4 Shows Where the Crowd Threw Too Much Stuff at the Stage [VIDEOS] NSFW
Hopefully the bread-throwers have learned their lesson.
If they haven't hopefully the Taste of Fort Collins will need to add just a few security personnel for next year. Truly, though, I'm not worried about this becoming a trend.
It's not the first time the crowd has thrown things at the performer. In the old school, if the performers weren't up to snuff, they'd be pelted with rotten vegetables and eggs. Panties and bras have historically found their way onto some stages, and the stories of joints and other drugs being thrown at the stage of more psychedelic and trippy acts are part of music lore.
Next phase? New wave? Dance craze? Anyways, it's still rock and roll to us, even when the crowd is throwing bread at a band that doesn't sing "Baby, I'm-a Want You'.
Since the tossing of projectiles has come up though, here are a few shows across history where people threw things at the performers.
- 1
Green Day - Woodstock 1994
Green Day turned in a legendarily fun performance at a festival that was reported to have had a bit of an aggro edge to it. As a band, they were climbing to the top of the world, but weren't yet the phenom they would later become when they took the stage at Saugerties, New York in the 25th anniversary Woodstock show.
It dumped rain during the festival, turning the grounds into one big slip and slide. During the Green Day show, kids starting tearing up the grass and hucking it on stage.
If you start watching as they launch into Longview at about 11:45 into the NOT SAFE FOR WORK OR KIDS VIDEO, you can feel the energy in the crowd start to crescendo. At 12:06, if you look closely, you can see something fly up into the foreground of the video shot.
By 17:20, you can see the turf popping straight up and down. At 22 minutes, it's basically a free for all.
What does Green Day do? Play their set with such intensity that it's like they are glad the crowd is going insane. Even when a huge clod of dirt hits the center of Billy Joe's guitar in the middle of "When I Come Around", all he does is smile and keep playing (19:24). Very punk rock.
- 2
Tom Jones - Every show he has ever played
Tom Jones has been on the receiving end of things being thrown onto the stage for decades.
The thing is, most men wouldn't protest what the female sections of the crowd throw.
Watch at 1:42 in the video. That's a bra (and possibly a large one) landing at his feet.
- 3
Snowballs Thrown at Santa at Philadelphia Eagles football game
Did Philly fans really throw snowballs at Santa?
Yes, they did. Is it on YouTube? No, but there are first person accounts of the incident from people who were there, and the man who was Santa on that fateful day back in 1968.
Frank Olivo didn't plan to be Santa that day, but he'll never forget it.
- 4
Smash Mouth - Taste of Fort Collins 2015
Yes, bread is soft. No, his words were not. Any amount of anything thrown at the stage is really too much. He would have had every right, probably even contractually, to walk off the stage. Instead, he stayed, challenged various members of the crowd to a fight and finished what was probably a pretty icky feeling set.
People, make sandwiches next time. And eat them. Don't throw them.