Music History Events: Stage Mishaps
June 18, 2012 At a Radiohead concert in a park in Toronto, metal rigging over a stage collapses one hour before show time. Various technicians were setting up the stage equipment when the incident occurred, injuring some and killing one drum technician, Scott Johnson, who was pinned under the rubble.
June 18, 2011 Amy Winehouse, fresh out of rehab, shows up an hour late for a concert in Belgrade, Serbia, stumbles around on stage and can barely sing. The rest of the tour is cancelled.
April 17, 2010 When Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros frontman Alex Ebert takes the stage at Coachella, he clumsily knocks a microphone stand into the crowd. A guy in the audience catches it with his forehead, and blood spills all over the place. Ebert, horrified, gives the guy his sportcoat and his shirt to staunch the bleeding, and performs the set topless. It proves a breakout performance for the band, whose song "Home" starts showing up everywhere.
August 5, 2009 Steven Tyler of Aerosmith falls off the stage at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota, suffering injuries to his head and neck, which force the rest of the band's tour to be canceled. Tyler falls when he is entertaining the crowd with a dance while a technical problem is being sorted.
August 6, 1997 In a Spinal Tap moment, U2's giant lemon they are supposed to emerge from onstage doesn't open at a show in Oslo.
August 19, 1991 At CNE Stadium in Toronto on the last date of the Operation Rock & Roll tour, Judas Priest lead singer Rob Halford's motorcycle entrance goes horribly wrong and he hits a metal beam, breaking his nose and spraining his neck. He completes the show up is taken to a hospital immediately afterward.
April 7, 1988 When the piano wire that keeps him safely suspended during his gallows stunt snaps, Alice Cooper nearly hangs himself for real on stage at Wembley Arena in London. He's able to slip his chin over the rope to keep his neck from snapping until a roadie can rescue him.
May 30, 1987 The Deep Purple House Of Blue Light tour is cancelled when Ritchie Blackmore breaks a finger showboating at a concert in Phoenix, Arizona.
April 22, 1978 Performing at the Ottawa Civic Centre on the Bat Out Of Hell tour, Meat Loaf falls off the stage and mangles his knee, requiring surgery. He does the next few shows from a wheelchair but completes the tour.
April 21, 1976 A night after George Harrison joins Monty Python during their performance of "The Lumberjack Song" at a New York show, Harry Nilsson tries it. While Harrison blended in as a member of the chorus (dressed as a Mountie), Nilsson wears dark glasses and makes a spectacle. When he goes to the front of the stage to shake hands with audience members, he falls into the crowd and breaks his arm.
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