A cousin of the wife's drove to the Fillmore east when he was in HS. Van was the headliner. early show, he can't stand up, laying on the mike stand, mumbling. Starts and stops around 5 songs. Staggers half off stage, blows chunks, falls down. End of show Late show: they announce Van will not performing, the opening band will do an extra long set: Fleetwood Mac on the Kiln House tour.
Shane MacGowan. I'd also say Shane MacGowan wins the prize for drunkest musician that I didn't see onstage, because in addition to seeing him with the Pogues, I was also at one of the infamous Pogues shows where Shane apparently just sorta wandered off on the town, sometime earlier in the day, and he apparently "went missing" and didn't ever show up back at the gig they were supposed to be playing later on. As long as I live, I will never forget the look on Spider Stacy's face, with the penny whistle in his mouth, as he was suddenly drafted into singing lead vocals, in front of a huge crowd, with no Shane to be found.
Frank Frost, legendary delta blues harp player. Frank comes to Italy to play in a small club I used to manage (sort of). He's with some Austrian or German hard rock band that some promoter hired. Imagine Furry Lewis backed by Nazareth. Frank arrives and goes to the bar. He drinks 10 or 11 glasses of pure gin. 10 o'clock: show time. Frank goes on stage , grabs the mike, starts to sing and after two bars collapses with his face against the monitor. Blood everywhere. Some young girls in the audience scream in horror. We have this old guy covered with blood completely out of his head. The guitar player asks if there's a doctor in the house. A friend of mine is a phrenologist and goes on stage to take care of FF. The Austrian guys are nervous because they start to understand that they won't be payed. They start to yell in german to FF who is unconscious. We carry poor old FF backstage. We allow the Austrian to play for an hour, we give them half the money while somebody brings FF to some hospital
Ben Orr was drunk when I saw The Cars in 1987. It didn’t affect much except an occasional flubbed lyric.
I came into this thread to post “Rick Danko” and here you already posted a tale! I saw Rick Danko and Paul Butterfield in Grand Rapids, MI in the late ‘70s. Maybe ‘78? The band’s bus was late, maybe by an hour or an hour and a half, and by the time they came on Danko was plastered. Still, sang his heart out on “Stage Fright.”
I think I was at that oudoor Danko show. Was it in Ohio? Perhaps Indiana? Brought back a memory for sure. It was a muddy mess and Rick invited the crowd back to the hotel for drinks. He was off his head.
(check) Search this thread only. "pollard" No results. I'm shocked. So let me be the first to mention Guided by Voices' Bob Pollard. He's been completely blotto both times I've seen the band live.
Rufus Wainwright in Toronto (2002). He drank red wine throughout the show and grew noticeably more "relaxed" as the night progressed. The alcohol improved the performance, without a doubt.
An old Ween show where the band still consisted of Gene and Dean and a tape deck sitting on a stool. My buddy was hanging out with them beforehand and he said they guzzled a cheap bottle of Skol Vodka or something minutes before starting their set. I didn't want it any other way. They kept having to stop the tape, rewind it and start songs over.
Judge for yourself, alas it's not pretty also Shane MacGowan & Chrissie Hynde - ''I Got You Babe'' (LIVE in Dublin,IRELAND 13th June 2019)
I saw Deer Tick at the Blackcat in Washington DC. They played the, since closed, side room. Tiny show, but packed. That first record is SO good and it just felt like they would be a much bigger band eventually. I seriously thought they were going to die before getting any more popular. Especially the lead singer. He was hammering Jack Daniels on stage. They easily finished a handle in less than an hour - between four skinny small dudes. Singer was asking audience for cocaine. It was a complete **** show.
Saw Dickey twice. Once he was clearly sober and I was blown away by how good he was. This was like 2002, I think. Then a year or two later - he had no idea what verse he was singing. Confused the main show with encore and encore with the main show. Just a sad mess.
Jerry Jeff Walker—I’ve seen him put on great shows when he was obviously blotto. Then I saw him sober and he did a perfunctory, professional show that lacked a certain spark. That said, I’m glad he’s sober and I’m sure his family is thrilled. He was drinking himself to an early grave and wrecking his career. Shane Macgowan—sloppy drunk and unable to really deliver. I know he’s performed drunk countless times, but it catches up with you eventually. The number of repeat offenders on this thread is sad. It is evidence of the tenacity of alcoholism. If it gets a hold of you, it will hang on and slowly drag you down. It sneaks up on you until realize you’re drinking all the time, and it’s not fun any more.
I’ve never been aware that someone was drunk, but I saw Alice Cooper in 1982 when he was in the depths of alcoholism. I saw Jimmy Webb in the late nineties when he was also an alcoholic. Both men were ‘functioning alcoholics’, though, so it didn’t register with me.
The Doors, December 1970, Dallas, Texas. Two separate shows that night. During the late show Jim Morrison was very drunk and rarely faced the audience. Mostly faced drums. Leon Russell. He wasn’t actually the featured player but was trying to emcee and play a bit. Totally drunk. 2nd Annual Willie Nelson Picnic, 1974, College Station Texas. There’s a movie of some of this event and it captures drunk Leon.
Yes, also saw him with the ABB and solo when he was sober. When he was "on" he was genius. One ABB show they played Dreams with Jack Pearson sitting in. It was a religious experience.
