Have you ever been to a show (concert, play, Siegfried and Roy act) where something went wrong?
I don’t think I have a good answer for this one. Unfortunately, at every show I’ve been to things have gone fine or at least have not gone wrong enough for me to not think it was part of the show.
Comments
49 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.Kiss Concert. 1977. The old Chicago Stadium. Gene Simmons set fire to his hair.
Cornjob sets the bar mighty high with the first answer.
Was at a small chamber music concert as a kid when a man had a heart attack in the audience midway through – causing a lot of commotion and and ambulance etc., in a very small venue. They canceled the rest of the show.
Nothing as dramatic as a Flaming Gene Simmons© but I’ve been at events where things like sound systems have crapped out, guitar strings break mid-song, more minor things than flaming awesomeness.
I once saw a recital where one of the 3year old boys kept mauling and kissing the little girl sitting next to him during the song…until she decked him, and then he started screaming.
Does that count?
I don’t know if a movie counts, but I was in a sold-out showing of one of the Lord of the Rings movies when the sound went dead. After the expected grumblings from the audience, a funny thing happened. People began supplying the sound effects to go along with the silent movie on the screen. Everyone stomped their feet for the galloping horses, Various Orc and human battle cries were heard. The audience became a Foley pit for about 5 minutes. When the sound was restored, it was really a bit of a disappointment, and we all gave ourselves a round of applause.
@radmila,
But she didn’t light his hair on fire ala Gene Simmons
@Erich,
Yes that counts. It’s kind of a spontaneous LOTR meets Rocky Horror kind of thing. And I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life if that ever catches on.
I was at the Monsters of Rock in Mt. View CA about 10 yrs ago when Metallica went on stage and the grass area erupted into a giant mosh pit. A guy broke his neck during the concert.
I went to a GWAR concert when I was in 8th grade. Nothing went wrong…except that my father accompanied me and my friend to the show and had no idea what was going to be occurring on-stage.
To say that he displeased when we got home and told my mother what we had witnessed would be an understatement.
big apple circus, a trapeze artist missed the ropes and fell onto the net, which fell, too.
Opening act for Robert Plant and Jimmy Page in the late 90’s… Featured a electric violin. The poor girl tripped on her on cord, she tumbled off the front of the stage and violin went flying. Neat noise though when they both hit.
1) I was at a showing of “Running on Empty” in Cambridge. In the middle, the film got stuck and did that melty thing that all breaking-the-fourth-wall movies do. This time it was unironic.
2) At one of the first showings of Cirque de Soleil’s “O” in Vegas, a parachute nylon floor covering was supposed to retract and disappear very quickly. It did not. The performance continued, with the added entertainment of lanky and portly headsetted men dressed in black jeans, black sneakers and black t-shirts trying to unhook the BRIGHT RED corner that would not. Reminded me of HS AV club/theater.
2a) Same “O” performance, there was a fire juggler with one of those Darth Maul 2-sided fire batons. He dropped it and in an attempt to pick it up, kicked it. Downstage. It flew into the first row with screams from some poor gambler or gambler’s companion in a little black dress.
I seem to be laughing a bit too hard at the mishaps including fire.
I was at the opera once when a loud sneeze from the audience interrupted the show. The lead singer looked out and said “bless you.”
Jack Hitt describes a small town performance of Peter Pan:
http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=61
Not sure if this qualifies as a mishap but having the lead singer of Jesus Lizard do an entire show with nothing restraining his “meat & veg” but a rather tattered pair of fishnet stockings was quite horrifying before the scotch kicked in…
I was IN a production of Peter Pan years ago where many things went wrong on a daily basis. (we had a 3 month run)
I was Wendy, and the character was supposed to get hit with an arrow and fall to the ground.
Well, the fog machines were over acting that day, so when the lost boys pulled my supposedly lifeless body across the stage, my costume slipped up over my head and all the audience could see were my training bra and panties. Of course the lost boys, being 11 and 12 year olds were too scared to correct the problem so they just stood there looking at my shame.
