Blue Öyster Cult and Kiss

When heavy metal was first being born, Blue Öyster Cult were always on the fringes of the genre. They had the same mystique of a band like Black Sabbath, but they also had the harmonies of The Byrds, and when they started to jam, they seemed like the goth version of the Grateful Dead in certain spots. While they were great at creating a certain vibe onstage, that wasn’t going to do them any favours when Kiss came to town.

Although Kiss were technically the same genre, the idea of the four leather-clad superheroes clashing with their openers was always going to be contentious. And while Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley did everything they could to blow their musical big brothers offstage, it was hard not to take some of those jabs personally, with one of Kiss’s road managers remembering that the band was in danger of being dropped if they did any of their theatrics too much before the headliner.

But, really, this one felt more like a changing of the guard than anything else. The first wave of heavy metal had started with bands like Sabbath and Zeppelin, and if America was going to have an answer to that, it was up to Blue Öyster Cult to either double down on their atmospherics or get the hell out of the way while the new kids in the block put some muscle into the show.

Creed and Limp Bizkit

The late 1990s was never known to be the healthiest era for rock and roll. With Britpop starting to fade from view and grunge being a distant memory, all that most kids had left to latch onto was the likes of Radiohead making waves and the sea of forgettable post-grunge bands that began clogging up the radio. While some bands like Bush and Stone Temple Pilots did have some muscle behind them, fans got into a feud that no one asked for when Fred Durst decided to throw some shots at Creed.

Then again, it should come as no surprise that Durst caused some controversy. He knew how to work the system and become one of the main attractions no matter where he was, but after he claimed that he was late to a festival gig because he saw Stapp backstage practising his best Michael Jackson moves, things started to get heated. Since this was the time when Jackson was being placed under scrutiny for sexual assault allegations, Stapp wasn’t above trying to throw hands as well.

Before the dust had settled, Creed’s management even left a message for Durst, saying that the members of the band will gladly team up with him for a fight for charity. That might have been the kindest way for him to put a happy face on a bad situation, but judging by the other archival footage that we have of Creed being drunk off his ass in the 2000s, he didn’t need much reason to want to make things physical every now and again.

The Darkness and Ozzy Osbourne

It was always unclear during their prime whether The Darkness was ever being genuine with their rock and roll chops. Although Justin Hawkins can sing his ass off when the time calls for it, there’s obviously a subtle wink at the audience when looking at the cheesy effects in the video for a song like ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’. But like any major rock and roll star, Hawkins wasn’t afraid to let the old school know when they were a bit out of order working behind the scenes.

Despite everyone and their mother having the highest reverence for Ozzy Osbourne, Hawkins remembered one festival he played with the ‘Prince of Darkness’ that never went as planned. While the pandemic had done a number on many people trying their best to get back onstage, Hawkins felt that the heavy metal godfather went a bit too overboard when he insisted that certain sections of the backstage area be sectioned off specifically for him.

It’s easy to chalk this up as typical rockstar behaviour, but when looking at the mechanics of everything, Hawkins may have been reading too much into things. Most of us were lucky to have Osbourne around for as long as we did, and while it may have been disheartening not seeing the grizzled badass from those early Black Sabbath clips, he had earned the right to be more than a little bit careful with his health in his later years.

Mudhoney and Nirvana

Any success is bound to do a number on any great band. Even if they are a band of brothers, things can shift once everything becomes a business, and suddenly, good friends that you loved hanging out with soon become strangers after one too many stadium gigs. Nirvana may have been an exception to the rule in many people’s eyes, but after Mudhoney worked with them again, Mark Arm knew that the punk band he saw back in the day was gone.

Arm never wanted the kind of glamorous lifestyle most rock stars wrote about, so when he was offered to open on the In Utero tour, he started to see how the sausage was made a little too much. Kurt Cobain had always tried to keep the paparazzi at arm’s lengths most of the time, but Arm felt that the whole thing had completely shifted, to the point where there were middlemen in the equation and handlers that made his old buddies look like musical gods.

It’s no wonder that Arm would look back on the gigs as painful for him to go through. He didn’t need to put any more strain on his body, but every time he saw his hometown heroes going out onstage, he knew that the version of Cobain had faded. Nirvana weren’t long for this world at the time, but Arm’s reaction to the Seattle heavyweights paints a better picture of what Cobain’s perception of himself was like towards the end. All he wanted to do was write great songs, and now he was being paraded around like a god for no reason.

Bob Dylan and Tom Petty

The idea of Tom Petty in the Traveling Wilburys always seemed like a match made in heaven. Despite starting relatively later than all of his buddies, Petty was as authentic a rock and roll fan as you could find, and seeing him mingling with people like Jeff Lynne and George Harrison made almost too much sense. He had already earned his road miles with Bob Dylan, but even the most acclaimed songwriter in the world had his fair share of issues with the heartland rocker. And it had absolutely nothing to do with his music.

Dylan always respected Petty as one of the finest songwriters of his generation, but when looking back at the tour, Mr Zimmerman remembered being creatively bankrupt every single night. He often described this tour as him being at his lowest point while Petty was on the rise, and given what the rest of the Heartbreakers said about working with Dylan, there’s a lot of merit to that.

Every member of the group had a horror story about Dylan wanting to change the arrangement of something at the last minute or deciding to play everything in a different key mere minutes before he started the song. The performances were still fantastic every time he launched into ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, but whenever looking back at the shows, it’s hard not to see Dylan as someone frustrated about what they want to hear.

