I saw a story today were some pop singer started a song over at her show. I didn't read the rest of the story so I don't know or care why she did... but it did remind me of times where I saw performers mess up LIVE or had tech issues big enough stop either their shows or make them start over or whatever...

What screw ups have you seen live?


-I saw David Bowie on his "Heathen Tour" here in LA and he flubbed the lyrics on one of his classic songs. Apparently felt bad enough that at the end of the show he apologized to us in the audience and did a "make good" on the song.

-KISS Reunion Tour... Ace Frehley fucked up during his guitar solo. He was being all fancy with a complicated piece..I think it may have been some attempt as a Classical piece? I was so embarrassed for him. Funny part is, I saw multiple shows on this tour and it wasn't the only time he fucked it up. Wow, Ace what's up with that?!

- DIO opening for Iron Maiden...jammin' on one of their songs and the power went out on stage. All we heard were drums with no amplification for several seconds until everyone figured out there was an issue. They went backstage for several minutes and after power was restored they started the song over.

-Queensryche on one of their 90's tours...one of the guitarist seemed to have broken the bridge of his guitar mid song. Strings and partial bridge hanging as he handed it to a tech who swapped in the back up guitar. Song was thin sounding for a few seconds then he jumped back in and all was good. I could see him counting himself back in.

-Luther Vandross...was working his shows at the now gone LA Sports Arena and during his show open one of his backup singers/dancers was coming down a stupidly designed smooth ramp to a lively song and slipped and fell right on her ass. After the song Luther jokingly said, "If I fall... the show is over ya'll!" It didn't stop the show and she was ok. I actually think the one that fell was Lisa Fischer who was still touring with him as her solo career was taking off.

-Vicente Fernández...Was working a show at the Sports Arena featuring the Legendary Ranchera Performer and he was playing guitar and moving backwards and fell backwards over a stage monitor right on his ass. But he never stopped playing! Several men ran out and lifted him up as he finished the song.

Only two come to mind

Weezer- It was for an MTV Live taping at the House of Blues in Orlando. Apparently MTV thought they could perform their hit song at the time better (can't recall which it was) so they made them replay it. Was kinda weird.

Danzig- Same venue, Danzig tripped over some cables walking backwards. Gave a look to his roadie that basically said "after this show I'm going to kill you".

In a similar vein, I saw Guster sing the wrong verse to one of their older songs in concert, which resulted in immediate razzing from the front row audience. They had a quick laugh about it and kept going.

I haven't watched much SNL since high school, but I somehow caught the Ashlee Simpson lip sync debacle when it first aired.

I saw Metallica in '91 and Kirk was fucked up and changed key during a song and pissed James off where he told him to "tell us when you're going to change keys" into the mic.

RUSH..can't remember which tour but think the video for one of their funny opening videos didn't play but the audio was still going. I could see Geddy on the dark stage looking around and I was close enough to tell he was like "What happened? What's going on?". Finally, Neil started playing drums and they started the show.

Janet Jackson. I saw her in Charlotte on the Rhythm Nation tour. It took about 3 false starts for her and the lighting/backing band to get the show going, and from good seats it was clear she was lip syncing.

Graveyard Boulevard - lead singer fell of the stage while walking/rocking back and forth across it.
Mojo Nixon - forgot the last verse to a song that was requested - I told him the lyrics, he thought they were outdated, made up new ones.
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and Roseclouds - both bands blew the power more than once.

I filmed it and it has 22K views on You Tube :

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I know he sings but didn't know he plays guitar.

Edgar Winter Group 1973. Outdoor show and the cops cut the power because of complaints from people who lived nearby. Riot broke out.

T Rex. 1973. Pole supporting lights on side of stage began to topple. Almost hit Marc Bolan. Band kept playing while guys were trying to keep the lights up in background.

Fleetwood Mac. 1976. During "Landslide" Buckingham's guitar cut out. Nicks finished the song accapella(sp?)

Cheap Trick/Aldo Nova 1983. Aldo Nova was first. In the middle of a guitar solo some girl jumped on stage and began chasing him around. He was running back and forth across the stage being chased until security finally grabbed her. Cheap Trick comes out and about three songs in stop playing in middle of song. Some people down front were setting off firecrackers and Zander told them to cut it out or they'd walk. They resumed the song and more firecrackers went off so they walked. They came back after about a half hour.

Dream Theater in 1994 - 1st show of the Awake tour with new keyboardist Derek Sherinian. They had to start “Another Day” over - LaBrie blamed Sherinian but it was definitely LaBrie’s fault.

Porcupine Tree in 2005 - in the middle of the the last encore “Trains” Steven Wilson popped a string on his acoustic. They were filming for a DVD and wound up keeping it for the final cut even though they had another night to film.

A biological issue here with Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas?

I hate them so wanted to post this.

When I saw Imagine Dragons at Lollapalooza in 2013, the power went out a couple songs in and it took 15 to 20 minutes to get restored, cutting their set pretty short.

Pete Townshend - On the Psychoderelict tour at Great Woods in Mansfield, MA. This was supposed to be a big multi-media production, with live actors and lots of video components. But the tech wasn't working, they had to stop the show, and Pete was PISSED about it ("I'll be back soon. I've got to go fucking kill someone backstage.") After a 10-15 minute break, they realized it was never going to work. Pete and the band then came back and just wailed through a hits-laden set, including a bunch of songs they rarely played elsewhere ("Kids Are Alright", "Who Are You", and an absolutely blistering version of "My Generation").

