Pick a Day

Music History Events: Incidents

June 19, 2004 An audience member hurls a lollipop on stage while David Bowie is performing in Oslo, Norway. The lollipop wedges itself in David Bowie's left eye (which already has an enlarged and frozen pupil following a childhood fight). Bowie halts the concert to remove the lollipop. Luckily, he escapes serious injury.

May 11, 2004 John Whitehead (of the R&B duo McFadden & Whitehead), age 55, is murdered outside of his Philadelphia home when he's shot while fixing his car. The crime, thought to be a tragic case of mistaken identity, remains unsolved.

April 25, 2004 Billy Joel, who is much better behind a piano than at the wheel of a car, gets in another car accident - his third in two years.

February 24, 2004 Singer Lena Horne threatens to withdraw permission for a TV movie of her life after star Janet Jackson suffers her shocking "wardrobe malfunction" at Super Bowl XXXVIII. Jackson quits the project.

January 5, 2004 Ray Davies of The Kinks is shot in the leg when he pursues two men who snatched his girlfriend's purse. He sings about it on his 2018 track "The Big Guy."

December 8, 2003 Ozzy Osbourne suffers several fractures in his upper body in an ATV accident.

October 15, 2003 The members of veteran independent rock act Dub Narcotic Sound System are involved in a car accident, forcing the hospitalization of frontman Calvin Johnson and bassist Chris Sutton.

September 20, 2003 Fire destroys a lodge on Chuck Berry's Wentzville, Missouri, estate (arson is the cause, but no one is ever arrested for the crime).

September 13, 2003 Dave Clark Five lead singer Mike Smith suffers a tragic fall from a ladder at his home in Spain, leaving him without any movement in three limbs. He would remain a near-quadriplegic until his death in 2008 from pneumonia, a complication of the original injury.

June 3, 2003 Barry Manilow suffers a broken nose after he accidentally walks into a wall at his home in Palm Springs, California, and knocks himself unconscious. Although he passed out for four hours, he doesn't endure any lasting effects and doctors determine that surgery is not necessary.

June 2, 2003 A painting of Kylie Minogue wearing gold hot pants causes tempers to fray among drivers in Brighton. Artist Simon Etheridge put up the almost life-size picture in his own Art Asylum gallery as part of a Festival and since then motorists have caused regular traffic hold-ups as they stopped to take a second look.

January 25, 2003 Billy Joel crashes his Mercedes while driving in Long Island, New York. The singer later says that he was in a "mental fog" around this time, caused by relationship issues and a lingering depression after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

October 30, 2002 Jason Mizell aka Jam Master Jay (of Run-DMC), age 37, is shot and killed at a recording studio in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New York. Although authorities suspect convicted drug dealer Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, a friend of Murder Inc. founders Irv and Chris Gotti, of the crime along with accomplice Randy "Stretch" Walker, they are not convicted and the murder remains unsolved.

October 25, 2002 Aretha Franklin's 12-bedroom home outside of Detroit is destroyed by fire, which is later determined to be arson. The building was unoccupied at the time, as Franklin used the home mainly for storage.

July 8, 2002 Michael Jackson unleashes a sudden tirade on the music industry, accusing several music execs of racism and calling Sony head Tommy Mottola in particular "very, very, very devilish."

June 4, 2002 George Michael is jeered and heckled by the audience of a CNN news show as he defends the video for his new single "Shoot The Dog," in which US President George Bush is shown in bed with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Michael says it is an attack on Blair and not President Bush.

June 2, 2002 The wedding ring that Paul McCartney had given his fiancée Heather Mills ends up thrown out of the window of the hotel where the couple is staying in Miami. Hotel staff use metal detectors to find the $25,000 ring the next day. Despite the quarrel, Paul and Heather go ahead with the wedding.

May 25, 2002 The mosh pit goes horribly wrong at an Eminem concert in Washington, D.C.'s RFK Stadium, and at least 25 people are injured.

May 3, 2002 Doug Firley of Gravity Kills drops a keyboard on his hand, shattering the bones in his right ring finger during a show in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

April 24, 2002 Pop singer Jewel breaks a collarbone and a rib when she is thrown from a horse at the Texas ranch of her boyfriend, rodeo star Ty Murray.

January 27, 2002 Koko Taylor collapses during a private function at her club, Koko Taylor's Celebrity, in Chicago, Illinois, after failing to take her diabetic medication. Doctors also discover arterial blockage in her heart.

September 25, 2001 Rapper Erick Sermon sustains serious injuries when, according to his publicist, he is involved in an auto accident. It is announced by police one week later that the injuries are actually the result of a plunge out a third-story window.

March 18, 2001 Four teenage girls are crushed to death in a shopping mall in Indonesia, when hundreds of fans panic while trying to catch a glimpse of British boy band a1. The four band members cancel the rest of their tour in Asia.

June 29, 2000 The casket holding Lynyrd Skynyrd lead singer Ronnie Van Zandt is stolen from its mausoleum in Jacksonville, Florida, but left after vandals are unable to open it. The ashes of Steve Gaines, the band's guitarist who died in the same plane crash that killed Van Zandt, are spilled from his urn, which is also stolen.

April 28, 2000 James Brown Enterprises, which handles tours for The Godfather Of Soul, has its offices destroyed by fire, destroying music and memorabilia. An employee is later charged with arson in connection with the incident.

February 11, 2000 Near the concession area of an Isley Brothers concert in Los Angeles billed as the "Valentine's Super Love Jam," a 24-year-old man shoots three concert-goers and is shot by a police officer working the show. The assailant is killed but his victims survive.

May 29, 1999 Photographers taking shots of old cars wrecked at the bottom of Malibu's Decker Canyon discover the body of Iron Butterfly bassist Philip Kramer, who had gone missing on February 12, 1995. His death is ruled a suicide.

May 26, 1999 British punk band Manic Street Preachers refuse to play a concert to mark the opening of Wales' parliament because Queen Elizabeth II is present.

December 28, 1998 Suffering from alcoholism and depression, Atlanta Rhythm Section lead singer Ronnie Hammond gets in an altercation with police in Macon, Georgia, who shoot and wound the singer.

November 10, 1998 On their way to perform at the 1998 MTV Europe Music Awards at Milan's Fila Forum, British girl group All Saints are held up for six hours in London by a walkout of Milan airport employees.