Metallica and Guns N’ Roses

Before grunge came in, it looked like the mainstream was about to shift towards something much heavier. The hair bands had their day in the sun, and with Metallica becoming one of the biggest acts in the world, getting them on tour with Guns N’ Roses should have signalled a change of the guard in rock and roll. But once the bands actually hit the road, Metallica got an education in the absolute whirlwind that is Axl Rose.

Despite Guns N’ Roses being more accustomed to what Rose needed, many of the shows would be set back due to Rose running late for whatever reason or other times where he refused to sing at all. Even when Metallica had to cancel shows when James Hetfield was burned alive, they had to sit and watch as Rose made it through a handful of songs before he started complaining about having throat issues or not being able to hear his monitors properly.

Their misbehaviour on tour wasn’t lost on Slash, either, who often said that he could barely look a single member of Metallica in the eye for the rest of their run of shows. Each of them managed to make it through the rest of the tour bravely enough, but there has to be something going extremely wrong when one of metal’s ultimate road dogs starts getting pissed that their touring partner isn’t up for singing.

Rush and Aerosmith

Prog-rock was always going to be a bitter pill for some rock fans to swallow. As much as people like the idea of being taken on a journey with music, having a band like Rush go through multiple sections of their songs was bound to be a tough sell for people that wanted to hear bluesy licks and throw their fists in the air. But before the Canadian icons had a chance to show their stuff, Geddy Lee remembered getting the cold shoulder from Joe Perry when they opened for Aerosmith.

Despite the band having shown their stuff on albums like 2112, going out with ‘The Bad Boys From Boston’ was a dead-end from the beginning. Aside from not getting a decent soundcheck and getting a mixed reception from the crowd, Lee also said that the band wasn’t nearly as loud as Aerosmith when they came on. For what it’s worth, when Joe Perry eventually went solo, he did get a little bit of humble pie when he found himself opening for Rush.

Having now graduated to stadiums and arenas, Lee ended up returning the favour to Perry by giving him a proper soundcheck and telling him that he would never want to treat the guitar slinger as badly as they were treated. Considering the band’s reputation for being music for nerds, though, this kind of behaviour feels like the musical equivalent of the stoner kid shoving the dorky nice guy into a locker.

Green Day and Blink-182

There comes a time when every pop-punk band reaches their expiration date. The idea of writing about teen angst and problems at home is never going to work forever, and even Green Day had faced the fact that songs like ‘Longview’ weren’t aging as well as some of their other classic material. But even if they grew up, Billie Joe Armstrong was about to let the new kids who ran naked in the streets get in the way of him kicking ass onstage.

When Blink-182 and Green Day started to Pop Disaster Tour, it looked like it was all fun and games behind the scenes, though. Each band seemed to be having a great time playing pranks on each other, but according to Blink bassist, Mark Hoppus, Green Day were a bit more on edge the entire tour, with Tre Cool especially keeping an eye on Travis Barker and making sure that he wasn’t shown up every single night.

But even if there was an uncomfortable between both of them, this might have been the first time that a touring feud benefited both parties. Blink would go on to release their untitled record that showed more musical maturity, but the minute that American Idiot was released, the war was over. Green Day had clearly ascended to another plane, and no matter how many times their tourmates tried to remake ‘What’s My Age Again’, they weren’t going to have a ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ in them.

Eagles and Yes

It’s almost shocking how much resentment can go into making care-free music. Eagles were far from the heaviest band of all time, but whenever looking at their track record of bandmates, it’s not like they always have to look back fondly on people who tried to stab them in the back. But for a band that defined country rock and would become darlings of rock radio, who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to put them with a prog rock band?

While Eagles and Yes are both great bands in their own right, making them together was like dumping nacho cheese on a fruit salad; both are very good on their own but completely unappetizing when taken together. And judging by the fact that the prog giants went out of their way not to speak to members of the band on tour, it’s not like they were willing to roll over and make friends, either.

Or maybe this was a case of Yes not knowing what they had on their hands here. Many of Jon Anderson’s songs could take a folksy angle, but Don Henley and Glenn Frey weren’t interested in playing country forever. They wanted to become one of the biggest rock and roll acts of all time, and no amount of cloaked keyboard wizards were going to get in the way of them fulfilling that American Dream.

Van Halen and Journey

Whenever Van Halen went on tour, there was no one who ever left a venue that wasn’t talking about Eddie’s hands. The guitarist was quickly growing into one of the biggest phenomena out of Los Angeles, and even if no one could figure out how he made his guitar sing, it was an experience to listen to whatever the hell he was doing every night. So naturally, if everyone is diverting their attention to the opening band, it wasn’t a shocker when the group got shafted by the big guns.

As much as Neal Schon was already his own guitar hero when working with Journey, Eddie Van Halen remembered constantly having to deal with no soundchecks and the band generally treating them like trash. But for a bunch of kids that had only recently been given their first major headlining tour, Eddie wasn’t going to let anything slide, with Noel Monk even mentioning in his book about a backstage food fight that broke among the band that left Steve Perry in tears after the fact.

Even if Van Halen didn’t like taking the high road, no one could deny that Van Halen was starting to reach a completely different level. ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ and ‘Separate Ways’ are always going to be considered staples of classic rock radio, but when you have one of the greatest musical minds to ever touch a guitar in the band, anyone else is going to be competing for second place.