Twenty-two years ago today, on July 5, 1989, Rod Stewart accidentally hit his head during a live performance, knocking himself out. In honor of him and countless other artists who have met misfortune before a live audience, we take today to pay tribute to the most remarkable instances of onstage injury in music.
February 19, 1972: Trumpeter Lee Morgan is shot by his common-law wife while performing at Slugs’ in NYC’s East Village. The shooting followed an argument between the two.
May 3, 1972: Les Harvey of Stone the Crows touches an unearthed microphone during a sound check with wet hands, electrocuting him to death at 26 years old.
January 27, 1984: Michael Jackson’s hair catches on fire during the middle of filming a Pepsi commercial in Los Angeles. The incident allegedly sparked his decline in health and subsequent addiction to cosmetic surgery.
July 5, 1989: Rod Stewart hits himself on the head onstage and knocks himself out.
1989: Yugoslavian rocker Satan Panonski, born Ivica Čuljak, performs covered in blood. A photo snapped of the event would grace the front cover of his album a year later. He died in 1992, ironically not from injuries sustained during live shows, but rather as a soldier in war.
August 1992: Guitarist James Hetfield of Metallica steps backwards into a pyrotechnic rig. He experienced second and third degree burns on his arms and hands, though his double-necked guitar protected him from further injury. His recovery time was epically short, putting him back onstage after just a seventeen-day hiatus. But what else would we expect from a rock god?
June 1993: GG Allin, born Jesus Christ Allin, dies of a heroin overdose shortly following a show, despite his many promises to commit suicide onstage. He did not meet his end onstage, but this list would not be complete without acknowledging the punk rocker’s violent onstage legacy. His lyrics, although they broached subjects such as racism, misogyny, and pedophilia, paled in comparison to his much volatile performance antics. He was infamous for his self-mutilation, the consumption of feces, and brutal assault of audience members. In one instance, he broke a woman’s nose. He often took laxatives before shows to ensure that he could carry through with his coprophagous designs during his performances. Though he was usually naked by the end of a performance, he would always begin wearing a leather jacket and a jockstrap—what else? Because he rarely bathed, he usually smelled like a sickening combination of body odor, feces, and whiskey. Sadly, his career’s nauseating features were better than the alternative: he proclaimed that were he not a violent musician and performance artist, he would have chosen the life of a serial killer or mass murderer. In 1988, he declared his intent to commit suicide onstage on Halloween 1989. Unfortunately for him, those plans were foiled by his being incarcerated at said time. He was imprisoned again in December 1989 for the rape and torture of a woman, though he insisted that their sexual activities, as well as the cutting, burning, and drinking of the blood of his partner, were consensual. He was released in 1991. His life came to an anticlimactic end when he died of a heroin overdose after escaping from a show at the Gas Station Club in New York.
November 8, 1995: Country Dick Montana, lead singer and drummer of the country punk band The Beat Farmers dies of a heart attack three songs into a performance in Whistler, British Columbia. The Beat Farmers disbanded three days later.
May 17, 1996: Blues and funk guitarist Johnny “Guitar” Watson, the Godfather of Funk, dies during a performance of “Ain’t That a Bitch” in Yokohama, Japan. “Ain’t that a bitch” were his last words. Not only did Watson influence artists such as Frank Zappa, he pioneered the 1960s flamboyant, pimp style that Austin Powers movies parody today.
March 13, 1998: Reggae and ska artist Judge Dread, born Alexander Minto Hughes, collapses from a heart attack while walking off stage after a performance at the Penny Theatre in Canterbury. Though he was only 42 at the time of his death, his songs were considered so “rude” that he still holds the record for the most banned songs of all time. He is also the first white artist to win the honor of a reggae hit in Jamaica.
July 3, 1999: Mark Sandman, lead singer and slide bass player of Morphine, collapses onstage during a performance near Rome due to a heart attack at 46. Almost immediately after he was pronounced dead, Morphine dissolved the band.
June 2004: During a performance in Oslo, an audience member throws a lollipop at David Bowie. It became stuck in his eye and caused him to pause the concert—for a full ten minutes. He lightheartedly threw a guitar pick back into the audience.
December 8, 2004: Pantera founder “Dimebag” Darrell Abbot is shot three times by Nathan Gale while performing with Damageplan. The third shot was fatal. Gale had paranoid schizophrenia and believed that the band was stealing his thoughts and laughing at him.
July 30, 2005: Till Lindemann of Rammstein suffers a knee injury during a performance in Gothenburg, Sweden. The cause? Fellow band member Flake ran into him with a Segway during a performance of “Amerika,” of course. The group was compelled to cancel their Asian tour.
