Bands you witnessed get booed off the stage

It must have been in '82. Opening acts were Joan Jett and the B-52's. A clearly remember a cleaning crew coming out to squeegee the stage to remove all of the cups and soda. I don't recall being that hot, but I was on the shady side of the arena. I know there were a lot of really pissed off concert goers because security was real aggressive with taking any type of beverage you tried to enter with. As a result, the only thing to "drink" was the concession stand soda. That probably did not help with the general mood and the cups being launched at the band.

Again, the Stones show the previous year in October of '81 was much easier gong. The Henry Paul Band opened followed by Van Halen. Don't recall the exact date and that ticket stub always seems to be elusive. I know it was on a Sunday, because I had to attend classes at Embry-Riddle in Daytona Beach the following morning.

 

Journey

 

I was at that show and I completely forgot who the opener was. I do remember Mayor Koch coming out to kick off the festivities and he got booed!

 

That's right!...Joan Jett was there and was good...Then must have been 83 Police where they were hosing down the front crowd due to heat.
(Stones I recall were both 23-24 october 1981...Keith was 2+ hrs late on Saturday (doing his hair, or something...).. Henry Paul band...I NEVER would have remembered that... Cheers!)

..ok, back to our regularly scheduled thread...

 

Journey opening for The Stones at JFK in Philly 1981, luckily they had George Thorogood as the second act.

 

I was right behind those bikers.

 

In 1979 Eric had Muddy Waters open for him in Fort Worth. I think most of the people there thought that Eric should be opening for Mr. Waters. Much respect was given and just by having Muddy open for him it made lots of things click inside my young head.

 

I was in a band called Pansy Division and sometime around 1998 we opened for The Vandals at a theatre in Las Vegas.

We ended our first song to the sound of 1500 people yelling ......."FA Gs! - FA Gs! - FA Gs!"

We fortunately had plenty of experience playing in front of less than accepting audiences, so we buckled down and played our entire 45 minute set. After each song or so things would escalate, first in volume, then by being pelted with change, then ice, then with trash and by the end of it we were ducking the wooden arm rests on the seats .......apparently the venue was about to close so nobody cared if the kids ripped it apart, even if it was used to assault a band ....or maybe in our case it was encouraged. As soon as we were done I packed my gear and went out to the merch area and as I was making my way through the crowd I was completely rushing with adrenaline *waiting* for someone to mess with me .....no one said a word and we barely sold any merch. Then word got back to us that some skinheads were waiting to jump us on loadout, and yeah there was about 10 who were across the parking lot but fortunately we did have some allies, some rather intimidating allies who helped us load out. After we bailed we heard *something* went down, though it wasn't clear how much it related to us but someone did get stabbed.

One of the funniest moments of the whole thing was looking at the side stage and seeing the guys in the Vandals, most of No Doubt who were just hanging out and Josh Freese ....and all of them just standing there in astonishment as we went to battle with their audience.

Our drummer picked up close to $70 in change off the drum riser and then later hit a $500 jackpot on a slot machine on our way out of town .....no joke.

 

I swear to god that song is just a mafia payola scam. It has been a staple of rock radio for like 35 years and I have never known one person who owns that record much less even likes that song.

 

Good times.

 

Earth. Opening for The Lemonheads during Evan's peak pinup heartthrob days. Can't imagine what else the promotors thought would happen.

 

Saw journey in buffalo and they got message. 1981 stones tour

 

Thorogood opened. Journey played second. Left a big hole in the night's schedule, with time to be filled. Can't force the Stones to go on an hour early.

 

Was that the fake band with Michael Monarch, Nick St. Nicholas, and Goldie McJohn.
On one of those Behind The Music shows, they mentioned that they toured as a bogus Steppenwolf and were sued by John Kay.
Because they lost, all three lost their future royalties.

They got that from Devo who opened their 1980 shows as Dove: The Band Of Love.
Some shows they were booed, some were well received. They came out wearing polyester suits wearing sun visors playing Up With People sounding music.

I'm surprised nobody brought up the Texxas Jam from 1982 with Styx, one of my buds was there. He said it was "beyond brutal."

 

I don't really know, but I remember there was a rumour that John Kay was in the audience and I do remember seeing a guy by himself up toward the front and to the right that looked quite a lot like Kay -- even had the same signature shades on in the dark auditorium.

 

I might be wrong on the year, but I'm not wrong on what happened. The show I saw when Springsteen got booed was in New Haven at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The mainstream press apparently never knew he got booed at that one. I think it was a few days before it happened in Philly.

 

I just remembered two other "booing" events. They didn't result in the band leaving the stage...but...

I saw Jefferson Starship in 1978 I think and the bassist went into a solo and either flubbed it or he had equipment problems, or both, and got a nice big round of booing along with shouts of 'fu#^*ng hippie', etc., which I didn't think was fair...

and

I saw Dave Mason with his band the same year. They'd toured -- or most of the same band toured -- in 1976 and came to town. The '76 show was spectacular. It was the same set that ended up becoming the Certified Live two LP set.

But in '78 there was a new keyboardist that thought adding some disco synth sounds to All Along The Watchtower might be a good idea. Not. Not only did that elicit serious booing, but quite a number of fingers as well

 

Sorry if my response came off as contrapositive or judgemental. I was merely relating a different experience.

I've seen plenty of aggression toward different forms of music over the years. It's never made any sense.

Seems much less frequent these days, or maybe I just don't get out as much as I'd like to.

Probably for the better.

.

 

Not at all. I was just glad not every audience on that tour acted like total jerks to Chapman; it was pretty mortifying when mine did!

 

Not sure if this was mentioned, but saw Iggy Pop and Santana open up for the Rolling Stones at the
Pontiac Silverdome, Nov. 30 1981. Iggy lasted about 17 minutes or so. Between each song and getting debris thrown at him,
he was booed loudly and this was his hometown crowd ! The sound mix didn't do him any favors.
After about the 4th song, he flipped everybody off and walked off stage. When Santana started the first song,
the mix was clear and Carlos had the crowd in the palm of his hand and got an encore. Poor Iggy.

 

The Fixx opened for them on this tour when I saw them. Wonder if this is why? They were both great, btw.

 

I am so fortunate to have seen him with Cotton. I really went bananas.

 

Obviously wasn't there, but the crowd jeering for the entire performance makes this a great listen

 

Thanks for the added detail. He had a rough time at all of those shows.