10 bands that broke up while on stage
Band breakups are never an easy thing to deal with.
As much as they might like to have the image of the ‘Three Musketeers’ going on and on forever, there comes a time when someone’s artistic vision might not gel with the rest of the band, or you just get sick of looking at someone’s stupid face onstage every night. Although most band breakups are done privately, bands like the Eagles left all their dirty laundry onstage.
In theory, the stage is supposed to be a place of unity, where differences are set aside for the sake of the music. In reality, months or years of tension can simmer beneath the surface until the spotlight only amplifies the cracks. When that pressure finally bursts, the audience ends up witnessing far more than a concert.
For all of the great music they could have made together, these bands decided to settle their differences when they got onstage. Even though fans may have been promised a night of entertainment, they probably weren’t expecting this version of that, including various band members badmouthing each other to their faces before storming off and not performing together again.
Moments like these reveal the fragile chemistry that holds bands together. What once felt like camaraderie can quickly sour when egos, exhaustion and creative disagreements collide. When the music stops, the illusion of brotherhood often goes with it.
Although many have been able to settle them with a war of words, actually resorting to violence was that uncommon, either. Compared to the manufactured beef that many people like to get up to in the press, this was the kind of raw anger that can only come from being together for too long, including many artists walking away with a few bloody noses or broken bones.
Rock and roll may be about making the most out of every single performance, but as soon as these performances started, the musicians were doing something more than just performing their songs. This became a musical therapy session, and in just a few short minutes, each band left as a husk of what they once were.
10 bands who broke up on stage:
Poison
Poison was never meant to be the most forward-thinking rock band in the world. If anything, Bret Michael’s shot at the big-time with his glam-rock compadres was more interested in bringing a party everywhere they went. Although the band could at least deliver a good time at most shows, their arrival at the 1991 MTV Awards was a disaster from the minute that guitar CC DeVille walked into the building.
Having already been one of the most nefarious abusers in the band, DeVille showed up to the gig already halfway gone, leading the band to go on trying to play their latest song, ‘Unskinny Bop’. Instead of kicking into a completely different song, the footage from that night involved the band absent-mindedly fumbling around before they cut to the commercial, not even having to finish a single song.
Once they arrived backstage, the gloves came off, with Michaels and DeVille getting into an altercation, leading to DeVille’s departure from the band shortly afterwards. Even though the band tried to continue on with a new guitarist in Richie Kotzen, it was clear that the initial magic of the band was left on the MTV stage that night.
Sex Pistols
San Francisco has never been the healthiest environment for any rock band. Even though plenty of incredible acts have come from the city, the track record of the amount of bands that stay together after visiting is surprisingly small. Oasis nearly bit the dust there, the Grateful Dead called it a day when they arrived, and the Sex Pistols ended their final show with a whimper instead of a bang.
Before they had entered America, Sex Pistols were already known as one of the biggest bands in the world, with John Lydon living up to his reputation as one of the most outspoken wildmen in rock and roll. Once they started to make their way across America with Sid Vicious in tow, their self-destruction got the better of them more often than not, including Vicious carving his chest in need of a fix.
By the time the band appeared onstage for their San Francisco gig, Lydon knew that the band was over, only getting through a handful of tunes before calling it a day. In just a few short minutes on that stage, the band were left limping back to their home country and closed the door on the golden age of punk rock.
Wham!
When looking at band separations, it always tends to come back to artists who don’t want to work together anymore. Even if the group may be in fine form, the amount of animosity brewing between everyone is often too much for them to enter the studio ever again. For all of the drama-fueled breakups in rock history, George Michael and Andrew Ridgely may have had one of the most amicable breakups onstage that the world has ever known with What.
After becoming one of the biggest duos in history off the success of songs like ‘WHAM Rap’, Michael and Ridgely started to conquer the mainstream with one hit after another. By the time they got to making ‘Careless Whisper’, though, it was becoming abundantly clear that Ridgely wasn’t really pulling as much weight…nor did he really care to.
As if to close the door on their youth, WHAM closed its doors for good with two sell-out shows at Wembley Arena, being the final culmination of them from humble beginnings in dance clubs to one of the greatest pop forces of the 1980s. When you look at the shows on their own, this practically isn’t a breakup at all. This was the kickstarter for Michael’s solo career that happened to feature Ridgely onstage with him.
The Replacements
Nothing The Replacements ever did was designed to be professional in any way. Even for a band born out of the indie scene, none of them took themselves all that seriously, famously ruining their time on Saturday Night Live by playing the song completely hammered. While the band still delivered on record, there was always going to be one instance when everything came to an end.
Fresh off the tour for the album Don’t Tell a Soul, the band performed various gigs with Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson as the de facto leaders of the group. Going into Chicago for another stop gap on the tour, the band’s last moments onstage featured every single musician not wanting to be there, with Westerberg standing behind the drums and Stinson taking the microphone.
After making their way through songs like ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’, Stinson announced at the end of the show that it would be one of the last times that anyone would see them play, after which everyone stormed off the stage. The Replacements may have helped birth the alternative rock scene that was to come, but the animosity between them became too much for any of them to capitalise on.
Soundgarden
Of all the bands out of Seattle, Soundgarden was one of the few who could claim to have seen it all. Compared to the biggest power players of grunge, the band got their start reasonably early, releasing their debut album years before the likes of Pearl Jam or Nirvana had even started. Although the band were an early bloomer in Seattle, their career ended after one final disastrous gig in Hawaii.
It’s not like the band didn’t see a stop coming. Throughout the recording of the album Down on the Upside, it was becoming clear that they had started to drift apart from each other, with Cornell wanting to do more experimental stuff in other projects. By the time they set foot on the stage in Hawaii, they were given the gig from Hell that became the final straw.
