Van Morrison...early seventies Free Trade Hall, Manchester. Same tour as "Its Too Late To Stop"..Caledonia Soul Orchestra in full flow, Van's best ever band ?? Curtain opens Van comes on band thumps into 'Wild Night" the place erupts, people rush to the front to take pictures..Van signals band to stop..band skid to a halt..exit Van stage left..Loud "Fm" voiced type American DJ marches on stage..silences crowd with a "People People" style speech informs us that Van is an artist and would we please stop taking photographs as its disturbs Van's concentration... crowd starts to get restless with a lot of Northern Strop.. voice, very loud shouts "get on with it you fucking wanker, we paid you to be here, now just fucking sing". Five minutes later Van returns..Band takes off like a jet and a fantastic time is had by all. Best concert I have ever been to, but so close to being a disaster..Same old Van, same as he's ever been and has ever been since..grouchy grump who has no respect for his audience and thats a damn shame.

memorable hot summer's night in... Tufnell Park @ Dirty Water Club 2006. Anton spent most of the night drunkenly abusing the audience, until he finally picked up a chair and threw it into the crowd at a heckler, at which point, a brawl broke out. Show abandoned.

Music did not win at this gig.

Oh, I beg to differ. They played a half empty king tuts in Glasgow last year, where the audience were berated for the, erm, lack of audience by the singer, who then proceeded to puke on the stage and bugger off after 35 minutes.

A good review here: http://extremelisteningmode.com/2008/04/23/we-are-performance-king-tuts-...

At the Boardwalk in Sheffield 2000ish.

Clearly rather tired and emotional and choose to rant all gig at a member of the audience who had the temerity early on to ask Adams to stop mumbling to himself/fiddling with his fags and play for his paying public.

No idea why the bloke who took an awful lot of verbal flak stayed to the bitter end of a pretty dismal performance.

of Low, when he hurled his guitar with great force in to the crowd at The End of The Road festival last year. Brought the show to an abrupt end and everyone seemed utterly shocked. No one was hurt, thankfully, but it was very unsettling to have a performer turn on what was an appreciative crowd.

At a theatre in Manchester a few years back (name escapes me now). Took to sitting on the stage with a notebook, presumably filled with song titles in front of him, and would flick through averaging a good 3-4 minutes between songs. When one audience member got frustrated with this & shouted "play something!" Adams retorted "I'm gonna!". Eventually the audience member left shouting some choice abuse on his way out. Adams then launched into 3 blistering songs in a row (believe me, 3 in a row with no break was a lot that night) finishing off with "The End" & changing some of the words to something along the lines of "and if you don't like it then you can fuck off" prompting more walkouts.

Still a great night though

On their last tour they bickered continually - there was a real feeling of two against one - they would change the song order once guitars were in place, just to piss each other off. The atmosphere was toe-curling. This wasn't helped by the wifey next to me (nice middle class - older lady) drinking vodka from a water bottle and either sobbing or snoring throughout. Her daughter was mortified. It was more interesting than the show, mind.

reputation seems to be holding up then

at a Sheffield venue, possibly Leadmill, fairly early in career, certainly before 'that' single. Stephen Jones berates the audience for not fully concentrating on his performance, audience think 'who is this t**t' and carry on, Jones takes shoe off to throw at audience, thinks better of it for fear of never seeing said shoe again. Jones then cuts performance short, audience shrug and saunter off to bar.

He was always a tetchy bugger

Smashing Pumpkins at Glastonbury '97.

It was one of the first terrible mudbaths in the televised era. It had come as something of a shock to those of us accustomed to images of glorious sunburnt abandon and dusty railtracks adorned with fairy lights, and we were looking to the great and the good of the entertainment world to raise the gloom.

Beck had a go. Supergrass had a better one.

The stage was all set for 'Laughing' Billy Corgan to get the party started.

Except, he came on in a sulk, because 'some disco band' (The Prodigy, probably biggest band in the world at the time) were headlining over them. So he decided to lead his band through a set of obscure B sides and leaden album tracks while throwing out barbed sarcastic comments to an increasingly miserable crowd.

Glastonbury 1993. Kinks. Main stage headliners (if u can believe that) Ray = Foul mood. Thats all i'm saying. The only concert in my life where i've been genuinely angry with the band by the end. His Union Jack top hat did nothing to help matters.

Pretty sure Jools Holland came close to falling asleep during the show, head down on the piano. The band clearly were not happy that night. The Katydids were the support act and totally, utterly blew the main act off the stage.

Audience sat in neat rows; no dancing; no (cough) 'partying'; not much singing along - a typical English audience.

Chris Robinson not a happy bunny at the lack of fawning adoration. A few songs in, berates the audience for not getting into it and (cough) 'partying', chucks mic on the floor, fucks off stage left.

Same band, supporting the Stones at Wemberlee in 199-something. Pissing with rain, Black Crowes play a short, lacklustre jamming set then cut it short citing the rain as a danger. 20 minutes later, PA announcement that "The Rolling Stones will be on stage at the scheduled time, irrespective of the weather".

Ooooo... handbags backstage...

Quite a few, standing at a lecturn, lyrics at hand. If you're lucky he turns round to face the audience.

People fawn, odd.

Julian Cope did not seem happy that the support band the Woodentops
stole the show and were called back for an encore, snapped the microphone stand and proceeded to perform surgery on his bare chest with the sharp edge.

Oh how we laughed!

