5 Rock Concerts That Turned Into Hilarious Disasters

As the band's co-founder Peter Hook explained in an interview:

"What happened was that every club we played in was run by a dodgy promoter in some dodgy part of town. We managed to play in the red light districts of Halifax, Huddersfield, Leeds, Manchester and probably London as well. The police had asked the public to note down the license plate numbers of any strange cars in the area, so they could investigate them later. It was very frightening -- they basically asked you straight out if you were the Ripper."

Although Hook handled his interrogation fine, the band's drummer, Stephen Morris, came off so suspicious that he was taken to the local police station for further questioning. It's always the drummer, isn't it?

In the end, his idiocy resulted in him severing a bunch of tendons, nerves, an artery, and almost an entire finger (he can't stretch it out, even today). On the plus side, he never saw another jar of Grey Poupon backstage again, which seems like a minor win to us, but we're no rock gods.

The gig, held on July 15, attracted over 200,000 fans to Venice (normal population: 60,000), and they did what rock fans tend to do and made a mess. Although the show didn't knock any buildings down, the city was left with apocalyptic levels of garbage. Over 300 tons of the stuff, to be precise, along with 500 cubic meters of beer cans and bottles.

Once the city recovered, citizens demanded blood ... or at least the resignation of the mayor, despite his protests that he was strong-armed into the deal by the local state-run television network. It was no good, however, and he was forced to resign -- alongside the entire city council.

As revolutions go, it's hard to top this one.

While rehearsing for a concert at London's Wembley Stadium in 1988, Cooper and his band were practicing that ol' staple the fake hanging. After Cooper put his head into the noose and started play-acting strangulation, the piano wire that was holding him up broke, leaving with him with the minor problem of actually being hanged ... at least until a roadie realized he wasn't just putting his all into the routine and cut him down.

As he admitted in an interview, the wire snapped because he never bothered to check or replace it between shows. "Everything has its stress limit and after doing so many shows, I never thought about changing the wire. You know, I figured it'll last forever."

Alice Cooper: Not the bastion of workplace safety we'd always assumed.

Lines for those potties lasted upwards of 45 minutes to an hour. As you'd expect, fans started pulling a Pink Floyd and relieved themselves all over the stadium's fences. The Killers finished their set and left the stage to discover the massive social media mess that their production staff had created, with some demanding full refunds on account of missing so much of the show.

Adam Wears is on Twitter and Facebook, and has a newsletter about depressing history that you should definitely subscribe to.

Grab a copy of Guitar for Dummies and maybe one day your life can fly off the rails like this.

Support your favorite Cracked writers with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

For more, check out 4 Famous Musicians (Who Stole Their Biggest Hits) - The Spit Take:

You following us on Facebook would be MUSIC to our ears. (Not sorry.)