Live Performances Gone Awry

I was supposed to go to a concert with a few friends,but didn't make it. Didn't care much for the band anyway, but they had a great story of what happened that night. Nine Inch Nails in Albany, NY in the early 90's...

The singer (Trent Reznor) was swining his mic around in a big circle (it was attached to a cable), and it hit the drummer in the head. They took a half hour or so break while the drummer got stitches. They came back on to finish their set, and about 10 minutes later, someone in the crowd threw something at the stage (they think it was a boot) which ended up hitting the drummer in the head again, opening up the cut that was just stitched. They called it a night after that.

Made me wish I didn't miss that one.

Notice that none of these disasters involve a classical musician or performance?

Entrope, classical music concerts have had their share of such incidences too. Stravinsky's premiere of: "The Rite Of Spring" is perhaps the most notable. More recently, Steve Reich's performance of "Four Organs" had one woman banging her head on the stage, yelling; "Stop, stop, I confess".

I saw Bowie's 1975 "Young Americans" tour.

He seemed just about as interested as the audience.

And that white suit.....LOL

I attended a performance by musical genius Hermeto Pascoal at NYC's Town Hall back in the late '80's. A couple of minutes into the third tune, he abruptly cut the band off and walked off stage; end of show. I spoke to one of his saxophonists later that night, and he told me that Hermeto was pissed-off that the audience was not being more attentive.

I was playing in the pit of the Broadway show "Showgun" during one of the preview performances. As the actor Phillip Casnoff was about to sing a number titled "Death Walk", a large screen which was part of the scenery fell and hit him on the head. The performance was, of course, stopped and Casnoff was rushed to the hospital.

During a performance of Janacek's "The Makropulos Case" at the Met Opera the tenor Richard Versalle was singing the role of Vitek. In the opening scene he climbs a ladder to retrieve a book off a shelf. As he sang the words "too bad you can only live so long", he suffered a fatal heart attack and fell to the floor on his back.