting off roman candles & firecrackers. Steven Tyler says something like “if anything hits the stage, we’re outa here”. Of course, during the next song, somebody threw something flaming towards the stage, landing in some netting above the drums, which quickly caught fire. The band ended the song, Steven Tyler says “Good night motherfuckers”, and left the stage. Except Joe Perry, who passed out. The roadies had to drag him off.
Another Who-related moment: Pete fell asleep while playing “Won’t Get Fooled Again” with John Williams at the Amnesty International Benefit. (aka Secret Policeman’s Ball). He woke up in time to finish the song…
Count me as another who saw the Replacements. I knew there was no way I’d be the first to post that in this thread.
One of my other highlights was back in 1986 when our city was the host to Expo. Expo got some flak for not putting aside any one of it’s multiple stages to feature “local musicians”. Evenually they caved and allowed a “New Music Festival” to take place on the grounds. The first band to take the stage (in front of a lot of tourists and families) were local purveyors of Demolition Rock, Slow (later Copyright). They had been drinking grain alcohol all afternoon… their first “song” went something along the lines of “what do you think of Bill Bennett (the Premier of the province at the the time)? Seig Heil! Seig Heil! The second “song” was further godawful noise with lyrics along the line of “how long can we play this song” over and over. Needless to say, the plug was pulled… at this point the bass player (all 6’6” 280 lbs. of him) got naked. Then the riot started. This is where the story gets weird. Near the stage area there was a TV station that broadcast from the Expo grounds for the months Expo was on. Their news team would deliver the 11:00 news in front of a glass wall behind which you could see all the Expo crowd walking around. As they were doing the news that night, the unruly crowd converged upon them (knowing they would be on TV). Sensing trouble, the station cut to the evening movie… Rock n’ Roll High School.
Kristin Hersh says here that she was drunk while recording all the vocal tracks for Hips and Makers. It’s such a beautiful album.
She also says here that when playing solo shows she used to get drunk and take he contacts out so she couldn’t see the audience. Did anyone here manage to see one of her early solo shows?
Apparently, the Beach Boys had to refund somemoney to fans in Perth, Australia during a show in around 1978. Carl and Dennis were wasted and Carl fell off the stage. They did not finish the show.
I saw one of Jimi Hendrix’s worst performances at the Winter Concert for Peace in January 1970. He was obviously nodding out, and after two songs sat on the floor and refused to get up. Buddy Miles told the audience Jimi “wasn’t feeling well.” It was obvious Jimi wasn’t feeling much of anything.
From an account of the concert:
He died nine months later. I was glad I had seen him several other times when he was at his peak.
Interesting…
Almost 40 posts and no mention of Van Halen. 
I saw them in 1983 at the US Festival in So. California. They were all trashed and sounded horrible. David Lee Roth, bless his heart, couldn’t remember any of the lyrics. It was awful enough that we left after 3 or 4 songs.
Roth later blamed his condition on an early morning visit to his trailer from Joe Walsh. Things went downhill from there.
I don’t really remember it too well but back when I was a yung 'un around 1980, my parents took me with them to a special appearance by Hank Williams Jr. at some back country campground. The show started about an hour late and Bocephus only sang three songs and then walked off stage. I don’t remember much about the performance but I remember how royally pissed my parents and all the fans were with mumblings about a drunk, stoned bastard and such. IIRC, everybody plunked down a good piece of change for this special intimate show.