It’s safe to say that many of pop, rock, dance, rap and reggae’s finest artists like a drink. Often the subject of lyrics, or simply as go-to time filler while on tour, it seems that the presence of a crate of Bud and a couple of bottles of Jack are as vital to a performance as the stage and amps.
However, when things go too far, the fun, for fans and artists alike, stops pretty quickly.
Take last Friday’s Deadmau5 Coachella performance. While not exactly operating heavy machinery at the time, security felt the need to step in and call last orders following his live on stage shot consumption, subsequent falling over and inability to finish his set.
Now, fully refreshed and similarly inspired, here’s our pick of seven more moments where rock’s wheels momentously rolled off the wagon.
Guns & Roses
Of course, at this point, suggesting that the members of Guns & Roses may have been drunk on stage from time to time is rather like launching the controversial notion that the sky is, in fact, blue and that the next pope will, indeed, be catholic.
But this lesson from history needs to be repeated – a remarkable piece of literally taking the piss from a 1991 gig in St Louis U.S.A by the band in which Slash appears to not only have forgotten his shirt but also how to play the guitar.
Watch Stockport’s finest export aimlessly bump-starts a broken down version of G&R hellraiser, Welcome To The Jungle and be grateful that you weren’t on the fee-paying receiving end.
Oasis
It’s well known that we have Liam Gallagher to thank for Oasis TBC-triumphant return to the stage this summer. After all, Noel wouldn't have been able to break up the band in the first place if it hadn’t been for his little brother's on-stage excesses and liberties with his audience's patience.
Take this gig in France in 1997 where a soused Gallagher junior engages the audience in indecipherable banter, tries in vain to put off and annoy his brother by feeling him up mid song, leans across the drums to play the cymbals, arses about with a massive clock and sits down on the stage to finish his performance. Such stagecraft.
Amazingly, it took Noel 12 more years before his patience finally twanged. By this point, the pair had taken to travelling separately, only meeting on stage to fulfill their contractual obligations. However, despite efforts to keep them out of eyeline an argument broke out during which Liam famously hurled a plum at Noel. And missed.
“Part of me wishes it did end like that, that would have been a great headline: "Plum Throws Plum and Finishes F**king Oasis," said Noel at a press conference years later.
Instead it was Liam’s return minutes later (and just minutes before the band were due on stage) “wielding a guitar like an axe” that was the final clincher.
The Beach Boys
While it’s the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson that’s regularly fingered for ‘overdoing it a bit’, on this famous occasion it was his brother Carl who’d clearly been picking up more than just Good Vibrations prior to hitting the stage.
Worth pointing out how, despite missing notes and forgetting lyrics, Wilson almost gets away with it thanks to the awesome musicianship on display elsewhere. But while the band are indeed very tight, Wilson proves to be even tighter…
Various Artists Vs The Star-Spangled Banner
It’s a known fact that The Star-Spangled Banner and booze do not mix. And while the American national anthem is notoriously difficult to sing and perhaps worthy of a little ‘dutch courage’ beforehand, such lubrication is almost always ill-advised.
Take for example country artist Ingrid Andress’s interpretation from the Major League Baseball’s All-Star Home-Run derby of 2024, a performance after which Andress admitted on X: “I’m not gonna bullshit y’all, I was drunk last night. I apologize to MLB, all the fans, and this country I love so much… I’ll let y’all know how rehab is. I hear it’s super fun.”
Whether Fergie’s famously off-piste rendition from the NBA All-Star Game in 2018 was similarly fuelled is a matter of conjecture. Fergie said at the time that she’d ”wanted to try something special for the NBA” but that it “didn't strike the intended tone”.
And then there’s the tale of never-seen-again artist Loomis, who, while performing the song at an independent electoral candidate debate in the US elections last year, went awry, audibly observed that “I f____d up, can I go back please?” before it’s pointed out that she is actually performing on live TV. And radio.