Iggy Pop, The Venue, Victoria, winter 1981 or thereabouts

At the front a young male audience member opens a carton of orange juice and squirts Iggy with it. Iggy screams 'Did you just squirt orange juice on me!' and proceeds to lift the offender up onto the stage - by his hair, with one hand. This visually astounding feat accomplished, Iggy holds the terrified lad in the air for a moment, looking like he might devour him, before casting him aside to be scooped up by two bouncers. The scene on the street outside the back of the venue is not one I'd wish to imagine.

During the rest of the gig Iggy variously exposed himself, leapt onto the mixing desk wildly changing all the faders and paraded around with a black leather clad girlfriend. I was sat in the balcony and, having come straight off the train from my mother's house in Wales, was carry a cardboard box containing a whole unplucked goose she'd given me to have at Christmas. Wisely I refrained from making any use of it at the concert.

I saw Van live at the Glasgow Apollo in the seventies. He came out, started singing and took one look at the 14-foot drop off the Apollo's stage and retreated to the piano at the back of the stage which of course meant that hordes of people in the front rows couldn't see the irascible short-arsed Irishman.

He refused to budge for the rest of the gig which was the cue for several friendly Glaswegians to suggest that he might want to take a good look at himself and get back up front.

Didn't work though.

I was once fooled into going to see (Steve) Hackett n' (Steve) Howe. Absolutely disgraceful display - they played some songs they had written and several audience members were killed.

Ryan Adams again - this one was in 2005 and took place at the Royal Court Liverpool where I was assistant manager at the time. The manager of the venue was off sick that day and so this was my first gig in charge and naturally I was bricking it. Ryan had apparently been acting strangely all day and had allegedly purchased a number of different 'refreshments'. By the time he went on the crowd were very aggresive and there was constant heckling. He wasn't helping matters by playing the pretty dull 'Rock n Roll' album at the time. About half way through the gig it all clicked and he started playing really well but then he started climbing one of the amplifiers and unsuprisingly given what he had consumed fell off. I was at the side of the stage trying to persuade the security not to kill him when he fell. His arm smashed against one of the barriers and made a sickening crunch and when he came to it was pointing out at right angles. I was forced to put the house lights on which resulted in the crowd rushing the stage and throwing anything they could get their hands on.Ryan meanwhile was being bundled into a car by the promoter and driven to the Royal Hospital. The last I heard of him was a scream of "no National Health - I'm insured!"

I spent the next day fielding calls from papers all over the country not to mention the health and safety executive and the licensing people. It was this exact moment I decided to move into journalism and away from gig promotion.

Oxford Apollo late 90's. Pretentious Twxx. Stopped songs 3 times, Stompped off stage to berate sound people/roadies for a variety of misdemeanors.

Never want to see him again, he forgets that the public have paid to see. Thank God Chris Farlow his support act was worth the admission alone.

The legend that is the Loaf was not having a good day. He was supporting the recently reformed Deep Purple, who were hours away from playing their first UK concert for 9 years. The crowd were in the mood for Blackmore riffage, not a fat bloke sat in a wheelchair (he'd broken his leg) singing cod-operatic bollocks about bats emerging from the underworld.

As was the tradition in those days, the sky soon darkened as hundreds of bottles of piss made their merry way towards Uncle Meat. Several landed onstage. He was none too pleased, and told 60,000 people 'go fuck yourselves' before wheeling himself offstage in a strop.

Some friends of mine were big Cope fans & while at Phoenix festival one year were delighted to discover he'd replace George Clinton who'd pulled out at the last minute. They made their way to the front only to meet up with some very confused americans who'd come a long way to see their hero only to be confronted with a man in yellow underpants rolling around the stage

One funny - circa World Shut Your Mouth - JC (semi naked) climbs lighting rig at Liverpool Royal Court - tries to do his moody Jim Morrison act from on high, looks down & loses his bottle. Shits his self and climbs down over the next ten minutes, very slowly and tentatively as his band do an extended jam !!! Hilarious !!!!

One bad (very bad) - audience with the cope circa 2000 - sat in the stalls on plastic seats same venue - the Mrs & I were "treated" to JC walking through the rows of seats strumming, in lycra tights and knee length boots. Stopped in front of us (I mean three inches - crotch in face type in front of us) while playing to the upper circle. I can confirm the rumour that he didn't wash during that tour - like being at the Asda fish counter (POO EEE)

Sheffield Leadmill, around 1987 or thereabouts. Some pale youth in the crowd calls out in a recently broken voice for his favourite Stuffies stomper and Miles Hunt replies curtly, "You'll get what you're given you c*nt". It's really no way to treat your audience.

The Folk Hall, New Earswick, York, when the Saturday night event was called The Tinned Chicken Club. Probably 1969.
Tim Rose - he of Morning Dew and Come Away Melinda fame.
As the set wore on, a conspicious damp patch appeared on the front of his trousers.
By the end, the entire upper half of one leg of his levis was obviously soaking wet through.
It didn't seem to put him off though.

At the Teenage Cancer Trust comedy night he curated the last act before the encore was mate of his who did some nutty auntie type act. Went down like a cup of cold sick. Just 15 mins of dying on her arse.

After the break, on came Noel Fielding, this was pre the Boosh mania, who was playing a blinder. He started gettiung some heckling from one of the boxes which he deblt with easily (getting the whole RAH to shout 'fuck off' was a great sound). I'm not really a fan of the Mighty Boosh but I liked his inspired lunacy

after his set on comes Kay and says something like 'you were right mate, load of old wierd crap that, don't get it at all' to no response apart from that one bloke clapping loudly. Apparently Fielding buttonholed Kay backstage to ask why he'd said it and Kay wouldn't answer him

A fellow comic gives up his time for charity and you go onstage and slag his act that the audience enjoyed more than your friends attempts? Now you realise why those who've worked with him have rarely done it again.

