(Credits: Far Out / Alamy / Bent Rej / dr_zoidberg)
Playing music onstage is far from the walk in the park that people make it out to be.
Every fan who doesn’t know any better might think that all anyone needs to do is sing a glorified karaoke of their own song and manage to get people dancing. But if you look at the energy that Freddie Mercury and Mick Jagger put out every time they played onstage, it was about much more than just vocal ability; they needed to make sure everyone was having a fantastic time.
However, artists like Patti Smith found out that things can go a little haywire when the subtle details aren’t in place.
There are many moving pictures in any great rock and roll show, and the moment things start to go wrong is normally when everyone’s heart jumps into their throat onstage. It should be about having fun half the time people are playing onstage, but whenever they face moments where everything goes wrong, it can be a life or death situation when someone gets hit with something from the audience or ends up going up in flames.
But not every show on this list has to end with blood and broken bones. Sometimes a show can drain all the life force out of a group without anyone realising it, and even if no one onstage got hurt, the drive might not be there anymore or their creative muse that they relied on for so many years completely disappears.
That doesn’t mean that these artists didn’t eventually make their own recoveries from their respective incidents, but this was the moment when most of their careers were put on life support. They could still continue to perform if they wanted to, but there was bound to be a different approach if they decided to get back onstage.
Five shows that almost ended artists’ careers
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