4 Legendary Bands You Won’t Believe Were Booed off Stage

It doesn’t matter if you’re the greatest rock star of all time. Sometimes, an audience is just not going to love you. Whether huge rock bands have taken to the stage to give their all or were notably not on their A-game, crowds have booed at even the greatest rock outfits of all time. Let’s take a look at a few famous rock bands that were booed off stage at some point in their careers.

1. The Beatles

This is a pretty surprising example of famous rock bands that got booed off stage. If you were around during Beatlemania, you know how dedicated and obsessed fans were at their live shows.

Unfortunately, John Lennon made quite a few Christians mad by saying the band was bigger than Jesus. During a tour of the American South, a member of the audience let a firecracker loose in the middle of one of The Beatles’ sets. The Fab Four thought one of them had been shot and were visibly shaken. Angry attendees also threw fruit and debris from the balcony of the venue, while others tossed used flashbulbs at the stage.

2. Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper is still touring and thrilling fans today. But at one point in his career, he wasn’t exactly loved for his on-stage antics and unique brand of shock rock. Even during his “milder” early years, listeners were not digging him.

Back in the 1960s, music fans wanted to hear psychedelic symphonies. They didn’t want to see a man dressed up as a clown. Cooper was often considered one of the most ”unpopular” music acts in Los Angeles during the Summer of Love era, and it didn’t really have much to do with him. He was just a little bit ahead of his time.

According to his manager Shep Gordon, Cooper once cleared a room of listeners within five minutes and began ranting about how much the crowd disliked him. The performance was awful, but Gordon was intrigued and decided to be his band’s manager. The rest is history.

3. Guns N’ Roses

Guns N’ Roses had its ups and downs through the years, and it’s one of many now-legendary bands who were booed off stage. During the Use Your Illusion Tour, the band performed with Metallica. The famous pyrotechnic accident happened and James Hetfield had to be rushed to the hospital.

Guns N’ Roses tried to save the day, but Axl Rose had a sore throat. Only about five songs into their set, Rose cut the set short because of “issues with his monitor”. This angered the crowd, who were already not happy about the band’s set, leading to a riot that ended with police intervention.

4. Nickelback

Whether you love them or hate them, it’s hard to imagine a crowd actually hating a Nickelback set so much that they boo them off stage. That’s precisely what happened in Portugal during the band’s heyday. People in the crowd started throwing rocks at the band, and Chad Kroeger chewed them out. When a rock smacked him in the head, Kroeger flipped the audience the bird and cut the set short.

Photo by Central Press

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