After working with faulty equipment throughout the show, bassist Ben Shepherd came back on for the encore only to find out that his bass wasn’t working properly. Throwing it in the air in frustration, Shepherd stormed off the stage, leaving Cornell to finish the show on his own for an acoustic encore. While the band released a statement about their disbandment a few weeks later, Cornell was already halfway to a solo career, eventually releasing his debut solo album Euphoria Morning a few years later.
Aerosmith
For all of the buzz garnered by the British Invasion, Aerosmith could hang with the best of their English counterparts. While both sides of the Atlantic loved blues rock, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry brought a healthy dose of boogie back into the equation, leading to songs that would become the template for arena-sized rock and roll. Once the final got those arena audiences they were looking for, Tyler and Perry decided to call it quits over a glass of spilt milk.
A few years prior to the band taking the stage in 1979, Tyler had started having problems with Perry’s wife, Elyssa, who he thought didn’t have the band’s best interests at heart. After Perry decided to stand up for his wife backstage, a huge brawl broke out between Tyler and Perry, stemming from an altercation between Elyssa and bassist Tom Hamilton’s wife where milk was thrown.
Even though the band cooled off, Perry knew that his wife being disrespected was the final straw, walking out of Aerosmith after that gig and moving on to start his solo joint, The Joe Perry Project, shortly afterward. Tyler may have tried taking the high road and moving on with replacement guitarist Jimmy Crespo, but the band were about to enter the darkest days of their career until Perry’s return for the album Done With Mirrors years later.
Everly Brothers
Every element of rock and roll harmony singing can be traced back to what The Everly Brothers started. Even though their songs were far from the energetic rock and roll most knew from Chuck Berry, hearing Phil and Don breaking into two-part harmony on tracks like ‘All I Have To Do Is Dream’ is a match made in musical heaven. Then again, like any brothers, that bickering side of the relationship got the better of them when they started hitting the bottle.
During one of their final tours in the 1970s, Don showed up to perform already off his face, stumbling through his performance and often screwing up major parts of their songs. In a fit of rage, Phil dropped his guitar and smashed it to pieces onstage, walking off for the rest of the show and bringing an end to the group’s hit-making days.
The duo did get a chance to redeem themselves later in life, with Paul Simon bringing them out to say goodbye to the world one last time when mending his relationship with Art Garfunkel. The chances of the group making an album again were slim, but the voices that helped build the choral sound of rock and roll at least got to shut the door of their careers the right way.
Black Sabbath
Talking about the lineup of Black Sabbath can always get a bit dicey. While many assume that the Ozzy-led version of the band is all that anyone cares about, some of their brightest moments come when other people are at the microphone, with legends like Glenn Hughes and Ian Gillan of Deep Purple sharing the stage with Tony Iommi on multiple occasions. Although Ronnie James Dio was the only one who could touch Osbourne’s legacy, any chance of Sabbath working under his name was dashed when they signed on for Ozzfest.
Since the festival was known as Osbourne’s personal festival with a bunch of supporting acts, Dio was personally insulted that he would have to play second to Osbourne’s solo act, which was formed off the back of Sabbath. Not wanting to share the stage, Dio refused to even show up, leading to Iommi asking Rob Halford of Judas Priest to sub in on vocals for most of the set.
Although the band members would eventually make amends and even record an album together, Sharon Osbourne would butt in over control of their name, electing to name the band Heaven and Hell to not take away from Osbourne’s star power. Despite the beautiful music that they made after the fact, Dio would never be associated with a Black Sabbath show up until his death in 2010.
Eagles
Listening to the Eagles often feels like spending 24 hours a day in the sunshine. The minute that a song like ‘Take It Easy’ or ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ comes on the radio, most fans are already sailing down the highway, feeling the wind in their hair and wanting to find new places they have never been before. While it was always Glenn Frey’s to capture that spirit in their music, he didn’t account for playing with Don Felder at a benefit gig.
After going through the lengthy tour for The Long Run, nobody wanted to see each other anymore until Senator Alan Cranston joined the group to perform a gig to help environmental causes. Not wanting to play a show for free, Felder made a passing comment at Cranston prior to the gig, leading to Frey getting into a fury once they took to the stage.
While they made it through the set, Felder and Frey could be heard hurling abuse towards each other throughout the show, each threatening to kick the other’s ass if they didn’t keep everything in line. After smashing his guitar, Felder stormed out of the venue, leading to Frey calling up the rest of the band a few days after the incident to say it was over. Anyone can have their reasons for not wanting to go on, but when that kind of verbal abuse happens onstage, you know you’ve got problems.
Oasis
It would probably be easier to throw a dart at any year that Oasis was active and figure out a good time that they were bound to break up. Even though the band revolved around Liam and Noel Gallagher’s constant tension, that kind of animosity towards one another was always going to lead to their eventual demise. Although the brothers managed to grin and bear it for decades, one show in Paris in 2009 was the moment when Noel had had enough.
Prior to the show, Liam had started mouthing off to the press, being convinced that Noel had talked to various journalists beforehand in an attempt to make him look bad. Hours before they were about to go, Noel walked into his dressing room to find his brother hurling an acoustic guitar around the room in a fit of rage.
After smashing it to pieces on the floor, Noel decided to cool off on the tour bus as Bloc Party took to the stage. Even though he could have finished the last two gigs, Noel felt that this was the last time that his brother would be a hindrance to his solo career, electing to leave the venue and cancel the rest of the tour dates. Just a few hours later, Noel took to social media to confirm the inevitable: after years of rock and roll brilliance, the Britpop legends had finally let their fighting get the better of them.
