Bottled Off: 10 Bands Who Suffered Worse Fate Than Macaulay Culkin's Pizza Underground
Macaulay Culkin and his pizza-themed Velvet Underground cover band, the imaginatively named The Pizza Underground, suffered the chagrin of a disgruntled crown in Nottingham during the city’s annual Dot To Dot festival. Culkin, who was by this point half-way through a European tour, beat a hasty retreat from the stage after being drenched with beer.
It proved, that in this age of disconnect, where audience members can turn to the comforts of smart phones during lacklustre gigs, music fans are still eager to openly voice their displeasure. Only a few days later, Culkin announced the cancellation of the remaining tour dates. He has not openly cited the event as the primary motivation for such a cancellation, but it seems all too obvious that the hostile reception he received had severely impacted the decision. Macaulay is far from being the first to suffer the wrath of an embittered crowd and few are safe from the ramifications of a poor or ill-judged performance. Here are ten examples of performers receiving a severe dressing down from irate audiences:
More: Macaulay Sulkin: Pizza Underground Cancel Remaining Tour Dates
50 Cent At Reading Festival 2003
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Swanning onstage to the sounds of gunshot sound effects and blaring police sirens, 50 Cent’s ego would take a pounding from a hail of urine-filled bottles, general festival detritus and at one point, a deck chair. The barrage was initially relentless, only dying down due to a lack of ammunition, but the damage had been done to the New York rapper. It was 2004, and Fiddy was at the height of his popularity following the release of 2003’s monumental Get Rich Or Die Tryin’, but it seems the rapper’s gangsterisms didn’t sit well with the Sunday night Reading crowd. 50 lasted only 20 minutes, barely past the length of the set required to play for him to receive full payment for his appearance. Reading crowds have traditionally been hugely receptive of hip-hop groups, from Jurassic 5 to Cyprus Hill, but the Cent’s monstrous ego was unsuited to the tone of the festival. Needless to say, he won’t be returning to the Berkshire event anytime soon.
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Steel Pulse At Reading Festival 1983
Far from the first time a reggae act has suffered abuse from a Reading crowd more used to punk and rock acts, Birmingham’s Steel Pulse were subject to such a barrage of bottles from a biker element in the crowd that they decided to slink off before completing a single song. It was perhaps due to poor scheduling that the reggae band received such a torrid reception, as they faced off against a traditionally frenzied crowd eagerly awaiting the headlining slot of The Stranglers. The reggae troupe knew better than to take abuse from a vast expanse of boozed-up punks and made a sensibly brief exit. It is commonly regarded as the single most aggressive bottling of a band in Reading’s illustrious history and long-standing tradition of audience members physically addressing their displeasure with the performers by the act of lobbing projectiles.
Daphne And Celeste At Reading Festival 2000
Yet another vicious attack by the restless Reading audience were directed at pop duo Daphne & Celeste in perhaps the most odd and provocative booking in the events history. Placing the pair responsible for the likes of “Ooh Stick You” and “U.G.L.Y” anywhere near the festival site was never a particularly good idea but placing them on a bill in which they were sandwiched between metal legends Slayer and rap-metal noiseniks Rage Against The Machine was another thing entirely. As soon as the duo stepped out into the audience’s vision, the sky was blackened with an array of projectiles, and the pair retreated to the back of the stage to perform just two songs to a backing track before beating a hasty retreat.
Green Day At Woodstock 1994
After several days of rainfall, the 1994 Woodstock site was a veritable swamp, leading to the festival being nicknamed ‘Mudstock 94’. Conducted live on television, Green Day’s set ended in a full-on mud fight between Billie Joe Armstrong and the crowd, who were already caked in mud before the punk band’s set commenced. The show ended in a near riot, as Billie Joe pulled his pants down onstage and directed a slew of obscenities at the mud-covered human diaspora. Bassist Mike Dirnt was mistook for a psychotic fan by a security guard, and would leave the festival minus two front teeth. Meanwhile, the band’s equipment was peppered with dirt yet the calamitous event only boosted Green Day’s profile, driving their album Dookie up the charts and instilling the band as masters of infamy.
