Bottles, golf balls - and much, much worse...
Pritham Bhatia

10:11 14th March 2012

Not every festival performance is a success. Just ask some of the urine-soaked stars who have staggered off the stage at a festvial after failing to win over a crowd.

Perhaps the most unforgiving audiences is the Reading and Leeds crowd, and with the 2012 line-up announced this week, we take a look at some of the more unfortunate performances in festival history.

From a fake 'Foo-Fighters' performance, through to an angry Iggy Pop swearing to the crowd to 'that' Daphne and Celest booking, Gigwise gives smelly, bruised and sopping wet low-down on the bands that have been bottled and booed off festival stages the world over...

  • The Sex Pistols - Denmark's Roskilde Festival 1996. The Sex Pistols were immediately hailed with broken bottles and stones.

  • Green Day - Woodstock 1994. The event is also known as 'Mudstock' as Green Day's frontman Billie Joe Armstrong started shoving mud into his mouth after the crowd chucked mud at them their performance of 'Paper Lanterns'.

  • Justin Timberlake - bottled at Toronto Rocks festival in 2003 when he joined The Rolling Stones on stage.

  • Limp Bizkit - bottled at Hawthorne Race Course when supporting Metallica in 2003. After suffering through an abbreviated half-hour set in which he was pelted with plastic bottles, boos and chants of "F--- Fred Durst," the head Bizkit exploded in a torrent of profanity and stormed off the stage.

  • My Chemical Romance - Reading 2006. The band were pelted repeatedly by the audience throughout their set on the main stage. He introduced a track saying. "This song is called thanks for all the bottles, thanks for all the piss, thanks for all the golf balls, thanks for all the apples and thanks for all the sticky shit."

  • The Mars Volta - 2006 at Endfest. The band walked off stage after being pelted, in perfect Reading fashion, with bottles of piss.

  • Justin Bieber - bottled at the Jingle Ball Festival in Sacramento, December 2009.

  • Guns'n'Roses - Dublin Festival 2010. The band were over an hour late on stage. Scheduled to appear at around 9.15pm, they didn't arrive until 10.25pm, when the rainstorm of bottles appeared. Axl said: "All right, here's the deal: one more bottle, we go home. It's up to you," Needless the say, the band were sent home bottlefaced.

  • Lil Wayne - Stratford, London - 2008. When America's hottest rap star came to Stratford, he was dragged offstage after 23 minutes when the crowd refused to stop pelting copper coins at him.

  • Lethal Bizzle - 2008 Download Festival

  • Bring Me The Horizon - Reading 2008. Bottled when they replaced Slipknot last minute.

  • Iggy Pop and The Stooges - Metallic K.O, Michigan Palace 1974. During much of the performance, Iggy Pop sand while pieces of ice, eggs, beer bottles and jelly beans, among other things, are thrown at him in response to his audience-baiting.

  • The Plain White T's - Reading 2008. American alternative rock band The Plain White T's were bottled during the early stages of their set, with various people shouting profanities at the band. They ignored the abuse and completed their set.

  • Glasvegas - V Festival 2011. Glasvegas were forced to end their V Festival set early after crowd members repeatedly threw bottles and cans at them. According to online reaction from concert goers, the band only lasted for four songs before waking offstage during their set at Hylands Park in Chelmsford.

  • Oasis - Glasgow 1997. The band stormed offstage when a bottle was thrown from the crowd and hit the guitar played by bassist Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs. Bonehead put his instrument down and rushed over to lead singer Liam Gallagher who announced: "A bottle has bene thrown. We're not standing for it. Good night."

  • Odd Future - T In the Park 2011. Odd Future were dramatically bottled by the audience at T in the Park. The controversial hip-hop collective is fronted by notorious rapper Tyler the Creator, and were met by a torrent of missiles from an angry crowd.

  • Iron Maiden - Ozzfest 2005. Not long into the band's performance, the crowd bombarded the British metal icons with eggs, bottle caps, and ice. Frontman Bruce Dickinson reportedly urged audience members to break the arms of the egg-hurling delinquents, but the yolks kept on being hurled.

  • Cradle of Filth - Bloodstock Open Air Festival 2009. Cradle of Filth were forced to cancel their headline performance at Bloodstock after guitarist Paul Allender was hit on his head by shoes thrown from the audience.

  • Steel Pulse - Reading 1983. The Reggae act suffered possibly the most vicious bottling-off ever seen at Reading. The band disappeared within moments of appearing on stage under an avalanche of missiles launched by the temporarily united ranks of punks and rockers waiting to see The Stranglers.

  • Meatloaf - Reading 1998. Meat Loaf was forced to retreat 20 minutes into his set after taking a full 2-litre cider bottle in the face.

  • Daphne & Celeste - Reading 2000. The gruesome twosome were scheduled to appear on the main stage after bullying their manager to get them on the bill. They were bottled and booed off after only two songs.

  • The FF'er's - Reading 2008. A crowd of approximately 3,000 people attended the BBC Introducing Stage at Reading to see unsigned band 'The FF'er's" following rumours that it would actually be a secret Foo Fighters gig. The band were subjected to a large amount of abuse from the audience, including several bottles launched at the band.

  • Panic at the Disco! - Reading 2006. The lead singer Brendon Urie was struck in the face with a plastic bottle, forcing the band to stop mid-song as he lay on the floor. Urie received treatment from his road crew for several minutes, before the band continued from the point at which their song was interrupted.

  • 50 Cent - Reading 2004. The U.S rapper was inundated with bottles of beer - and piss. He lasted nearly 20 minutes before finally throwing his microphone into the crowd in anger then storming off.

  • Good Charlotte - Reading 2003. Good Charlotte stopped their set 20 minutes shirt and encouraged the crowd to throw bottles all at the same time after the count of three, after being pelted by them continuously during their set.


Photo: WENN.com