Times Musicians Were Too Wasted To Perform Live

In 1978, the band formerly known as Jefferson Airplane had become Jefferson Starship, and vocalist Grace Slick was certainly spending her share of time in space. She was known to enjoy a cocktail or 14, usually having no problem holding it together. But during a tour of Europe in support of their album Earth, the band decided to make a few stops in Germany. This was a questionable decision, because — 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 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 decided she'd rather berate the locals than sing, mockingly asking them "Who won the war?" while slinging around the four-letter N-word (hint: rhymes with "Yahtzee") and performing the accompanying salutes. Starship publicist Cynthia Bowman called it a "horrible, empty, bad, dark night," and it resulted in Slick's dismissal from the band. She rejoined several years later in time to participate in perhaps the worst song ever, proving that you don't need alcohol to make terrible decisions.

Van Halen was as hard-drinking as any '80s hard rock band, and consummate front man and cartoon come to life David Lee Roth was no exception. The band was tapped to headline "Rock Day" at the 1983 U.S. Festival, a ginormous days-long event that was the brainchild of then-32-year-old Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. According to Night Flight, the band showed up to the festival in pretty ragged shape after having spent the previous three months touring. Roth gave a sign of things to come by giving a loud, incoherent interview to MTV VJ Mark Goodman — who described Roth as "drunk and coked up, laughing at every joke he made" – before their set. Then the band took the stage (after making the audience wait for three hours), and the real fun began.

Roth promptly began forgetting half the lyrics to the songs he was supposed to be singing, and what words he could remember didn't seem to be coming out quite right. Wozniak wrote in his memoir that Roth was "practically falling down onstage. He was so drunk, slurring and forgetting lyrics and everything." He then proceeded to make things better by talking smack about the Clash, who were also present at the festival and already annoyed with the band for remarks Eddie Van Halen had made to Rolling Stone questioning their musical chops. The sloppy set ended in a backstage altercation, Steve Wozniak paid everybody too much and lost millions, and Roth probably forgot the whole thing ever happened.

Poison was one of the more respectable bands to work in the genre that is commonly known as "hair metal," 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 how to put on a show, which song he was supposed to play, how to play his instrument, and presumably his name, because he was also a guy who liked to do a lot of cocaine.

The infamous sorta-performance is recounted on the band's fan club website. It started off poorly, and only got worse. First, DeVille launched into the band's hit "Unskinny Bop," the song they were supposed to play, during a commercial break. After lurching through the song for a couple minutes, DeVille seemed to realize he'd screwed up and just petered out, apparently waiting for host Arsenio Hall to tell him what to do. He then launched into the ironically titled "Let It Play," which he was actually not supposed to play. For some reason, lead singer Bret Michaels confused DeVille further by prompting him to play the band's other hit, "Talk Dirty To Me." So DeVille played it extremely poorly, even taking several seconds to notice when his guitar came completely unplugged. Michaels played it off afterward by proclaiming, "It ain't perfect, but it's rock and roll." Then he followed DeVille backstage and fired the hell out of him.

Amy Winehouse famously had a massive hit song about not wanting to go to rehab, and just as famously joined the notorious 27 Club after predicting that she would do so, according to friend Alex Foden. During what would have been her comeback tour shortly before her death, 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 ostensibly banned from drinking on the tour. She kicked off the night by greeting 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, many of whom had paid ridiculous amounts of money for tickets, were not amused. Co-headliner Moby would later tell Today that as he was approaching the venue, he could "hear the audience booing louder than the music" and that he'd arrived to find what remained of the crowd "looking on in disbelief," as the band played more awkwardly than perhaps any other band in history. It would unfortunately be Winehouse's final performance — but we should always remember that she once kicked some major ass, a fact of which there is plenty of proof.

Concrete Blonde was an indie band best known for '90s hits like "Joey" and "Tomorrow Wendy," and singer Johnette Napolitano, with her distinctly huge, awesome voice, was a big part of the band's success. Fans arrived to a 2016 solo gig in Fort Worth, Texas, expecting to hear some of the powerhouse singer's signature belting — but instead got treated to an insanely awkward mumble-fest by a performer who had clearly had six or seven belts (of liquor) too many. 

