Showing up to your job drunk is a bad idea in any occupation (unless you're doing a hangover sleep study), but if you're a famous musician, you are going to let down thousands of people. These artists got so drunk before their concerts that they gave embarrassing performances that their audiences would never forget, even if the artists did pretty much right away. From the Poison guitarist who kept playing the wrong song at an awards show to the classic rock drummer who had to get replaced by an audience member mid-show, let's take a look at some times musicians were too wasted to perform live.
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00:00If you've ever woken up in the morning after having gotten way too drunk the night before,
00:04you know it can be pretty mortifying.
00:05Your hair is gone.
00:07No.
00:08Oh.
00:09But if you happen to be a famous musician, the experience is amplified by the fact that
00:13your blackout-drunk antics probably took place in front of thousands of fans.
00:17These entertainers showed up to their gigs utterly smashed, and you won't believe what
00:21happened next.
00:23Grace Slick
00:24In 1978, the band formerly known as Jefferson Airplane had become Jefferson Starship, and
00:29vocalist Grace Slick, who was well-known to enjoy a cocktail or fourteen, usually had
00:33no problem holding it together.
00:35So, you were a real enthusiastic drinker, I mean…
00:38Yes, there you go.
00:39There you go.
00:40But, I have to correct you again, I was the only one who was enthusiastic about it.
00:44I see.
00:45But during a tour of Europe in support of their album Earth, the band decided to make
00:48a few stops in Germany, and as author Jeff Tamarkin remarked in the band's biography,
00:53Slick always had a thing about Germany.
00:55All things Deutsche brought out the worst in her.
00:57Slick reportedly warmed up by drinking literally all the alcohol she could get her hands on,
01:02throwing a giant tantrum, and refusing to get ready for the show.
01:05By the time she was dragged on stage, she was so well-lubricated that she mockingly
01:10asked the locals, who won the war?
01:12The stunt resulted in Slick's dismissal from the band.
01:15She would return several years later, but she says, looking back,
01:18When you're old, you should be heard and not seen.
01:23When you're young, you should be seen and not heard, because you're kind of dumb when
01:26you're young because you don't know anything.
01:28Keith Moon
01:29If you're unfamiliar with The Who's legendary late drummer Keith Moon, you really only need
01:34to know two things.
01:35He ruled the drums, and he embodied pure debauchery.
01:38It was just a sort of drunken night at the Whiskey A Go-Go in Los Angeles.
01:42I mean, it only was, I didn't do it every night.
01:45His appetite for drugs and drink was considered completely insane even by other rock stars,
01:50yet he could still play hours-long sets like a beast.
01:53That is, until a San Francisco gig in November 1973.
01:57According to Rolling Stone, Moon had popped what he assumed were run-of-the-mill tranquilizers,
02:01chasing them with brandy.
02:03But they may have instead been tranquilizers of the horse variety.
02:06In the middle of performing Won't Get Fooled Again, Moon began to wind down like a cheap
02:10clock.
02:11He was dragged offstage and thrown in a cold shower — or injected with cortisone, depending
02:15on whom you ask — and brought back out to attempt magic bus, only to pass out on his
02:19kit.
02:20In a last-ditch effort to finish the show, guitarist Pete Townshend asked the crowd,
02:24"...can anybody play the drums?"
02:28Nineteen-year-old fan Scott Halpin got the chance to play onstage for the last few songs.
02:32"...you feel a little better now, Pete?"
02:35"...well yeah, I've been sluggish and depressed lately, but that seems to have done the trick."
02:39C.C.
02:40DeVille
02:41Poison was one of the more respectable bands of the hair metal era, with their supremely
02:45catchy tunes and wild stage antics earning them legions of spandex-clad, freaky-haired
02:50fans.
02:51Guitarist C.C.
02:52DeVille was the guy who knew how to put on a show — except during the 1991 MTV Video
02:56Music Awards, when he forgot what to play and how to play it — because he was also
03:01a guy who liked to do a lot of cocaine.
03:02"...make no mistake, I mean, I went down that road of, you know, alcohol and things like
03:09that."
03:10First, DeVille launched into the band's hit Unskinny Bop, the song they were supposed
03:14to play later, then quit and waited for host Arsenio Hall to tell them what to do.
03:18He then launched into the ironically-titled Let It Play, which he wasn't supposed to play,
03:23as lead singer Bret Michaels prompted DeVille to start Talk Dirty to Me.
03:26Michaels brushed off the awful performance by proclaiming,
03:29"...ain't perfect, but it's rock and roll."
03:31Then Michaels followed DeVille backstage and fired the hell out of him.
03:35DeVille would later return to the band.
03:37Amy Winehouse
03:38Singer Amy Winehouse famously had a massive hit song about not wanting to go to rehab.
03:43"...what makes me crazy?
03:44Alcohol doesn't do nice things to me.
03:46I'm quite a horrible drunk.
03:49Quite a horrible drunk, actually."
03:50During what would have been her comeback tour shortly before her passing, The Telegraph
03:54reported that Winehouse had infuriated fans by showing up to a gig in Belgrade, Serbia,
03:58utterly plastered, despite the fact that she was banned from drinking on the tour.
04:02She greeted the crowd with,
04:04"...hello Athens, which is not a city in Serbia,"
04:06before launching into a mumbling, incoherent set, alternately falling over, sitting down,
04:11and wandering offstage.
04:12The 20,000 or so in attendance were not amused.
04:15It would unfortunately be Winehouse's final performance.
04:18But even so, she remains a legend, a fact of which there is plenty of proof.
04:22"...people know that I don't really do what I'm told to do.
04:25Or that I don't really care enough about what people think of me to conform to anything."
04:29Scott Stapp
04:30Creed frontman Scott Stapp may be sober these days, but in years past, he was known to arrive
04:35at gigs looking like he had fallen into a pool of booze and drank his way out.
04:39"...and I remember waking up one day and feeling something's wrong with me.
04:44That's when I began to self-medicate."
04:46One show, in Chicago 2002, was so bad that, according to MTV News, a group of fans actually
04:51filed a lawsuit against the band for cheating them out of a real show.
04:55The court filing stated that,
04:56"...Stapp was so intoxicated and or medicated that he was unable to sing the lyrics of a
05:01single Creed song.
05:02He left the stage and appeared to pass out while onstage during the performance."
05:07While the lawsuit was eventually thrown out, the debacle was the beginning of the end for
05:10Creed, which broke up in 2004.