Another time, the sound guy forgot to turn my mic off when I left the stage, so the whole audience could hear me taking a dump in the dressing room
theater is lame
Dio concert. Norman, OK. 1986. The guitarist, standing too close to a flash pot, set his long-tailed jacket on fire. He left the stage. Then Ronnie James Dio left the stage, leaving the rhythm section to jam for several minutes. Dio came back on stage, sang the final chorus and said “Thank you! Good night!” Show over. They didn’t even play “Rainbow in the Dark.”
I was at a piano recital by Andras Schiff at Disney Hall in LA, where for unclear reasons everyone in the audience was coughing and dropping things on the floor. It got so bad that Schiff broke off in mid-sonata and stormed off the stage. Apparently they talked him down, as 15 minutes later he returned — and a cell phone immediately started ringing. He finished the concert, playing as fast as he could.
As far as I know, no one’s hair caught on fire.
I went to SARS Fest in Toronto, along with 500,000 other people. It wars extreamly hot, so heat exhaustion was a real problem. The event planners had mountains of bottled water on site, but had problems with distribution. An average of 40 people per hour had to be taken to the hospital during the all day concert.
I was at a jazz performance in a small club where the guitarist knocked over his beer, into the amp, which burst into flames before going silent. The band and the crowd cracked up, but the singer had no idea what had happened.
I was at Van Halen (please don’t judge me) and Sammy had a big Ashlee Simpson moment. Since Eddie was barely conscious at that point, the crowd was pretty kind to Sammy.
I was at a Dead Kennedy’s show ‘back in the day’ where Jello Biafra decided to slam dance with the locals. Someone got a little too physical and Jello went back onstage, left and came back with a garbage can that he proceeded to throw at the offender. That was the end of the show.
@Malcom – I was also at a DK show ‘back in the day’ when Jello did a little crowd surfing and someone took off his belt while he sang! He nearly stopped the whole show because his pants had no top button and wouldn’t stay up without the belt! He chastized the flannel wearing masses, someone finally gave the belt back, and they got on with the show!
Glastonbury Festival, 1997: one of the big stages sank in the mud, up-ending like the Titanic! I can’t remember who was playing at the time.
At a Shakespeare performance, Hamlet was stabbed through the nose by Laertes! They stopped the play, so the director could inspect the damage–like they do between rounds at a boxing match. She gave the go-ahead–and everybody cheered.
Last November, I was in the front row at a cabaret—watching a knife-throwing act. He invited me to go up on stage and hold a door, while he threw knifes at it. The knifethrower told me later that he was used to much more space on stage. That was after he had stabbed me through the hand! An American would have sued, I guess. I got a free packet of crisps out of it.
Nothing more exciting than a few drunken hecklers.
Deep Purple last year, some guy throw a mate into Ian Gillans head. Nothing really happends, and no one really noticed that.
Nowhere near as entertaining as flaming hair, but I did see Meatloaf fall off the stage. He was striding around and walked onto one end of what appeared to be a piece of plywood, which upended and tipped him all the way down the stairs.
To his credit, he climbed back up onstage and finished the song.
More a problem with a performer than a performance, but during the first night of Bob Dylan’s three nights in Toronto in 2004 I watched as he gave one of his guitar players, Freddy Koella, the evil eye once, then twice and three times, more intense each time, then walked away from his keyboard and just stared at him, and then had his tech bring his guitars up beside his keyboard (he wasn’t playing guitar back then) and kept up with the stink-eye. He never picked up his guitar, but poor Freddy! The next night Freddy played to save his ass. It was excellent.
I attended a small traveling circus one year in Pennsylvania. The finale was “shooting a man out of a cannon”. He was supposed to go through the air and land in a net.
He made quite a ceremony out of climbing to the top of the barrel, and climbing in. His lovely assistant, clad in stockings and sequins, manned the controls.