“I got too nervous,” she commented later.
Thank heavens for the otherwise frequently-oiled Whitney Houston’s performance at Super Bowl XXV (in 1991) and a stone-cold take widely perceived to be the definitive benchmark live rendition. Phew.
Amy Winehouse
Given that her five-time Grammy winning, and profile-rocketing album Back to Black was fuelled by hit single Rehab, it’s safe to say that Winehouse had issues even before being famous.
Rehab was the result of a New York writing session with producer Mark Ronson, during which father and manager Mitch Winehouse had turned up and pleaded with the star. After their altercation, Winehouse literally told Ronson, “They tried to make me go to rehab but I said, no, no no…”
However, fun times soon turned to dark times and with the wheels completely off the Winehouse star vehicle she did indeed agree to treatment ahead of a vital European comeback tour aimed at putting her potentially still stellar career back on the straight and narrow.
However, her return, a supposed low-key opener in Serbia on 18 June 2011, soon turned into a well-documented disaster with this performance of her album’s title track being an all-time low.
In front of an audience of 20,000 at the Kalemegdan fortress in Belgrade, Winehouse appeared too drunk to perform, mumbling her way through 90 minutes and leaving the stage twice after being booed by her fans.
The tour was cancelled the following day, and tragically Winehouse was found dead at home in London due to alcohol intoxication just over a month later, on 23 July of that year.
The Replacements
It’s both sad and safe to say that it’s quite possible that you’ve not heard of The Replacements. This American alternative band were on the cusp of crossover greatness, delivering the goods for their home market and all set to do likewise elsewhere with their punky thrash and mid-'80s take on post-punk new wave.
With a reputation for anarchy (albeit with a small ‘a’) and a steadfast refusal to shoot a video, their management secured them a coveted spot on U.S. TV youth institution Saturday Night Live in 1986 when The Pointer Sisters cancelled… which they proceeded to balls up royally.
Visibly refreshed after being forced not to leave the building post soundcheck and finding their own entertainment to fill the void, the band kicked into their usual antagonistic shtick – a routine that regularly delighted their hardcore live following – but was this time being re-enacted in front of millions of their Mums and Dads.
Bucking what they’d arranged in rehearsal, cranking up the volume and ambling away from the mic mid-chorus left the show’s producers on tenterhooks throughout the live broadcast.
And after lead vocalist Paul Westerberg encouraged guitarist Bob Stinson to “Come on, fucker” for the solo, before Stinson, wearing ripped trousers ‘accidentally’ bared his arse during a final backflip, the band were effectively banned from appearing on TV again.
Creed
We’ve all been to a terrible gig or two, and usually such misfortune ends in a little ‘never again’ note-to-self or perhaps some social media bad-mouthing.
However, in 2002, fans of American rockers Creed were so affronted by a drunken performance from their favourites that they formed a legal alliance in order to sue the band for compensation.
The law-breaking gig in question took place at Chicago’s AllState Arena (formerly known as the Rosemont Arena) on 29 December 2002 and by this point the band were riding high in all the wrong ways. While Creed had enjoyed three consecutive platinum albums between 1997 and 2001, they had their share of haters, culminating in readers of Rolling Stone magazine voting them the worst band of the 1990s. Ouch.
And pre-gig in 2002 – as well as being on their downers (literally) – frontman Scott Stapp had chosen that night to augment the anti-inflammatory Prednisone, which he'd been taking after a car accident and which left him exhausted, with copious amounts of whiskey, in order to perk himself up.
According to the suit fans claimed that Stapp was "so intoxicated and/or medicated" that he was unable to sing and that he “left the stage on several occasions during songs for long periods of time, rolled around on the floor of the stage and appeared to pass out while on stage during the performance."
While the case was dismissed before reaching court, the band issued a full apology, unsympathetically stating: “We hope that you can take some solace in the fact that you definitely experienced the most unique of all Creed shows” - before splitting up a year later.
