Rock and roll and punk offer plenty of scope for wild antics. The drama and strength of the music lend themselves perfectly to that. We’ve also grown accustomed to seeing more spectacular elements in live shows.
Maybe it’s just me, but over the years, those may have increased in scale, gotten more theatrical, and delivered huge theatrical scenes, but still, maybe missing something. They are expected to be massively followed and lose some impact that way.
They have lost some of the on-the-spot drama, innovation, rawness, and eccentricity we saw in previous years. Some of the wildest antics came from rock and punk acts from the late 1960s to the 1980s. They were usually more spontaneous and of the moment, delivering a much bigger impact as a result. Here are five great examples from those stars of that time.
5 of the wildest on-stage antics from rock and punk stars
Iggy Pop
Some have suggested it was a sign of the coming of the punk rebellion. Some reckon it was just wild enthusiasm on stage spurred by the crowd. Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in between. It was an iconic moment and was amazingly captured on film. Yes, it’s Iggy Pop and that peanut butter moment.
The Stooges were on the bill at the 1970 Cincinnati Pop Music Festival. Iggy had been in and out of the audience during the performance, but things took a strange turn on one of his returns to the stage. Someone in the audience had handed him a tub of peanut butter. (You know how you always pack one for a show, right?)
He smeared it over his naked chest, threw some into the crowd, and stood proud and wild-eyed, staring and pointing into the crowd with his silver-gloved hand. Then he fell back into the audience again.
Complete madness, mayhem from the stage, the band ripping into an excellent performance of “1970” while Iggy Pop was outdoing even Iggy Pop. It’s undoubtedly one of the top mad moments from him and the band.
Ozzy Osbourne
You can't have a list of wild stage moments without Ozzy Osbourne being included. Of course, it's his infamous biting of a bat during a performance. This was at a show in Des Moines, Iowa, on Osbourne's solo Diary of a Madman Tour in 1982 to support his second solo album.
A fan, later named Mark Neal, had taken a dead bat with him to the gig, intending to throw it on stage. Well, at least he had a reason for packing the bat in his bag.
In explaining what happened, Osbourne said he thought it was a toy bat. He may have a point, but you wouldn't expect a real one. Well, maybe it’s not that odd at an Osbourne gig. But anyway, he bit the head, getting quite surprised when it wasn't fake. Does he regret it?
It added to his infamy, but he didn't enjoy the rabies shots he had to undergo in the three weeks afterwards. He may have been quoted as saying it tasted salty, but Osbourne has also admitted he hates getting questions about the bat. It’s hard to avoid those even now.
Alice Cooper
When it comes to macabre, grotesque, shocking, or electrifying moments on stage, you can’t look much past Alice Cooper. The problem is which of the many examples to pick from. Cooper’s stage act featured a variety of shocking moments.
From impaling baby dolls’ heads with a sword, wild sparks from an electric chair, and a gallows for a hanging stunt, Cooper has had plenty of these examples to draw from. They may lean more towards the theatricals, but the shock value when he first used them was tremendous.
If we take just one, though, it’s the guillotine he introduced to his stage show in 1973. There is a lot of preparation, safety measures, trickery, and it’s outrageously shocking when the head hits the basket. No wonder the guillotine has been a regular feature of his set over the years.
It was designed and built by Canadian magician James Randi and based on a stunt by magician Will Rock from the 1930s. Using that design, the real shock when first seen is that Cooper's head ends up in the basket. I’m not going to give away the trickery or stage magic that helps that happen. Go see the show or watch a video to try and work it out. There are a few unofficial versions on YouTube around.
Keith Moon - The Who
The Who have also had quite a few mad and iconic moments on stage. Their trashing and smashing of amps and guitars at The Monterey Festival in 1967 is legendary and has been repeated by them and many others since. How to do that, though? Hold my beer, says Keith Moon.
Not long after that festival, The Who appeared on US TV on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. The band was given the licence to go wild, and Moon took that heavily on board. At his drum kit, he arranged with the studio technicians to have a small cannon filled with theatrical flash powder for stage effects.
Except Moon, being Moon, secretly added more powder, a lot more, as it happens, as much as ten times the original quantity has been spoken of.
Towards the end of the band’s second song, “My Generation,” they assault their instruments, and Moon kicks over the drum kit. The cannon goes off with a colossal explosion, much bigger than expected. Roger Daltrey may have been in on the secret as he’d backed away before it went off. No one had told Pete Townshend, as he looked stunned and had his hair set alight.
He still reckons the blast brought on his early deafness. Moon had a few cuts from a disintegrating cymbal that needed treatment, and bless him, John Entwistle just carried on like nothing unusual had happened. With Keith Moon around him regularly, perhaps it wasn't that shocking.
The Clash
An iconic movement on stage perfectly captured forever. It’s also very appropriate to follow on from The Who. If you think of their London Calling album, you now have the moment. Bassist Paul Simonon wrecking his Fender Precision bass live on stage at the Palladium in New York.
It was a 1979 gig by the band, and the audience loved the show. The Clash aren't the sort of band where you sit, watch, and politely applaud. But it seems no one had explained that to the venue’s bouncers. They were persistently getting audience members to sit down for the show.
Simonon was aware of this and took his frustration at the bouncers out on his favoured instrument on the stage. It was caught on camera by photographer Pennie Smith and was later used for that brilliant album cover.