The ringleader did a countdown over the speakers, and encouraged the crowd to join in: “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six
**BOOM**
The lovely assistant hit the button too soon. The guy was shot out, and did land in the net, but because he was expecting six more seconds of preparation, he landed wrong. He had to be carried out on a stretcher. The assistant fled immediately, crying and covering her face in shame.
I went to a Cirque de Soleil show (La Nouba) where THREE things went wrong- one of the little yo-yo girls dropped her prop, a flip went wrong, that kind of stuff. They just redid the trick again and got even BIGGER applause when it worked the second time.
Once at a local theatre, the host walked out onto the dark stage, lit only by a spotlight following her. The stage had different levels, but no one had moved the middle section into place. She fell about six feet to the floor, but handled it like a pro. It was a kids’ show, so to keep them from getting upset she put on a “fake acting” voice and – while still sitting on the floor hiding her pain – said, “wow, can you believe I just fell!? How… about… that!”, making the kids all think it was part of the show. Bravo!
I THOUGHT I was at the end-all be all of concert disasters once. Metallica in ‘97. First an amp blew out. Then some techs with flashlights got it working but it soon caught on fire. Then a light rig quit working. While there was a roadie trying to fix it, it fell over. A few other lights exploded, then the roadie fell from the ceiling, dangling by a cable wrapped around one ankle. A few seconds later a guy on fire ran across the stage and the band just threw down their instruments and ran backstage.
When the band came back out and did their encore they just had a couple of practice amps on the stage, with the houselights running.
Obviously it was all staged, but that was a pretty clever way to end a show. Still, while leaving I heard people commenting how they saw “a once in a lifetime event!”.They still thought it was all real!
One time I went to see the “Shamu show” at Sea World and two of the orca got in fight with each other. Didn’t see much, the whales were underwater, just a barely visible tussle. The trainers were the best part, they all just stopped what they were doing and ran towards the back of the tank, where the fight was taking place. They got it sorted out pretty quickly and then gave us a long speech about the technices they use to train the whales. Pretty interesting.
I saw David Bowie at the Oakland Coliseum and a drunk tried to do a handstand on the balcony rail and fell to his death. Everything continued as if nothing at all had happened.
Since I’d been watching Bowie on a TV screen anyway, I decided to quit paying a fortune for live performances and just watch them on TV from the safety of my own home.
Disney World, 1985, Luau at the Polynesian Resort. One of the male dancers doing the flaming machete juggling dance (an old Pacific Island tradition, apparently) swung wildly and cut his calf with the Hawaiian Flaming Machete. Crowd gasped, dancer limped offstage, I had some more pineapple turnover cake.
Jo Strummer, Munich, 1999, with the Mescalleros : They went on stage, played one song then a kid (who awaited for Offspring) thrown a bier mat to the band. Strummer got mad then spent half an hour insulting the kid “This is no crap punk band” “did your mother cooked your breakfast today” etc. He asked people to lift him on arms, then everybody saw the poor kid with his anarchy Tee shirt slipping from hand to hand outside the crowd. Then they played Brand new Cadillac. It was kind of pittyfull we had just two songs but that was a great moment !
Medieval Times.
After getting hit by a lance, a knight fell off his horse did a less than graceful faceplant into the sand.
He was okay.
My Dad made a joke just before a solo violin performance was to begin. We both broke out in that kind of laughter you just can’t hold. We were in the front row. The guy waited for us to stop. It didn’t happen. We had to leave and didn’t stop laughing til we got home.
@BigSlider: I hope you remember the joke, and that you are planning to tell it in the next comment……. come on!!
1) At a Perfect Circle show, the guitar player’s amp blew and it stopped the show for about 10 minutes. The band filled the time by telling Michael Jackson jokes, one after another. “How do you know when it’s time to go to bed at the Neverland Ranch? When the big hand is on the little hand.” Jokes to that effect.
2) I saw Ben Kweller once and he told the audience that the previous afternoon his bass player had broken his arm playing wiffle ball. The show as a result was Ben Kweller solo, with a lot more talk time and stories between songs.