That is sad. I will point out that I mean the following in a more serious way that it might look. Seeing this does not make me regret my decision to be teetotal. EDIT: In hindsight, has he had a stroke?
First let me say I am a longtime "supporter" of Stephen Stills and "love" his music: his writing, his guitar and vocal efforts playing as a musician in all his endeavors from: The Buffalo Springfield, to his Super Session collaboration, CS&N, CSN&Y, Manassas, most of his solo work, and his work as a sideman for other other artists. Many of his various recordings I believe to be of some of the greatest within his genre and there extensions of all time. I have some trepidation to highlight an isolated story which might be perceived as negative; particularly as it occurred decades ago. In light of and with the understanding of what I've written above. I once saw Stills at a show at my college; it was a rough and tumble show during a rough and tumble time; and by that I mean generally unpolished (the days were the days of freeness and a looseness that I so miss today which has been replaced where image and hype supersedes all else). The crowd was excited to be there in anticipation of a rockin' time. Stills hit the stage... seemingly by his demeanor and smiles happy to be there (to be playing... what a real musician really cares about) and his banter as he was strapping on clearly indicated he'd had maybe 1 or 12 too many pre- show cocktails. We, the crowd welcomed and loved his being reved-up ready to go... we were all in the same headspace from one or another stimulant... or a cocktail of them. The air was thick with heavily fragranced smoke. Stills banged on the microphone almost knocking it over to make sure it was working... he caught it... musicians always need a good sense of athleticism and balance. "Glad to be here... let's do this" he energetically stuttered out as he ripped into a rollicking blues number and was obviously enjoying himself as was the audience. His singing was slurred but for the most part on key; or pretty close to on key and rambunctious. As he blasted into the guitar solo, prancing and dancing around the stage... "that last step is a doosey"... he took one step too far and fell off the stage the band never stopped playing or missed a note. Nobody was all that concerned. The first thing we saw of Stephen after the fall was a raised arm with a big fat thumbs-up at the end. The crowd burst into fervent hoots and hollers of approval. The bass player extended a hand and helped him back up on the stage and as they say; the show went on to everybody's delight and approval. It was a great night. If it occurred today: the press and the internet would have bombarded him, the crowd would have been appalled screaming for their money back and the promoters might have withheld his check. These days just aren't made for Rock 'n Roll.
As a couple other posters have already mentioned, Van Halen both at the '83 US Festival and during much of the 2004 Hagar reunion tour were pretty bad. I actually recorded the entire US Festival show from about halfway back from the stage in the huge dust pit bowl that was Devore at the time and frequently you can hear myself and my 3 friends ragging in-between songs about how trashed Roth was. For the two 2004 shows I caught, (Anaheim Pond and LA Staples), Eddie wasn't nearly as bad as some other, especially later shows in the tour. But he was still not great, especially at the Anaheim show. I had paid for the VIP package which included a lengthy soundcheck (about 8 songs) sans Hagar and Eddie was pretty straight if a bit surly and even nasty towards Michael Anthony. But hours later that evening, Eddie kind of disintegrated as the show progressed with some songs just being a noisy mess. I would also mention the one Balance tour show I caught in 1995 at the LA Forum - Eddie was supposedly on the wagon but about halfway through the show, seemed to be losing it, sweating profusely, looking very unsteady and during his solo playing "Cathedral," his guitar malfunctioned and he angrily threw it down onstage and spent a minute plus berated his guitar tech in front of 15,000 fans. Other shows off the top of my head include a few club shows by The Lords Of The New Church around 1986. The Lords were my favorite band at the time, and I saw probably at least a dozen shows between 1983-1987, mostly in bars and small venues like The Palace in Hollywood. During '86-'87, the band had lost their contract with IRS Records, their bass player had quit and they were really playing just to get by, many many of their shows had a "anything goes" mentality with usually frontman Stiv Bators being pretty trashed on something or another. One show that sticks in my memory was a early 1986 Fenders Ballroom gig in Long Beach where a young Guns n' Roses opened. GnR was bad enough, often through their set, it seemed like half the band was playing different songs at the same time and the last song, Duff passed out in front of his amp and was dragged unconscious offstage by roadies while the band blithely finished the rest of the encore. The Lords were not quite as chaotic but after the show, a friend and I met a *very* wasted Stiv (I had met and hung out with him a few times prior at other shows) outside in the parking lot. When introduced, my friend went to shake his hand, Stiv literally projectile vomited on the guy's arm and front, apologized and stumbled back inside. Another infamous Guns n' Roses gig was during their opening stand for The Rolling Stones at the LA Coliseum in late 1989. During the afternoon of the 3rd show that I was at, Slash was stumbling loaded, wandering around our section on the floor during Living Colour's set and promptly got mobbed by a bunch of fans and had to be escorted out by security. Of course, during GnR's set that evening as in the previous two nights, Axl ranted about members of the band being too messed up and was threatening to end the band. A Ministry show I saw in 2006, Al Jourgenson looked like he was going to collapse at any second onstage. The first third of their set, I was close enough to the stage I could see Al often look straight up at the ceiling and his eyes would roll up into his head and he'd almost fall over, often kind of propping himself against an amp to stay on his feet. Definitely tripping balls.