Outside Lands 2008 - On Friday night, the entire PA cut out several times during Radiohead's set. Oblvious because their monitors we still working, they kept playing. Then the following night, same thing happened during Tom Petty's set.

Coheed and Cambria (2011) - Opening up for Soundgarden, the bass player got arrested the morning of the show, and his roadie had to fill in for him.

Earth Day Concert 2004 (Boston Esplanade) - In the middle of a multi-band lineup, one of the main PA towers was knocked over by high winds into the audience (there was a banner attached that acted like a sail). Nine people were hurt, and the show was paused for a while until the injured were removed and the PA jury-rigged to continue on.

I'm sure there are more that I'm forgetting about...

Meg Myers during weekend one of Coachella 2016.

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Meg Myers 2016 from bd007h on Vimeo.

Weird Al has a standard procedure for what to do when there's a screw up during one of his shows. He launches into "Radio Radio" by Elvis Costello

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She probably had to pee really bad, and couldn't get off stage, so she just let it rip.

I remember hearing that Ozzy pissed himself at every concert, and that's why he'd dump water over his head. To wet himself down so nobody could tell he pissed his pants.

You can see this EXACT same thing happen in the classic concert film Urgh! A Music War. In the electrifying performance of I'm on Fire, Gene October, the singer of punk band Chelsea, flips over the monitors while the guitarist is at the front of the stage soloing. He steps back (not knowing what October did), and bam! Ass over teakettle, landing squarely on his head. Never stops playing, either.

Jump to around 1:38 to see the monitor move/fall, or just watch the whole damn thing which you should anyway:

Hey, I'll take the conversation one better: Know of any STUDIO RECORDINGS where the performers mess up?

Black Flag (with Keith Morris) - I Don't Care. Not only does he flub a line, he immediately references it: "Don't care, I messed up anyways, I don't care"

Bow Wow Wow - What's the Time (Hey Buddy). Anabella can't keep up with the increasing tempo and starts to laugh

and the classic:

The Kingsmen - Louie Louie. Singer comes in one bar too early after the solo. "Me see...." waits for the right cue, comes in again "Me see Jamaica, the moon above"

You can also hear the drummer yell "Fuck!" about 55 seconds in.

Shit, can't believe I forgot this one.

Buddy Holly - I'm Gonna Love ya Too. End of the song, there's a cricket chirping. This was sort of depicted in the movie The Buddy Holly Story, but in a different song. The cricket kept disrupting the recording. The final version still has the cricket, but they left it in because it chirped on the beat. It is indeed how the band became The Crickets.

Laurie Anderson, Orpheum Theater, Boston. We had great seats. She was wearing an outfit made of synthdrum pads and she laid down the rhythm track by dancing and striking the pads. The second pad she hit didn't work. She briefly made a disgusted face and then went on with her dance, the pad on her left palm staying silent.

Telluride Bluegrass Festival. On Friday night, the lights and sound went out halfway through someone's set. After a few minutes of confusion, the singer shouted, "Well, that's our show for tonight. Good night everybody!" The festival had to bring in a generator overnight from Texas.

Dylan and the Dead, Foxboro Stadium. Dylan was so drunk and incoherent that I had to recognize the songs by the music. Someone who was closer than me said he was puking onstage.

If it counts, I saw the SNL episodes when Elvis Costello stopped the band after one bar to change the song, and when Sinead O'Connor tore up a picture of the Pope.

Ooh, I have a story of a tech issue I was partly responsible for. Paula Cole. At the time, I worked for a company that made MIDI adapters for acoustic keyboards. You played the piano, but sent out a digital signal. This was commonly used on stage so they wouldn't have to mic up the piano. Sure, you saw the piano, but really it was just a synthesizer keyboard. Some really big names used this. Let me just say, name a famous touring rock and roll pianist, and they were probably our client at the time.

Anyway, Paula Cole was dead set against having anything digital in her rig. She didn't even know that her crew had installed our system. She played her piano, she could hear it, she had no idea the audience was hearing a synthesizer instead. Anyway, one day there was a problem, and I was troubleshooting it via phone with her techs. We finally traced it to a bad cable. I overnighted them a replacement, but it meant that the system was out of commission for that night's show. They mic'd up her piano instead, and she raised holy hell about how bad it sounded. So much that she told the audience (read about it in a fan's blog), even opened up the piano to show that they had literally stuffed mattresses from their hotel room inside the piano.

I always wonder if they finally told her she was actually playing digital the entire time, except for the one night where it sounded like crap.

I can't remember who it was, but I remember seeing a bluegrass guitarist flat picking a song so fast and hard that he lost two strings. He didn't even slow down. He just played the notes on the strings he had left.

Milli Vanilli - Beth McCarthy-Miller, then an executive with MTV, says the duo's poor English language skills, when they came in for their first interview with the channel, stirred doubts among those present as to whether they had sung on their records.

The first public sign that the group was lip-syncing came on 21 July 1989, during a live performance on MTV at the Lake Compounce theme park in Bristol, Connecticut.

As they performed, the recording of the song "Girl You Know It's True" jammed and began to skip, repeatedly playing the partial line "Girl, you know it's..." through the speakers. They continued to pretend to sing and dance onstage for a few more moments, then they both ran offstage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milli_Vanilli