3) I was watching the inauguration live from my house about a week ago and Roberts and Obama totally fucked up the oath! It was awesome!
i saw a flute & harp concerto several years ago which had a very vigorous percussion section. in the middle of a fast movement, the harpist broke a string, but the percussionists were so busy (/ oblivious) that they didn’t notice the conductor had stopped the orchestra. the little middle-aged harpist had to stand up and wave her arms over her head to get the percussionists’ attention.
Christmas concert 1992. Classrooms of preschoolers went up in turn to sing wobbly tunes in front of packed pews (preschool being held at a local large church).
During Away in A Manger one little kid in a bow tie and suspenders broke rank with his peers. Finger up his nose and one hand down his pants, he shuffled and hopped away from the choir, doing a 3 year old’s version of the moonwalk.
The crowd roared. The teachers could not direct him back to the group. He danced his way up to a minister’s bench for his finale-
Flat on his back, hand still down his pants, feet high in the air, eyes closed. Pretend snoring commenced.
The sanctity of church was mocked. A very unholy Christmas. The kids’ singing was overpowered by the laughter of the audience.
It did not reflect well on us, his parents.
I was at a small local gig with about 6 people in the audience but we were all treated to the spectacle of the guitarist swinging his guiter round and knocking himself out. He was carried off stage, blood everywhere and the band had to finish.
Not necessarily a bad thing as they were pretty awful.
Fireworks display, Fourth of July ‘99. A few fireworks got shot at the audience, a few went off on the ground, and then a 20-25 ft fireball. Hell of a show, really.
http://www.wrn.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=D1C206E5-518A-45F9-808AB7E26BA72327
The aforementioned DK incidents happened more often than not at hardcore shows. As did incidences of the band stopping to reprimand the audience. (It just wasn’t a Fugazi show if Ian didn’t preach (to which I’d shout out “Shut up and play your guitar!”))
Not terribly exciting, but I saw Love Spit Love (Psychedelic Furs spinoff) play a show in Philly when the power went out at the venue. As this was around the time of the Milli Vanilli scandal, it was reassuring that the band was still playing when the power went out.
Once saw a singer from a local band try to do a David Lee Roth leap from the side fill speakers and break his leg mid song. They brought a stool for him but he was crying too much to continue.
@Jerkstore–did that happen in Brooklyn?
Two stories:
At a video and film showcase-type event, a guy in the audience had a seizure while my friend’s movie was playing. The film was stopped and the lights came up. The father of one of my other friends, who happens to be a fire chief, jumped up and took care of the guy. After a few minutes, the guy sat up, and then left the auditorium. The film resumed.
Some world-champion jugglers went on tour, and there was a stop in my town at a good-sized theater. They were all great indeed. But one pair of jugglers (from Russia IIRC) had a bit of trouble. About midway through their routine– which included juggling about eight bowling pins to each other across the stage, back and forth– one of them started to laugh and dropped a pin. This made them both laugh, and they started missing every other pin. Finally, one of the jugglers just collapsed with laughter and they kind of started over. It was still so good, even with the mistakes, that the crowd didn’t mind at all.
We were playing a show and our singer was using a homemade flamethrower and set the ceiling on fire as well as part of the stage. It was eventually extinguished by the owners.
Interestingly enough, we were banned from EVER returning at every club we played… except that one — though the other venues had their reasons too.
Then there was the time our singer was impaled through the neck with a table leg, or the time this drunk guy literally broke a long 2X10″ across his back (it was obviously an old piece of wood), or the time we all were buck naked and our singer was in a ripped wedding dress and lingerie and the homemade smoke bombs made the air so vile only we and a few die-hards with tears streaming down our faces were left… Ah, memories…
True stories. Schizm — El Paso Texas.
I was at a Kanye West concert in Sydney and he came out to do ‘Love Lockdown’. He had to restart the song about five times each about 30 seconds into the song and disappear backstage. He later came out and went beserk and went on a huge rant about how he was supposed to be wearing a special outfit and they had lost it. It was both awkward and funny at the same time. He was great though.