Lindsey Buckingham solo in a small theater in 2006. He started out pretty smashed (sweaty and trailing off in his banter) but sobered up about halfway through and began engaging with the audience. Though visibly intoxicated, he barely flubbed anything and played his best. Wished he would have played more of his solo classics though, he stuck to the whispery new-at-the-time Under The Skin stuff.
They were, the times we saw them after that. But boy…first impressions. After a particularly disastrous trumpet solo by Joan, the bass player sarcastically said, “Joan is God.” Or perhaps the devil, if we go by Tom Waits’ dictionary.
Josh Homme seemed drunk af when I saw Queens of the Stone Age in 2018. I actually wondered if he was OK.
New Order (or at least Bernard Sumner) at Henry J Kaiser auditorium in Oakland - I believe it was around the Brotherhood album. Awful show, they sounded crap and Sumner was clearly intoxicated - and it ended mercifully early, after about 30 minutes. But hey I still love ‘em
Geez, I saw somebody from The Replacements (playing solo, just with a guitar iirc), open for god only knows who, in a large club in Kansas City, MO — maybe around 2000-2003 (just a wild guess, but the early 2000’s)… …and he was half totally wasted. Maybe not quite that bad, but another two shots and he sure would have been.
I'm sure they have been mentioned in this thread, but The Pogues. I saw them play The Fillmore in SF around 2004 or 2005ish. Shane was so wasted he could barely stand up, let alone remember the words to songs. He kept wandering off stage and some handler guy had to keep bringing him back out to the mic. I swear the audience was cheering for the fact that he was so drunk. Made me sad. Another time I saw the Pogues in the 90's and Shane had to quit the tour. We found out the night of the show BUUUUUT.... They had a replacement singer: JOE STRUMMER! That was killer.
I think I was at that Faces concert in Vancouver. I had seen Rod Stewart once before and I think it was his first tour. He kept marching around the stage going behind the drums and coming back out while he was singing. It was obvious he was frightened. Then when they came back again this time he was much less ill at ease but they were all falling over drunk. It was so sloppy, there were having a great time up there pissed as can be while the audience who had paid their hard earned money for this show were watching a bunch of drunks have a party between themselves on stage. Not impressed!
My friends saw Stevie Ray Vaughan at Vanderbilt in the early '80's. He was so drunk he fell off the stage, and when he climbed back up he had vomit all over the front of his shirt. At another point, there had been several bursts of feedback. Stevie warned the sound man that the next time it happened, he was fired. It happened again, and he was. They also said he played like a demon that night.
Mark E. Smith. Just saying that by default as no-one else I've seen live seemed pissed, but Smith would have been on his way, but not blotto. That was at the Leeds Festival in 1991. Really enjoyed it. 'Big New Prinz' (or was it 'Hip Priest'?) stood out for me, but I Am Kurious Oranj is my favourite album by The Fall. Anyway, shouldn't you ask a Gort to change this thread title to the simple 'Has anyone here seen The Fall live?'
Saw The Strokes between Is This It? and Room on Fire, in Las Vegas at the joint. 2002 maybe? Julian, the singer, was utterly wasted. He was getting picky about beverage temperature it seems, as he would take 3 or 4 sips of whatever he was drinking and then launch it backward over his head while the drink was still mostly full, maybe 15-20 feet up, with the bottles/cans then landing in various places behind him. One landed pretty near the drummer iirc. The band just went on like nothing could possibly come down and bust them in the noggin at any moment. They played really well in fact. Did one or two songs from Room on Fire that night months before it was released.
David Yow is definitely the drunkest I have seen as well. He drank somewhere in the ballpark of 30 beers at the Scratch Acid reunion show I saw.
Clapton, London, April 1977. Went off stage for an hour to get sober and was dragged back on by Townshend for 2 songs. Hopeless.
Mine is Zakk Wylde at the Hard Rock Hell festival in 2008, during a Thin Lizzy show. Lizzy were headlining the first night, with Black Label Society leading the second. Halfway through Lizzy's set, an obviously smashed Zakk stumbled on stage and tried to pour beer into the mouth of a visibly pissed off John Sykes. Out of nowhere, a roadie/stagehand appeared and ushered Zakk off stage. One of those moments where everyone looked at each other and tried to figure out if what they had just seen had actually happened. BLS played the next night as planned, and were brilliant.
Andy McCoy - saw him a couple of times, once with Hanoi Rocks at the Hacienda in Manchester, UK in 1984 and the second time with The Cherry Bombz a year or 2 later at Liverpool Uni, UK..He had definitely had a few but it never got to the point that he couldnt perform.
you can't figure how popular robert smith is in france. In the eighties it was the most popular, here non contest!! wave above the rest even depeche mode or U2