According to the Dallas Observer, Napolitano kicked off the festivities by obnoxiously crashing the stage during the opener's set, then opened her own set by apparently forgetting how to sing or play "Joey." One audience member said, "She trailed off and was mixing up the lyrics and adding things in. ... It was like she couldn't remember the song at all and was just pawing at the guitar." The audience ended up singing most of the song for her, and halfway through the next number Napolitano rose from her stool, grabbed the mic stand — and just biffed it, right onstage. The curtain came down 10 minutes after Napolitano had taken the stage, with the singer barely conscious and flat on her back, and angry fans were told they couldn't even have a refund because she had technically shown up. (Debatable.)

Elton John and Billy Joel hit the road together in 2002 and took their piano-fueled show to Madison Square Garden in New York City. First they played a few songs together, but then Joel left the stage, leaving John and his backing band to grow some funk of their own. Then it was time for the Joel portion of the evening, although fans had been forewarned to not expect the "Piano Man" at his "My Life"-growling or "Just the Way You Are"-crooning best, as they'd been told Joel had a cold. But that couldn't explain Joel's behavior. Sure, he sang, but then he went off on a weird rant where he made fun of the Liberty Bell for having a crack in it, and then yelled out the names of major World War II battles. ("Corregidor! Midway! Guadalcanal!" Joel screamed.) 

The music eventually continued, although Joel was clearly compromised. "When he slumped forward on his bench and slurred, ”Don't, don't, don't try to save me,” he sounded truly hopeless," Kelefa Sanneh wrote in the New York Times. "As he wailed he banged on his keys almost at random." When John returned for a double-piano presentation of "Bennie and the Jets," Joel banged on the keys nonsensically, and John visibly mouthed the words "Thank God" at its conclusion. It's not for nothing that in June 2002, Joel entered a rehab facility.

As laid out in graphic, extreme detail in Motley Crüe's memoir The Dirt and the film adaptation, the '80s hard rock band fueled its music with substances. Lead singer Vince Neil drank profuse amounts of alcohol ... up until the night in 1984 when he crashed a car while driving drunk, killing his passenger, Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle. Neil checked into a rehab facility but has struggled with sobriety, seeking professional help more than once. In June 2006, Neil was off the wagon when he took the stage for a solo show in Tampa, Florida. According to an eyewitness account published by Blabbermouth, Neil was already "smashed" when his set started. He couldn't seem to remember the words to any of his songs, and stumbled around the stage, almost falling down. When the crowd started to boo, Neil yelled at them to shut up and went backstage. His band carried on, turning out some Led Zeppelin covers before bringing out singer John Corabi of opening act Ratt (and briefly Neil's replacement in Motley Crüe). Neil followed him out, and together they sang Motley Crüe's "Live Wire," before Corabi disappeared, allowing Neil to lurch around the stage for a few more minutes.

A few days after the fact, Neil told the Calgary Sun (via Blabbermouth) what had happened. "I was pretty buzzed. I tripped, fell off [the stage] — sometimes it happens."

The Replacements are alternative rock legends from back in the days when they called it "college rock" — in other words, the '80s. Shortly after the release of its major label debut, Tim, the band made its national television debut on the January 18, 1986, episode of Saturday Night Live. According to Bob Mehr's Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements (via Rolling Stone) the band's pre-show ritual of getting wasted was in jeopardy when they found themselves stuck on SNL's "dry" set after soundcheck. But their sound guy snuck in a bunch of booze, which the musicians gulped down in their dressing room. Just after midnight, the intoxicated Replacements took the stage to play "Bastards of Young." Lead singer Paul Westerberg wandered away from his mic mid-verse, while bassist Tommy Stinson staggered around so much he rarely wound up in frame. Westerberg, worried that guitarist Bob Stinson would come in late on his solo, shouted "Come on, f*cker" as a cue ... which a mic picked up and the censors missed. At the end of the song, Bob Stinson did a somersault, unaware that his outfit had torn, adding a brief glimpse of backside to the circus. 

That drunken behavior, along with a post-show drunken destruction of their hotel room, for which a bill was sent to Lorne Michaels, earned the band a lifetime ban from SNL, although Westerberg did come back to Saturday Night Live as a solo act in 1993. (He behaved himself.)