..Meatloaf leaving the stage after being bombarded with bottles of piss can be construed as bad behaviour.

Am I the only fool that waited around until way past my bedtime for Axl to grace the stage at the Hammersmith Odean? We stood and sweated for what felt like an age. Great gig, eventually. But not sure the getting home nightmare afterwards really made up for it.

Saw him a few year's back in Queens University, Belfast when he spent most of the time ripping into his sound guy while the band members looked the other way.

I also saw him in Dublin a few years before that when he was drinking heavily on stage.

Despite all this, he and the Cardinals are really fantastic live. I hate to think anyone in the Word massive is put off Adams' music because of his reputation.

And according to this great interview from New Zealand TV (in Neil Finn's studio), Adams has now given up everything including the cigs!

A pillock from beginning to end:

http://martincole.blogspot.com/2007/05/coping.html

His nasty and bullying behaviour was luckily filmed for posterity. A silly man. You can sense the crowd turning against him.

There's nothing worse than this. It's hard to believe that most bands are unaware that the sound they get on stage is different to the one that's out front. And that the poor sound guy can't actually hear what's being heard through the monitors. Yet they do. So it's awkward when the tosser band member lays into the sound guy, to the mystification of the audience, for whom it sounds fine.

The worst I ever saw was a band who just happen to be friends of mine, so I won't name them. But they gave the sound guy absolute hell from beginning to end. The audience completely turned on them. Actually, I know someone who was even worse than that, but it's awkward as I happened to be playing bass for him at the time.

Peter Hook threatened to stop the gig if people continued to try and touch his bass. Quite contradictory as he was waving it about in his usual style missing everyones head by a whisker

no pun intended

I like the shout of 'i want my money back' at the end.

One of the worst gigs I've been to was Julian Cope about four years ago. It was terrible for all sors of reasons: his voice was totally shot; the band played awful meat-and-potatoes rawk with zero light and shade; he didn't play anything well known (not really a criticism, I guess, but I found it harder going for the unfamiliarity); and to cap it all, he played Reynard The Fox, which I love. Sadly, he barked out the lyrics unintelligably and the band knocked any life out of the song. When it got to the spoken bit, he started making up any old shit, which culminated in some drivel about someone getting his todger out and pissing everywhere.

Didn't know where to look, frankly. Here's the song as it sounded on his fantastic Fried album:

does this count? Argent back in the seventies, refused to play "hold your head up"

..profoundly hilarious that a man dressed like that can call someone a fascist.

Happy Mondays, Dusseldorf, about 1994: they actually left the building well after being due on stage, for drugs or food, who knows?,returning maybe a good hour later to play a shortish, ear-shattering set, I've never forgiven the bastards for this rudeness to their audience,.

for just turning up and "singing." It was awful. My wife and thousands of other women crammed into Wembley Arena loved it but it was the most turgid 90 minutes of my life.

The gig was Jan 2009 Oran Mor,Glasgow.It said "The Gutter Twins" on my ticket but was billed elsewhere as "An Evening with Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan" (and guitarist/accomp.vocalist Dave Rosser).Now who's the known grumpy one in that line up, eh?
So it came as some surprise for Dulli to say,before "Hello",that there should be no photos taken during the performance.So we're expecting a band to play tunes from their album Saturnalia etc, and what we get are three guys, sounding completely under rehearsed, Dulli and Rosser looking to one another to agree on chord changes. Then some poor lass, and it was a lass because Dulli pointed her out, she took a photo and he stopped midsong, and asked her to leave. But the crowd were having none of it,so he carried on, and failed. Lanegan was head down, as usual,probably dead embarrased by the whole scenario,and gave the only true musical performance of the night.

The Glasgow Apollo has been mentioned in this thread and one of my saddest days was walking down West Nile St and seeing what was left of the stalls ,balcony and upper circle.The theatre had been demolished from the stage side and you could see all the seating. Bands have said that they could see the balcony jumping up and down when they played and sure enough there was a huge dip in the centre of the balcony level.Pity there were no phone/cameras to record the passing of a great venue

Northern Ireland was in the middle of one of our darkest periods, with IRA violence and other paramillitary attrocities. It was only 2 months after the Milltown Cemetary massacre and Northern Ireland was on tender hooks, it was literally a powder geg ready to blow.

Heavy metal was always a way to escape the tribalism of the period and many bands continued to come to NI despite our media reputation, Metallica, Def Leppard, Anthrax all came during this time and we had a reputation of being energetic and receptive audiences.

Hence when Mustaine and gang came to town we were understandably excited, they were a big band at the time and it was a highly anticipated night.

Mustaine came on and was slurring his words and did not seem at the game. Intros were messed up, cues were missed but we persevered.

After an hour or so, Mustaine was led out for an encore and it so happened that they had released Anarchy in the Uk...

Imagine the crowds shock when he shouted at the start of the song"give Ireland back to the Irish with anarchy...up the IRA"!

The crowd was silenced, a few shouts of anger went out and then a chorus of boos.

Legend has it they left with an army escort.

Not one of his best ideas...

