If you've ever woken up the morning after having gotten way too drunk the night before,
you know it can be pretty mortifying.
"Your hair is gone."
"No."
"Up."
But if you happen to be a famous musician, the experience is amplified by the fact that
your blackout-drunk antics probably took place in front of thousands of fans.
These entertainers showed up to their gigs utterly smashed — and you won't believe
what happened next.
Grace Slick
In 1978, the band formerly known as Jefferson Airplane had become Jefferson Starship, and
vocalist Grace Slick, who was well-known to enjoy a cocktail or 14, usually had no problem
holding it together.
"so you were a real enthusiastic drinker, I mean"
Yes...there you go, there you go.
But I have to correct you again."
"I was the only one who was enthusiastic about it."
But during a tour of Europe in support of their album Earth, the band decided to make
a few stops in Germany.
And — as author Jeff Tamarkin remarked in the band's biography,
"[Slick] always had a thing about Germany…
All things Deutsche brought out the worst in her."
Slick reportedly warmed up by drinking literally all the alcohol she could get her hands on,
throwing a giant tantrum, and refusing to get ready for the show.
By the time she was dragged onstage, she was so well-lubricated that she mockingly asked
the locals, "Who won the war?"
The stunt resulted in Slick's dismissal from the band.
She would return several years later, but she says, looking back,
"When you're old you should be heard and not seen when you're young you should seen and
not heard cuz you're dumb when you're young and you don't know anything."
Keith Moon
If you're unfamiliar with The Who's legendary, late drummer Keith Moon, you really only need
to know two things: He ruled the drums, and he embodied pure debauchery.
"It was sorta a drunken night at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go in Los Angeles I mean it was only one I didn't
do it every night."
His appetite for drugs and drink was considered completely insane even by other rock stars,
yet he could still play hours-long sets like a beast.
That is, until a San Francisco gig in November 1973.
According to Rolling Stone, Moon had popped what he assumed were run-of-the-mill tranquilizers,
chasing them with brandy — but they may instead have been tranquilizers of the horse
variety.
In the middle of performing "Won't Get Fooled Again," Moon began to wind down like a cheap
clock.
He was dragged off stage and thrown in a cold shower (or injected with cortisone, depending
on whom you ask) and brought back out to attempt "Magic Bus" — only to pass out on his kit.
In a last-ditch effort to finish the show, guitarist Pete Townshend asked the crowd,
"Can anybody play the drums?"
19-year-old fan Scot Halpin got the chance to play onstage for the last few songs.
"You feelin a little better now Keith?"
"Well I've been sluggish and depressed but that seems to have done the trick"
C.C. Deville
Poison was one of the more respectable bands
of the "hair metal" era, with their supremely catchy tunes and wild stage antics earning
them legions of spandex-clad, freaky-haired fans.
Guitarist C.C.
DeVille was a guy who knew how to put on a show — except during the 1991 MTV Video
Music Awards, when he forgot what to play and how to play it — because he was also
a guy who liked to do a lot of cocaine.
"Make no mistake I went down that road of alcohol and things like that."
First, DeVille launched into the band's hit "Unskinny Bop," the song they were supposed
to play later, then quit and waited for host Arsenio Hall to tell him what to do.
He then launched into the ironically titled "Let It Play," which he wasn't supposed to
play, as lead singer Bret Michaels prompted DeVille to start "Talk Dirty To Me."
Michaels brushed off the awful performance by proclaiming,
"It ain't perfect, but it's rock and roll."
Then Michaels followed DeVille backstage and fired the hell out of him.
DeVille would later return to the band.
Amy Winehouse
Singer Amy Winehouse famously had a massive
hit song about not wanting to go to rehab.
"What makes me crazy alcohol doesn't do those things to me I'm quite a horrible drunk...quite
a quite horrible drunk actually."
During what would have been her comeback tour shortly before her passing, the Telegraph
reported that Winehouse had infuriated fans by showing up to a gig in Belgrade, Serbia,
utterly plastered, despite the fact that she was banned from drinking on the tour.
She greeted the crowd with, "Hello, Athens" (which is not a city in Serbia) before launching
into a mumbling, incoherent set, alternately falling over, sitting down, and wandering
offstage.
The 20,000 or so in attendance were not amused.
It would unfortunately be Winehouse's final performance — but even so, she remains a
legend, a fact of which there is plenty of proof.
"People know that I don't really do what I'm told to do.
I don't really care enough of what people think of me to conform to anything."
Scott Stapp
Creed frontman Scott Stapp may be sober these days, but in years past, he was known to arrive
at gigs looking like he had fallen into a pool of booze and drank his way out.
"I remember waking up one day, and feeling something's wrong with me"
"That's when I began to self medicate."
One show, in Chicago in 2002, was so bad that, according to MTV News, a group of fans actually
filed a lawsuit against the band for cheating them out of a real show.
The court filing stated that...
"[Stapp was so] intoxicated and/or medicated that he was unable to sing the lyrics of a
single Creed song."
"...he left the stage… and appeared to pass out while onstage during the performance."
While the lawsuit was eventually thrown out, the debacle was the beginning of the end for
Creed, which broke up in 2004.
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