Five times bands were upstaged on their own tour
Arguably, one of music’s most difficult and thankless tasks is being the opening act. If you do your job in line with what the headline band would like, you would play a mediocre set and warm up the crowd, but they’re not satisfying gigs. If you do like Kiss, AC/DC, and other bands on this list managed, you win the crowd over and completely upstage the headliner, which is a more fun gig but means you probably won’t be booked again.
Some bands abandon all caution and go out on stage to deliver the best possible performance. As a result, they end up winning over fans and completely upstaging every band that they play with. It might be embarrassing for the headliner, but the bands willing to embrace their support slots wholeheartedly are also the bands that go down in history as some of the best live acts out there.
Thanks to merging genres, unbelievable pyrotechnics, unbelievable stage presence, and simply a general sound that was difficult for people to ignore, many famous bands are well and truly able to win over audiences who didn’t originally come out to see them. They have also upstaged some true icons in their pursuit of new fans and exposure.
Here are some of the most iconic times bands have upstaged headliners when acting as the support artist.
Support bands who upstaged the headliner:
Black Sabbath by Kiss
When you consider the music of Black Sabbath and Kiss, there is no escaping the fact that Black Sabbath have gone down in history as the superior. As the inventors of heavy metal and one of the greatest musical representations of their surroundings, Sabbath’s ability to turn pain and hopelessness into artistry was like no other.
That being said, when it came to live shows, Kiss beat Black Sabbath hands down as their over-the-top nature and use of pyrotechnics captured the hearts of rock fans around the world. “Kiss was the first to use pyro,” said Geezer Butler, reminiscing about when they went on tour together, “You’ve never seen that. I mean, the shock of that. And they were supporting us, so they weren’t even headlining […] It was tough to follow them. We went on just as an ordinary band, no effects or anything, and everybody else still had their mouths wide open from seeing Kiss.”
Aerosmith by Mothers Finest
Aerosmith was always happy to hit the road and bring their exciting, flamboyant music to crowds around the world. Steven Tyler was a natural frontman, and many of the fans they accumulated were the result of their gigs. However, when they took Mothers Finest on tour, they found themselves being well and truly upstaged.
Mothers Finest didn’t just make rock music; they broke down the walls surrounding the genre and introduced other styles of music, such as funk, soul and disco, to it. It was completely new to audiences, and the inventive nature of their sound blew people away. As a result, any band following them were doomed to be the second best.
Rainbow by AC/DC
AC/DC are one of the most famous rock bands in the world, despite their albums being similar in tone. Their live show and the gut-wrenching rawness that AC/DC had were met more positively by audiences than the headliner they were supporting Rainbow. Angus Young’s approach to playing was received better than Ritchie Blackmore’s sophisticated style. The band’s bassist, Bob Daisley, picked up on this.
“Maybe he [Ritchie] felt a little threatened or something,” he said, reflecting on the tour, “I don’t know because they used to always go down well. It was only a few shows that they did with us where they opened up for us.”
David Bowie by Nine Inch Nails
David Bowie was always an artist willing to push himself creatively, which meant branching out into different genres and playing in front of various audiences. However, he may have taken things a step too far when he decided to merge audiences with Nine Inch Nails for his 1995 Outside Tour. The Nine Inch Nails were seeing huge success at the time, and most crowds were more interested in seeing them.
“I personally did like the combination of NIN and me, but my fans didn’t. Bad luck! It also was an extremely young audience, between about 12 and 17 years old,” recalled Bowie, “My starting point was simply: I’ve just made an adventurous album, what can I do now to turn the concerts as adventurous […] I knew it would be hard to captivate them by music they never heard, by an artist whose name was the only familiar thing.”
Ozzy Osbourne by Metallica
Despite being one of the leading voices in all things rock and the Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne was completely upstaged when he took a young Metallica on tour with him. The band have always had an addictive heavy sound, but in the early days, this was a lot more unhinged and raw, which massively appealed to the heavy metal fans in the crowd.
One of Osbourne’s band members, Jake E Lee, reminisced about Metallica on the tour. “They were heavy as shit,” he said, “They were angry, there was nothing polished or pretty about them. I thought that was awesome. Especially that Ultimate Sin tour.”