It was 1976 and the scene was the Birmingham Odeon. At that time the Odeon was the West Midlands premier venue to see all of the big acts of the day.
Eric Clapton had been a solo artist for sometime, although most of us regarded him as still the very best purveyor of the blues these shores had ever witnessed.
It came as quite a surprise when Eric went into diatribe, when in normal circumstances he let the guitar do the talking. What was even more mind boggling was that this man who had made a musical life out of the black man's music should utter the words that he did.
Here he was just down the road from Wolverhampton where Enoch Powell had made the "...Rivers of Blood" speech in the heart of the most mixed race community known to the UK at the time.
So when Eric said "I just want to tell you that Enoch was right when he spoke about the blacks" we just sat in complete amazement at what was going on.
Eric's outburst led to that veritable organisation 'Rock agaist Racism' and all because a black security chap backstage had tried it on with Pattie Boyd(allegedly).

Classic tale of America playing the legedary Glasgow Apollo where,the rule of thumb was to leave no turn unstoned....

Half way through the set there was still no appearance of the big hit "Horse with no name"...Someone shouted "Hey Gonna play that song about the horse wi' nae name?"

A band member,rather condescendingly said that they were working to a set list and were were professional...."Who told ye that...?" was the reply rom the stalls...

Manchester Apollo: I don't think he said a single word, played with his back to the audience most of the time. Then last number: played the 'head' did his solo, and walked off stage. The rest of the band took their solos......nd the concert ended. He never re-appeared.

Please don't give me the 'he was a genius and an artist' argument. Yes. He was a fantastic musician, and composer. However he was misogynist, and a bully (famously only agreeing a fee for himself for concerts: the band had to sort out was left. Genius yes. Doesn't excuse him being an arsehole. It was the public who paid for his Ferrari and his legendary coke habit.

Rowland

www.reallyaccessiblememory.com

He behaved similarly at Umbria Jazz a few years. The following the head of UJ said they would never book him ever again. He normally got $40,000 for 40 minutes, no photos no encore. Yes.the maths is easy.....

Interestingly a few days he played in Milan and apparently 'chatted with the audience'.....

www.reallyaccessiblememory.com

Southampton University, 1984

Came on at least an hour late. No support to keep us busy.
Played for about 20 mins.
Fucked off.
Oh.

Both took revenge on spitters during gigs - both gave out warnings, quit the gobbing, or else, but some just kept on flobbin'. Hell actually pulled out the offender from the front row at Sheffield City Hall and really clattered him, even his band looked shocked at the ferocity of the assault. Siouxsie got really pissed off with one guy who just carried on showing his affection with spittle, they left the stage, they returned.
As she grabbed the mike another volley hit her. She grabbed the mike stand and went mental. If she got the right guy we'll never know, but the battering was continual and bloody.
The spitting ceased.

This was the adult version of finding out the tooth fairy or Santa Claus don't exist. It was at the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan, on their Heaven or Las Vegas tour. Turns out Liz Fraser wasn't the "Voice of God" after all--at least not this night. For the entirety of the absurdly short show (1 hour, perhaps slightly longer), she never moved from the spot where she stood onstage. She warbled incomprehensibly (not in the brilliant way she does on record) through Robin Guthrie's muddy sound design. I was appalled at how much of the music was canned, how little actual instrument playing there was. Liz would not look out at the audience--she stared at the floor. Worst of all, she stood stone still, except that she flapped her wrists and hands spastically and frantically, in rhythm to her warblings, like some poor cerebral palsy patient. It looked totally ridiculous.

Ray Lamontagne at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow. Wonderful voice, great tunes, zero chat. Silence between all the songs. Awkward, brooding silence.

Until a woman in the crowd shouts "Gies some chat Ray!" and when no reply was forthcoming then gave him some mild (by Glasgow standards) abuse.

Ray says "We have a saying in America - go fuck yourself"

This was literally all he said the entire set. Live music is meant to be exatcly that, live. If you closed your eyes it was just like listening to the album with longer than average gaps in between.

(It turns out that the woman heckler was the wife of a notorious Glasgow gangster who tried to buttonhole Ray on his way from the venue. Ray's lucky he didn't sleep with the fishies of the Clyde for his broodiness)

...as just plain indifferent: Eric Clapton, Edmonton Coliseum, 1977. 15,000 fans hoping for at least a glimpse of the guitar god of yore were presented instead with what may as well have been an average Tulsa bar band. Eric was apparently in one of his periodic "I'm not a star, just a guy who wants to play songs in a band" phases. He didn't address the crowd once, spent most of the set near the rear of the stage by the backing singers, and--incredibly--handed over most of the leads, including the one on Layla, to his second guitarist. Fifteen years old at the time, I had dragged a few skeptical friends along, promising them a night of guitar pyrotechnics that would dwarf Zeppelin. I don't think they've ever forgiven me. This night, in my memory, stands out as the precise moment when punk rock became necessary.

I saw them in Cardiff Top Rank on their Rattus Norvegicus tour. The media was still in a moral panic about punk. All the tales of spittting and pogoing youth, taken as Punk 1.0.1. by us naive provincial types, had made sure that any band worth their combat medals would be a mucus slathered ball of sweat within ten minutes of hitting the Rank stage. Of course, this did not go down well with the hardly sanguine-natured meninblack. After a few polite requests to the audience from Hugh Cornwell to "fucking stop phlobing...or else" - which were ignored - the lights went down and martial artiste Jean-Jacques Burnel jumped off stage to show certain members of Cardiff's yoof some of his more tasty moves. The lights came on as Jet Black and Dave Greenfield pulled Mr Burnel out of the moshpit, leaving a punter with a bloodied nose flailing the port all over his close neighbors. The band hit the groove again - somewhat appropriately Down in the Sewer if I recall - and nothing more was said.

