The most failed concerts in rock history

Concerts are very important for both the performers and the audience. In the case of the former, live performances allow musicians to attract a wide audience, triumph, make headlines in top music publications, and even make a record top-notch live album! As for the second - this is a great opportunity to see your idol in person, and maybe even touch him and get an autograph! Soak up the energy and drive and capture this moment in your memory for the rest of your life ...

However - no one will ever give you any guarantees that the show will go on smoothly. The history of rock remembers a number of performances that turned out to be iconic... failure. From fist fights to tragic outcomes, here's a selection of rock concerts that clearly didn't go according to plan...

The failure of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on SNL, or John Frusciante's "passive" strike

When John Frusciante joined the Red Hot Chili Peppershe was only 18 years old! Quite a tender age to become a rock star and enjoy all the excesses of rock'n'roll life... Not surprisingly, John eventually began to exhaust himself - especially when the band became a big name in the industry. The constant gigs, interviews and parties finally exhausted the guitarist, who realized that the excesses were beginning to consume him as a person...

While other band members are willing to sell their souls to the Devil for fame, Frusciante feared and hated the level of success that RHCP had achieved. He was not ready to such a thing! And started doing everything he could to get back a few notches lower - when the fate of rock stardom seemed more free and unloaded to him.

The band was invited to play a few songs on "Saturday Night Live" (a very popular show in the US). The first number was played well, but when it was the turn of the track Under the Bridge... everyone realized that John was starting to get in the way. As he later admitted himself, John deliberately played the song in the wrong key, tried to distort the sound of the guitar and so on. This performance turned out to be hell for Anthony Kiedis, who struggled to sing the bad parts and present the rest of the song properly. Anthony would later say:

"I was singing and thinking, 'Holy shit, what the hell are you doing...!'" (note: lots of profanity). I was ready to strangle him with a microphone wire on the spot!"

While most of the group was angry at John for testing their nerves on live TV, Frusciante was pleased with himself. He would eventually leave the cast, and a tumultuous life journey from cheap motels to a mental institution awaited him, but that's another story....

"Hell's Angels," or Rolling's "bloody show."

But fake playing is far from the worst thing that has happened to musicians during concerts. For example, one performance was forever Rolling Stones on the list of bands whose live performance led to... bloodshed. It happened on December 6, 1969, at a free festival at Altamont. It was supposed to be a celebratory closing of their tour of the States! But things turned out quite differently.....

While Rolling Stones were far from a bad choice as the festival's main headliner, the idea of using a biker gang Hell's Angels. as security guards turned out to be a disaster. These guys only cared about drinking enough beer, but as for the audience - they brutalized anyone who tried to get too close to the stage. So the Hells Angels created a real chaos in the crowd, and when the Rolling Stones performed their cult hit «Sympathy for the Devil» - a scuffle broke out in the crowd, resulting in the death of an 18-year-old boy Meredith Hunter…

In fact, that wasn't the only tragedy of this festival: fights and injuries were everywhere, people seemed to be off their chains, and the Hells Angels seemed to be only too happy about the chaos. Bottom line "Altamont." has become a vivid confirmation of all of people's worst fears about rock 'n' roll: a genre that carries threatening, loud, and in some cases fatal consequences...

Guns N' Roses and Metallica: hard rock giants who became an organizers' nightmare in one evening

Early 90s Guns N' Roses and Metallica were the very giants of hard rock, and so it was no surprise that the two bands were brought together to tour together! However, one unfortunate evening in Montreal turned these giants into an organizer's nightmare...

It all started with Metallica went on stage first, but inadvertently. James Hatfield suffered chemical burns from the pyrotechnics! He was immediately sent to the hospital, and Guns N' Roses were the only hope of the evening. But their lead singer, Axl Rosehe was not in the best form that night either: besides being late, he was able to perform only 5 tracks, after which - under the pretext of a sore throat - he simply left the stage. He was followed by the whole band... Is it worth saying what happened next? The crowd of tens of thousands of people went into a frenzy and started destroying everything in their way!

The most catastrophic disaster of the '90s, or another Woodstock

It seems that nothing could be worse than the above-mentioned concerts. But we assure you: it can, and even more so. For example - if within one show there will be everything at once, "and you can do it without bread", as they say. A vivid example of such a thing rock madness is rightly considered to be Woodstock 1999 - a festival that turned out to be not just a failure, but a catastrophic disaster.....

To begin with, the organization of the festival was at zero: people literally sat and slept in the mud, there was a hell of heat and stench, and to buy water was a whole ordeal - 4 bottles for 4 dollars, and no ATMs.

And, of course, a sea of alcohol, substances and... inadequacy in the crowd.

People fought with security guards and each other, with musicians, threw stones and bottles at the performers, and towards the end of the festival, there were mass arson... The MTV staff made the only right decision and just walked away. Well: rightfully the most spectacular festival in history!