August 16, 2005: Singer Ricky Wilson of the Kaiser Chiefs tears the ligaments in his ankle after a poorly executed high jump during a performance in Portugal. “When we were supporting the Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl was watching and I thought I can’t let him down so I leaped and landed funny on the mic stand. But apparently Dave liked the show,” he said of the incident. The band did not cancel any following gigs, though Wilson had to play the rest of the V Festival on crutches.
September 16, 2005: Singer Vince Neil of Motley Crue tears his calf muscle during a fall from the stage during a performance at the Philips Arena in Atlanta. He refused to admit that he fell off the stage, protesting that he “just felt something snap in [his] leg.” He did not allow his torn muscle to stop him from putting on the next shows.
September 17, 2005: While promoting his solo album, Paul McCartney falls into a trapdoor in the stage during a performance at the Tampa St. Pete Times Forum, much to the alarm of his screaming fans. The trapdoor was intended to unveil his grand piano. His arm and back were only slightly injured. He provided droll, classically British commentary on the event, saying “Think we ought to put a picket fence around it? A little picket fence! It will look nice.”
September 18, 2005: Just as he was about to bend a steel bar in half using just his arms and teeth, Thor “The Mighty Rock Warrior” was struck by lightning at a show in Portland—some say by the will of the gods. While he finished the set, he canceled the remaining dates on his tour.
Fall 2007: Bassist John Maskell of indie rock band Six Nation State lands on a broken wine glass while finishing a round of crowdsurfing, severing multiple tendons in his left foot.
October 2007: Pete Wentz breaks his foot while idiotically jumping around at a show in New Orleans. He was kind enough to post a picture of his swollen foot on his blog.
July 9, 2008: DJ Sid Wilson of Slipknot jumps from a riser onstage, breaking both heels. Not to be kept from his rocking, he reportedly continued to perform, and bruised his forehead every night by headbanging it into his wheelchair.
August 2008: Marilyn Manson injures his knee onstage. Despite his past tendencies to self-injure onstage, his backstage reaction to the injury was less than graceful. “You guys had a good time waiting to figure out what I was f***ing saying…I need painkillers and butterfly stitches…This isn’t a game. I’ll f***ing bleed on you and I hope you die,” he complained to his crew.
October 7, 2008: While performing in Iowa City, Jim James of My Morning Jacket “misjudges” the stagefront during a dark interlude between songs and falls off of it. The performance was cut short and the next several shows were canceled while James recovered.
May 10, 2009: Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction tears his calf muscle in the first song. He was rushed to the hospital immediately after they bravely finished the set.
June 7, 2009: Bret Michaels slams his head on a stage prop while performing with Poison during the 63rd Annual Tony Awards, suffering a fractured nose and a split lip which required three stitches. This marked the start of a decline in his health over the next year and a half, including a brain hemorrhage. On March 25, 2011, he filed a lawsuit against CBS and the Tony Awards, blaming them for his deteriorating health.
July 28, 2009: Ricky Wilson (again!) breaks a rib while energetically opening for Green Day at Madison Square Garden.
July 31, 2009: Drake collapses onstage during a Camden, New Jersey performance on the America’s Most Wanted Tour. He had torn his ACL several weeks earlier but risked the performance anyways. He later tweeted, “We straight. Just to show that this ACL sh—ain’t a joke. Thanks for the support, and we’ll be back…Young moola.”
July 2009: Madonna injures her ankle during a show at the Paris Bercy, causing her to fall to the ground.
December 2009: Justin Bieber is hit with a water bottle by a fan during a concert. He was a good sport. “Ow, that didn’t feel good! I don’t know why she just threw that at me, but I love you guys.” Neither the Biebs nor his hair sustained any real injury (here’s the original footage).
July 15, 2010: P!nk falls from a harness that suspended her above the stage onto a steel barricade during a Nuremburg, Germany concert.
January 25, 2011: Jimmy Buffet falls off the stage in Sydney, Australia after finishing the last song of his set. He was rushed to the hospital with a gash to the head, for which he received several stitches, according to his Sirius XM channel Radio Margaritaville.
March 2011: Bert McCracken falls into the photographers’ pit in the middle of “The Taste of Ink.” He finished the set but later tweeted that he had broken his left hand and shattered his right elbow. We’ll bet he didn’t “savor every moment of this.”
June 27, 2011: Elliot Turton of Waxeater shocks himself onstage.
From this history lesson, we can draw a few conclusions. First, while 2009 was the most dangerous year to be a musician, September 2005 was by far the most perilous month. Second, wearing shoes onstage is a must. Third, to be a healthy musician, it seems that a little training in gymnastics and spatial awareness might be in order. Not mutilating yourself for sport might help, too.