Those were the days, eh? I tell you, the youth of today they don't known they're born...I've got SCARS from going to gigs, wanna see them? [cue scene reminiscent of Quint and Hooper's competition in Jaws]

one thing i think we can all agree on is how different the julian cope in-the-books persona is from the on-stage/ real life one. what an arse.

I once had the misfortune to wait 70 minutes for Lenny Kravitz to take the stage. After one song, he stormed off stage and when he eventually came back out, he started reading a book. "I'm waiting for you guys to start enjoying yourselves" he said. Needless to say I left, went for curry and started enjoying myself.

Very enjoyable, very appalling, but I'm shocked, gentlemen, shocked by the exclusion of Badly Drawn Boy. The man makes lovely records, but I approached my first opportunity to see him considering both his shambling reputation and his alleged allegiance to Springsteen-length gigs. Soon enough, I had to wonder if Gough had ever seen a Springsteen concert, as the show reached epic lengths due to countless stops n' starts, mumbling, tuning up, etc. I rarely walk out of shows (Reef excepted), but eventually I left before my last bit of affection for the man's work disappeared. To make matters worse, he made a return appearance in BC not long after, and I convinced myself it mustn't have been that bad, so I went to see him again. No cues for a complete retraction necessary, however, and his work has glowed a bit less for me ever since.

It's pretty small beer compared to some of the antics described here, isn't it? One of the times I saw the Cocteau Twins none of them said a dickie bird to the audience, but it was still a great gig.

..aside from owt else, Jazz musicians rarely speak to the audience, nor do many blues players.
Personally, I think if musicians and singers have nothing to say, then they should shut up. (I don't need endless "Whoo! How ya doing..Ya looking goood tonight's").

Saw him at Bradford St George's Hall (not for very long, I might add) and both Mrs L and I had the impression that his band was scared to death of him.

The worst (and most hilarious) bad stage behaviour I witnessed was Lou Reed, mid-seventies in Dortmund, Germany. After two songs he began berating a guy in front of the stage because he was apparently not applauding. After one or two more songs he said, "people, there's someone here who's not appreciating my music!" Some audience booing fired him up, and he stopped the next song after two minutes, demanding that the guy leave the hall.

More shouts and boos from the audience. Lou rants on about his art and finally demands that security remove the poor chap. Massive noise from audience. Lou: "OK, you decide: Either the guy leaves the hall, or I'll stop performing." (Shouts, noises, but no applause from audience...) "So, you want me to stop the performance??" Immediate, massive applause from the audience.

A bewildered Lou Reed stares into the darkness for a few seconds, then storms off the stage. His confused band follow him.

He never returned that evening. The gig probably lasted twenty minutes. The promoter later offered money back, but most people choose to smash their seats instead.

Not bad behaviour per se, but...

Huey Lewis's then band, Clover, who'd backed Elvis Costello on My Aim Is True, was out doing the rounds as support for the then very popular (they still are at Vintage Acres) Graham Parker and The Rumour, I guess around 1978.

As the climax of their support set, Lewis himself pulled out a blues harp and gave it major Jerry Portnoy, immersing himself so much in the sheer dexterity of his flattened third bends that he advanced beyond the monitors at the front of Aberdeen's Capitol stage and pulled shapes normally the preserve of spandex-clad metal axemen and the bejasus of pentatonic squeals from his trusty Hohner. Very impressive.

At the climax of this theatrical intro to Clover's climactic set closer, he took a step back, still bent double in pursuit of his Delta art, and tumbled, in perfect Norman Wisdomesque pratfall style, over a monitor.

I cannot recall that the band finished the song or were even able to continue, such was their mirth and ours.

Hadn't seen the old boy since he was playing with the Whole World a century ago but he came to Japan a couple of years ago. I Missed the Friday gig in Shiga cos I got on the wrong train but the next night he played some rat hole in Osaka which took me a day to get to. Played one song then pissed off.

on the first Stiff tour
Forgotton lyrics, falling over - MAGIC!!

typical finale here - Wrecker is the one with the bright blue shirt and the gormless stare a minute or so in!

Great performance!!!!!!

Elvis, Wreckless, Edmunds, Basher and the Blockheads. A good night out, I bet.

Band come on, start playing, so far so good. Mind you, Mr Townshend's playing seems a little, er, erratic to say the least. Suddenly, fourth number in, Daltrey throws mic at Townshend in disgust and walks off. Band nonplussed, stop playing and shamble off after him. All except our Pete, who stands on stage for a few moments looking rather gormless (and drunk) then ambles off too. Audience goes nuts, booing and slow hand-clapping. Riot imminent. Eventually PT staggers back on and informs us that he's 'had a word with the lads backstage' and if we all 'cheer loud enough' perhaps the 'lads' could be persuaded to come back onstage and finish the set. How generous of them. After about five minutes or so, a scowling band come back on and finish the set; Daltrey visibly furious, Townshend so pissed (or drugged) he can scarcely play a note and rest of band looking hugely embarrassed.

Not surprisingly they split up shortly after, if memory serves.

Finsbury Park, 1999, Madstock.
4000 drunk skinheads.
Lots of Union Jacks. And Doc Martins.
Raining all day. Mud everywhere.
Finlay Quaye booked as support act.
Starts set by talking about white supremacy.
Bottles of piss start flying.
Bottle of piss hits and destroys drum kit mid-song.
Quaye's drummer flings drumsticks into crowd.
Band storm off.
Quaye accuses 4000 skinheads of being racist.
Crowd tell Quaye to fuck off.
Quaye fucks off.
Madness come on and play a blinder.
Hmmmm...