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My Chemical Romance At Reading 2006 and Download 2007
As the emo craze reached its apex, My Chemical Romance were seen as the flag-wavers for the genre’s black-clad followers. 2006 would see Reading become a battle-ground as a large section of the audience showed their displeasure toward the towering emo zeitgeist. Despite a healthy number of supporters singing along not only to every lyric, but also every guitar part, an equally numerous contingent made it their duty to rid the mainstage of the emo warriors, attempting to bottle the band into the ground. Similar fate befell them at Download the following year and although the barrage was less intense than Reading the year before, there were even reports of knives and raw meat being aimed at the stage. Nevertheless, MCR successfully overcame the abuse and would triumphantly headline Reading in 2011 to much acclaim.
Next page: Panic At The Disco, Sex Pistols, Cher Lloyd and more
Panic At The Disco At Reading 2006
My Chemical Romance were given a firm indication of the type of reception they were likely to receive after one particularly well aimed bottle felled Panic! At The Disco frontman Brendon Urie with a direct hit to the face. It was only seconds into the band’s Friday afternoon set but Urie was knocked unconscious by the force of the bottle, falling to the floor in a heap and in obvious distress at his predicament. Their set was halted for several minutes but they continued valiantly, launching back into their anthemic emo rock with aplomb and directing a two-fingered salute towards the unknown bottle thrower.
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The FF’ers At Reading 2008
The FF’ers were the victims of circumstance. In 2008, the festival site was rife with rumours that Dave Grohl would be performing a secret set with his Foo Fighters cohorts and those with very beady eyes picked out the existence of a band called The FF’ers playing a mid-afternoon slot on the Festivals smallest stage, usually reserved for the exceedingly greenhorn bands. A huge crowd had gathered in front of the stage, eager to witness the Foo Fighters in such a rare intimate performance. But as The FF’ers stepped out onto the stage, it soon became clear that they were a genuine band, whose namesake’s similarity to a shorted version of Foo Fighters was nothing but unfortunate coincidence. In true Reading fashion, bottles flew and booes rung out. For a brief moment, an unknown band with an ill-judged name were the talk of the internet and the object of several thousand people’s derision.
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Sex Pistols At Roskilde 1996
The year was 1996 and the Sex Pistols had just reformed. Was it the desire to re-ignite the punk flame, to spread the Pistol’s message of anarchy and freedom across the world, or simply just the desire to create new music that re-united them? No, it was cold hard cash, and the band had made no bones about the fact that the only thing stopping them from killing each other was the promise of a fat paycheck at the end of each show. At Denmark’s Roskilde Festival, audience members saw through this façade, and the punk icons were subject to a torrent of bottles which led to the band walking off after just two songs. They returned to play another three, with Rotten telling the crowd to “police themselves” but the crowd steadfastly refused and the band left the stage for good.
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Lethal Bizzle At Download 2008
In a classic case of “well, what do you expect?” grime artist Lethal Bizzle was eagerly pelted with objects throughout his brief set at the iconic metal festival Download in 2008. In addition to the usual repertoire of bottles, Bizzle also took fire from hundreds of pots of Muller Rice which were being given away free only a short distance from the stage where the rapper was performing. Bizzle cited racism as the reason he was subject to such abuse, although the more likely case seems to be the fact that Lethal B’s style of grime is not exactly a perfect match for a festival whose bill is traditionally filled by classic rock and heavy metal acts. Needless to say, the Download Festival organisers have not booked a grime artist since Lethal Bizzle’s baptism of Muller Rice.
Cher Lloyd At V-Festival 2012
Shortly after she appeared on The X-Factor, the then nineteen year-old Cher Lloyd received a brutal introduction the trials and tribulations of festival performance as her V-Festival set was targeted by bottle throwers. After only two songs, Lloyd sought the comfort of her management team backstage who goaded her into returning to finish her set. Despite her desperate pleas, the bottles kept on falling and after she realised some of them were filled with urine, Lloyd decided she could take no more. Her festival debut was a harsh learning curve in performance and composure that left her in a flood of tears and may have been a factor in a career turn towards modelling.
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