10 of the Strangest Things That Have Happened to Artists During a Live Performance
Being on stage gives artists a rush like nothing else. But that doesn’t mean it’s always smooth sailing. Whether it’s an equipment malfunction or a misguided fan who wants to gift their favorite artist with something special — like the ashes of a loved one — here are 10 of the weirdest things that have happened to performers on stage…
Drake’s Big Bra Tour
Artists having bras thrown at them while performing is a storied tradition. But in Drake’s case, it happened so often during his recent It’s All A Blur tour that his father decided to commemorate it with a custom bra that’s almost as big as Drake himself.
Ellie Goulding’s ‘Miracle’ Mishap
Performing at a music festival in the U.K., a miscue caused Goulding to nearly take some pyrotechnics to the face. Coincidentally, it happened as she was singing her song “Miracle,” because it truly was a miracle that the situation wasn’t any worse.
Steve Harwell Got That Bread
Carbo-loading is important when you’re expecting to drink at an event — something the vendors at the Taste of Fort Collins, a food-centric music festival in Colorado, understood. One vendor in particular gave free loaves to festival goers. Unbeknownst to them, though, that bread was later used as a projectile and thrown on the stage as Smash Mouth performed. Late lead singer Steve Harwell didn’t appreciate being treated like a pigeon, and had a three-minute meltdown about it.
Miguel’s Accidental Wrestling Match
Most of the performers on this list are legit victims, but not Miguel. In a crowd-surfing attempt gone very wrong, the singer made the mid-performance decision to leap across the stage over a sea of fans; he failed to stick the landing, however, and fell crotch-first onto a poor woman’s neck.
Pink’s Cheesy Gift
Admittedly, this one is mostly just off-kilter as opposed to harmful in any way: A Hyde Park Festival concertgoer decided the perfect gift for Pink was a comically large wheel of brie.
Those Aforementioned Cremated Remains
But hey, if the last entry wasn’t wild enough for you, try this one on for size. During the same performance, a different fan threw a plastic bag of cremated remains at the singer. Pink, understandably, wasn’t sure how to feel about it.
David Bowie’s Not-So-Good-Ship Lollipop
At a 2004 music festival in Norway, Bowie took a lollipop to the eye mid-song. A silver lining for the “Let’s Dance” singer was that the sweet treat hit his bad eye, which had been famously inflicted with anisocoria.
Barenaked Ladies’ Krafty Solution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhqyiqUe7uE
Taking a cue from their song “If I Had $1000000,” fans threw boxes of Kraft Dinner at the Barenaked Ladies as they sang the lyrics, “If I had a million dollars / We wouldn’t have to eat Kraft Dinner / But we would eat Kraft Dinner / Of course we would, we’d just eat more.” The act got so popular that the band set up donation bins so it could bring the boxed pasta to food banks and shelters.
Milli Vanilli vs the Backing Track
In the backing-track fiasco heard ‘round the world, Milli Vanilli was publicly exposed as phony lip synchers. During a live performance on MTV, a hard-drive malfunction caused their backing track to skip and repeat. Milli Vanilli singing live? Girl, you know it’s untrue.
The Prince of Darkness and the Pigeon
In maybe the most infamous moment in rock and roll history, an Iowa fan threw a bat at Ozzy Osbourne. Assuming that it was a fake rubber toy, the Black Sabbath frontman started chewing on it. Unfortunately for him, it was no toy and Osbourne bit the bat’s head clean off.