...on the Irishmen thread, but it bears repeating here:

Christy Moore, whose music I love, blotted his copy book for me a few years ago at the Waterfront, where he actually had a stand up row with a member of the audience.

The crime? The audience member had gently ribbed Christy ("I wan't a refund!") about putting his capo on the wrong fret for one of the songs.

The reaction? "You can have your feckin money back if you want" or some such, delivered in deadly earnest.

Really destroyed the atmosphere, and was a deeply unprofessional, head up own arse thing to do, particularly as his sense of humour had actually come through earlier in the evening.

In the late 1980’s, a good pal of mine worked for a certain music promoter whom I also ended up working for at one stage. The following is a true story.

Around about that time both Meatloaf and Status Quo were on the skids financially and creatively (and every other way one would imagine). Buoyed by “Rocking All Over The World” at Live Aid, Ver Quo (who had split up in 84) decided to reform, albeit without moustachioed bassist Alan Lancaster and the drummer in the bomber jacket who replaced the brilliant John Coughlan. With coke their driving force, they got two kids in to replace them (one permed, one mulleted), gave the keyboard player a promotion to the photoshoots and hopelessly tried to convince us they were in the army now.

Even more hopeless was poor old Marvin Lee Aday. As well as being wheelchair bound for a while, Meatloaf was to all intents and purposes immobile in every possible musical sense. A few years earlier he had “embraced” the 1980’s power-pop-rock sound with the abysmal, German-engineered “Blind Before I Stop” album, a disc whose masturbatory title did little to hide the wankology within. Even German crowd favourite David Hasselhoff would have struggled with songs such as “Rock ‘n’ Roll Mercenaries”, “Special Girl” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Hero”. Salvation seemed to be temporarily at hand with new musical foil John Parr, but Meatloaf fucked that one up royally, falling out with Parr on stage in London. With his record deal about to go too, old Meat was a goner. He was reduced to touring ‘intimate’ venues - the types he would have ignored long before “Bat Out of Hell” broke. But he still had pockets of fans in Ireland and the UK he could depend on. The rural rockers of Ireland, in particular, are the type of loyal fan every rocker craves. So long as there’s a fella throwing shapes with a loud guitar and an act who’ll play the hits, they’ll go for it. And so, in 1989, Meatloaf was convinced into undertaking a ramshackle tour of some of Ireland’s worst community centres, ballrooms, hotel function rooms and other assorted sheds suddenly deemed good enough to host rock royalty. The promoters were so confident that this tour would be a hit that they booked Status Quo for the same one the following year. Neither act refused the offer. The promoter, who had previously only worked with Smokie, couldn't believe his luck.

With such an iconic star as Meatloaf in town, the people of rural Ireland came out in their droves. Practically every show was a sell-out with the doormen more than happy to ram a few more heads into each gig. Bar sales rocketed as everyone in town got pissed in advance of hearing “Bat Out Of Hell” on their fucking doorstep! The shows were rowdy and rocking but a couple of overstuffed gigs in, and Meatloaf was beginning to crack. There were too many people at each and every one, and the tour reached its nadir when it pulled into Moate, a town in Co. Westmeath in the middle of the country famous not only for being the homeplace of one half of Foster and Allen, but also for having the widest main street in Ireland at the time.

Two or three songs into the gig, and the pressure was building up at the front.

“Please guys, can you move back a couple of steps?” pleaded Meatloaf as he finished ‘You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth’ to an audience on the move. “Someone’s gonna get hurt.”

About six people heard him. The rest of them were either screaming for the hits or trying to finish their cans of Fosters which, alongside Harp, Hoffmans and Furstenberg was the staple tinned lager for Irish gig goers of a certain vintage. Clutching a can of Coke, I was being crushed down the back, my previous gigging experience limited to seeing Mamas Boys, Joe Dolan, Christy Moore, hardly acts to get one drinking.

The gig carried on, and more and more people swelled the Community Centre. As this was a local gig for the tour promoter there was no way he was refusing anyone from his neck of the woods admission. Earlier in the tour he had assigned my pal Marty to protect Meatloaf, to be his bodyguard. Marty told us he’s “take a bullet” for Meatloaf such was his love of the big man’s music. As the Moate gig stepped into gear Meatloaf’s new bodyguard sensed that the man himself was about to go off on one. He had erupted a few times over the past few nights. He moved into position on the side of the stage to reassure Meatloaf that everything was O.K. He liked reassurances did Marvin and my friend Marty was just the man to give them to him. But the crowd was far from reassuring. Empty beer cans began to be hurled around the venue. Some came close to the stage.

After four songs, a lone Dr. Marten boot broke the imaginary wall between performer and audience and landed on stage.

Now, in his previous arena-filling life, Meatloaf was more accustomed to frenzied females feverishly whipping off their panties before launching them towards the stage. He was no stud, but as his sweaty arena show reached its peak there seemed to be no stopping the more excitable female audience members. But there was none of those in rural Ireland tonight. A few moments later another item of men’s footwear landed on stage, followed intermittently by several other items of clothing, none of which resembled silk panties. Meatloaf was having none of it.

“Stop fucking throwing things!” he roared, the glare in his eyes adding the necessary “or else”.

The crowd didn’t care. Beer cans, glasses, bottles and whatever else was getting in the way of the increasingly crushed audience began to arrive on stage at various intervals before, during and after songs. The odd unfinished fag end also came up. As a junior smoker at the time who was well accustomed to sharing cigs with my pals (in fact it was the norm) I thought this was an affectionate gesture for Meatloaf to take a drag. Not so.

“I’m fucking leaving here man,” Meatloaf roared to Marty by the side of the stage.

“No way! You can’t,” Marty told Meatloaf. “They’ll fucking kill you.”

A white runner boot, its path to the stage illuminated by the arc of a spotlight, then hit the star turn.

“Fuck you!” Meatloaf roared back, and he promptly stormed off stage. The band – a bunch of hired hands most likely on wages as poor as the ham sandwich rider backstage – were not yet fully competent in reading Meatloaf’s signals and they played on. Was this a costume change? “I dunno, I’m only the drummer.”

Backstage in the narrow hallway which trebled as dressing room, load-in point and backstage area, Meatloaf was fuming. Like the band, the crowd hadn’t yet realised he’d stormed off stage so not only had his grand exit had not achieved the desired effect, but most people there thought it was part of the show.

Supremely pissed off, he went back on.

As more debris rained on stage, Meatloaf warned the crowd that he would “walk out the fucking door” if they continued this sort of carry on.

“I’m fucking warning you,” he roared as the band broke into ‘Dead Ringer for Love’, one of Meat’s biggest Irish hits and one guaranteed to send the crown doolally. “One more thing lands on this stage and I’m leaving.” A couple of cans flew around the venue, but none landed on stage. They were joined in their flight by a couple of shoes, only one of which landed on stage. But, fair play to him, Meatloaf held firm.

Attempting the unenviable task of protecting Meatloaf from debris and holding the crowd back was my pal Marty. He was standing in the pit directly on front of the stage swatting beer cans when suddenly, everything in the community centre went into slow motion.

“The lights caught something shiny and a second or two later I saw it. I thought ‘oh no... this is it... show’s over’ because flying through the air was... a wheelchair.”
The chair flew directly over Marty’s head. He turned just in time to see Meatloaf’s eyes swell with an unusual mixture of both fear and wonder. The burly singer put out an arm and attempted to step back. The stage was so small he stumbled into the drum riser just as the wheelchair crashed onto the boards in front of him. In slow motion the big man fell, the empty wheelchair bouncing to his left, one wheel comically spinning.

Marty remembers the crowd cheering. He was sure he could make out someone screaming but by the time he could react Meatloaf had gotten to his feet, grabbed the mic, roared several “fucking fucks” into it and hurled it at the audience as he stormed off, almost certainly for good this time. However, the lead of the mic was too short and it hit the advancing Marty, whose own incredulity at what had been launched onto the stage had prevented him from getting up there sooner. As he climbed onto the stage the band were already leaving it, the star turn gone. The show was not even a half an hour old.

As he arrived backstage to find Meatloaf ablaze with swearwords, anger and American hand-gestures, Marty decided to let the concert promoter do the talking. There was no way Meatloaf would return to the stage. “No fucking way!” Not after what they did to that poor kid in the wheelchair. Christ! Who was actually in the wheelchair? There was no way of knowing if there was a poor kid, such was the volume of people within the Community Centre, and there was no way Meatloaf was going back in front of them to find out. As predicted earlier, they began to get even more restless. A riot – unheard of in rural rocking circles though another pal of mine swore blind his emigrant brother was at a Dio-era Black Sabbath gig in the states when one broke out – was almost certainly on the cards.

Despite pleas that returning to the stage would calm the restless natives, Meatloaf stormed out of the venue towards his bus, his band and entourage close behind. The promoter, his entourage and my pal Marty tried to reason with him, but to no avail. Out of the blue, an angry man in a denim jacket appeared. Could he be linked to the wheelchair? No.

“Get back on that fecking stage ya bollocks,” he roared at Meatloaf, as he stormed over to him, arm coiling up to his side. “We paid good money to fucking see you!” The man went for Meatloaf. Meatloaf went for him. The man’s fist looked deadly. Acting on instinct my pal Marty dived in to protect Meatloaf. He was, after all, on security detail. Again, everything suddenly went into slow motion. Marty’s feet left the ground as he launched himself into the air. As his face flew into view and blocked Meatloaf’s head the irate audience member’s fist stuck, connecting with his nose. Blood spurted loose as Marty completed his dive and landed on the tarmac. Meatloaf’s own people managed to get their man out of the way and within seconds he was on a bus, bound for the hotel. My pal Marty lay on the ground, his admittedly large nose broken, but no injury could dent his pride at ‘taking a bullet’ for Meatloaf.

The tour resumed in Carlow the following night, and Meatloaf personally thanked Marty for intervening before the show. Security was tightened up considerably with a load of army boys drafted in on the promise of free tickets and a few bob, and for the first time on the sold-out tour, ‘house full’ signs were erected and the doormen said no. Security was even tighter when the Quo did the same tour (minus a few of the sheds) a year later. 20 years later and my pal Marty’s nose is a crooked broken mess, a sideways Manilow, but he’s a proud man and to this day he calls the nose ‘Meatloaf’ in honour of the great man.

A little over a year later and Meatloaf was back in the arenas. He rekindled his partnership and friendship with Jim Steinman and together they penned ‘Bat Out of Hell 2’, an album which spawned "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)”, a song which got to number one in 28 countries. My pal Marty likes to think that the unspoken ‘that’ in the hit song refers to stealing someone’s wheelchair.

Thanks for that.

Can't this be put in the mag and the writer paid? It deserves a wider hearing don't you think?

Had the misfortune to see Van (for the final time in my case) at Symphony Hall Birmingham last year where our entertainer (?) for the evening had stipulated that the bar had to be closed before and during the concert, because the alcoholic interests of the genteel audience at the Symphony Hall might otherwise offend his artistic sensibilities.

For about thirty or thirty-five quid a ticket we were treated to exactly 90 minutes of music, no conversation with the audience - indeed no acknowledgement that the audience were even present. Someone having bollocksed up the sound desk settings, we were treated to the old git directing his backing singers (a thankless job that one) backwards and forwards away from or towards their mikes to achieve the desired levels of volume (this was done by barking at them mid-song). His apparent lack of interest in the whole evening certainly rubbed off on me.

Perhaps we have become accustomed to Mr Morrison's legendary lack of grace or even manners but the privilege of seeing Leonard Cohen in Edinburgh and at the O2 last year was a welcome reminder that a far greater talent can also come bundled with humility, intelligence and sensitivity.

I really can't follow any of that, worst I've seen were Loop at Glasgow Tech mid 80s, came on late, tuned up for 20mins, decided they weren't happy with the sound and went off. I don't know if they ever returned as by that time I'd reached my alcohol/gig quotient and staggered off into the night in search of pakora and "fast black" home. Honorable mention goes to Sonic Youth at the Bobby Gillespie (post JAM-c/pre Scream mania) promoted Splash 1 club which happened for an all too brief year c. 1985/6 in Glasgow:
crowd heckle after another aural assault from ver Yoof: Fuck Aff!
Thurston Moore, immediately grabbing mic and spitting with rage: Don't you tell me to fuck off! We travelled 2,000 miles to be here!

such a polite boy, his mother should be proud

He seems to top the list so far. I'll add my ha'porth then. Went to see him at Manchester Apollo ealier in the decade and found him very infantile - blowing snot out ('So whaaa I gotta cold ok')and messing about with a toy (Star Wars) light sabre (is there such a thing as a real one yet?)and generally being a complete pranny - the kindergarten kid turns punk or something like that. I have never been able to take him very seriously since.
He was supported by Jesse Mallon who came across as a thoroughly decent chap by contrast and delievered a professional and entertaining set. Also I caught the free cd which he lobbed into the audience so it wasn't a completely wasted night

at that Rolling Stones concert at Altamont. Goodness gracious it was awful, especially when my mate had to stab that black chap because he was threatening Mr Jagger. I literally couldn't sleep for a week after that, my nerves were so bad. I've given up Hell's Angeling now for good, and all because of that dreadful concert; my goodness!

set the curtains on fire at a Pretty Things concert in NZ in the sixties.

the venerable and somewhat late John Martyn

I saw him at Lady Mitchell Hall, Cambridge in Feb 1975 whn he toured with Danny Thompson & John Stevens. The advertised bonus was special guest Paul Kossoff, just out of rehab. I never got to see Free and thought this would be good, as I liked John Martyn and had seen him several times as a solo act, I was a big fan of Danny Thompson's work in Pentangle, and I used to read in the Melody Maker or NME about what a great drummer John Stevens

Thinking about it touring with John Martyn doesn't strike you as being high on the list of things to do when just out of rehab. And so it proved; they were all in an altered state, presumably from weed. They spent interminable periods between songs giggling and messing about. At one point Stevens just dropped his sticks, presumably as he fotgot he was supposed to hang on to them

I was a student in the days when we all thought this was hip and groovy; except even then we started thinking "we've paid for this"

About 5 years ago I read an account of how his latest University Tour was a disaster. The forum reporter wrote that JM attempted 7 numbers, non of which he was able to finish, and the band eventually carried him off with an unhappy promoter offering refunds. I remember thinking at the the time that he hadn't learned any lessons in the intervening 30 years

Having said that, he was a genuine original. But after my 1975 experience I would have been very reticent to spend hard-earned money on his live performances

Local band in support, tracksuited up, Arctic Monkeys soundalikes. This was their big night, supporting a major artist.

Dunnery played a ten-minute song with an extended solo keyboard break in the middle. The lads from the support band were stood in the crowd, chatting amongst themselves. It was distracting everyone and, fair play to him I suppose, Dunnery picked up whatever was to hand at the foot of his mic stand, threw it at them, and then stood there glaring, wide-eyed, teeth bared. "It bites", I thought.

@ The North East London Poly back in '85.

Lashings of violence, stage invasions, tooled up support bands, a police raid and a riot.

Click to 3:20 to get a general idea of the occasion:

clapton 74 took acid before show , threw up on stage - possibly his best solo of the night

clapton 2009- ( you'd think I'd learn) doesn't ven say hello. most solos done by doyle bramhall -for that privilege we paid $300

One of my favourite van boots is "if you don't like it you can go fuck yourself"....his response to a member of the audience having the temerity to call out a request duringthe encores.

His australian tour has the reputation of being worst ever- which would take some doing. Didn't want to tour after breaking up with his squeeze of the time. Contractually bound, he walked on stage , checked his watch and walked off at the contacted minimum time.Back to the audience, not one word uttered to them. Happened for the entire tour

Thomas Mapfumo - Zimbabwean icon - arrived 2 hours late after spending all afternoon looking to score some grass in Perth WA -poor contacts obviously.Then wanted to delay going on stage coz he wanted some chicken to eat. After being read the riot act he dragged himself on stage. As was typical of the whole tour he was trying to extort money out of the promoter for items totally outside the promoter's responsibility. After every song he would look over to the promoter and mouth "I want my money".

a legend, a hero - a jerk