Photo by Brandon Johnson (@bjohnsonxar)
Audio By Carbonatix
Morgan Wallen’s piano-flipping reaction to technical problems at his May 29 show at Empower Field is hardly the first example of a headliner going off-script in an embarrassing way at a Colorado performance. Indeed, this state has a lengthy history of stars either losing their shit during a show or making questionable choices in a very public way.
Granted, many notable Colorado concert meltdowns had more to do with audiences than artists. Among the most prominent examples is the June 10, 1971, riot at Red Rocks during a Jethro Tull gig. The events that led to the tear-gassing of the amphitheater were eventually traced to attempted gate-crashers, not the band — but nonetheless, rock music was banned at the venue for the better part of five years.
Other entertainers suffered the ignominy of being booed off Colorado stages — and not all of them handled it well.
Touring comedians have been particularly susceptible to such rejection. After a barely coherent Nick Swardson departed just twenty minutes into his set at a Beaver Creek nightspot in 2024 (he blamed his condition on a combination of booze, edibles and high altitude), Westword published a roundup of other yuksters who’d cratered here, including Ralphie May, George Lopez and Katt Williams, whose 2012 turn at Denver’s Bellco Theater found him dealing with a heckler by wading into the crowd and yelling, “You’re a pussy!”
Music acts have had more than their share of negative attention from boo-birds, too. Onetime Westword contributor Eric Peterson, writing on the Ramble Colorado site, recalled seeing both Alice in Chains and Dread Zeppelin having to split early from concerts in which they served as opening acts for groups that fans wanted to see a lot more than them, and I was amazed when Sonic Youth didn’t do likewise at a 1991 McNichols Arena appearance in support of Neil Young and Crazy Horse. The hatred directed at Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore and their cohorts was positively epic.
Assorted online memories of a 1982 Folsom Field extravaganza featuring The Who suggest that John Mellencamp, then in his Johnny Cougar phase, wasn’t nearly as stalwart about the reaction his warm-up efforts triggered. Multiple reports suggest that he fled unhappily after just a couple of songs.
Other controversies are tougher to categorize. Take the online backlash over Snoop Dogg’s decision to let a child get down a few feet from a pole dancer at his 4/20 Red Rocks double-bill with Ice Cube at Red Rocks this year. He deftly redirected the vitriol to the kid’s parents. Nice strategy!
The following five examples of stars behaving badly in these parts — two of which I witnessed personally — are a lot less ambiguous, and much funnier. Enjoy
R.E.M.
July 2, 1984
The Bamboo Bar, Hotel Colorado, Glenwood Springs
Back in this particular dark age, I was a staffer at KMSA-FM, the college-radio outlet affiliated with Mesa State College in Grand Junction (now Colorado Mesa University). Because the station had helped promote the show, a slew of DJs were given free tickets — but after making the 90-minute drive to Glenwood Springs, the venue’s management told one member of our group that he couldn’t attend because he was underage. In the end, though, the powers-that-be decided he could stay as long as we positioned ourselves directly in front of the stage, so they could make sure he didn’t secretly sip any alcohol. What a sacrifice.
The first band on was Dream Syndicate, a well-named purveyor of goosed-up psychedelia that everyone on hand listened to while cross-legged on the floor. But this was unacceptable to R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe. “Get up!” he ordered. “The last time we played at a show where everyone was sitting down was when we opened for [folk singer-songwriter] Steve fucking Forbert!”
Eventually, we collectively conformed to Stipe’s edict, but only after a song or so of contemptuous stare-downs. The venom continued with the encore, when the band came out eating watermelon and casually spit seeds at us.
Jane’s Addiction
December 6, 1990
Mammoth Events Center
One of my favorite concert memories ever, if only for the karma. Mammoth Events Center subsequently became the Fillmore Auditorium, a terrific place to see and hear music. But prior to the transition, it was a legendary shithole with acoustics that would have had to improve substantially to be described as merely terrible. So it’s understandable that Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell was churlish when, in the midst of a song, he was pegged in the head with a shoe hurled by an attendee.
Farrell immediately launched into an angry diatribe that ended with a threat to leave if anyone else aimed footwear in his direction. After a pause, an absolute torrent of shoes flew toward the stage.
To his credit, Farrell didn’t storm off. Instead, he and his bandmates essentially acknowledged defeat and started playing again, and they sounded amazing. A happy ending for everyone.
Smash Mouth
June 14, 2015
Taste of Fort Collins, Washington Park, Fort Collins
Smash Mouth vocalist Steve Harwell shouldn’t have been surprised after he was hit by bread at an event focused on eating — but he most certainly was. Here’s his verbal response, courtesy of Stereogum.
“You throw one more piece of shit on fuckin’ stage, I’m gonna come find your ass, I’m gonna beat your ass, whoever the fuck you are out there. You wanna be a badass? Come up here. Come on. Come be a badass up here. Come on! Come onstage! Come onstage, badass! Come on! Come onstage! You bring your ass onstage, whoever’s throwing shit at me! I’ma tell you right now, I will beat the fuck out of you. OK? You’re a pussy punk bitch. OK? You’re ruining the show for thousands of people right now. Because I’m going to walk offstage, and guess what? You’re paying for it, motherfucker. OK? Come on, somebody throw one more thing at me right now! I’m gonna find you. [Security restrains him.] If you’re a man and you throw something at me right now, I’m gonna walk out there, and I’m gonna beat the fucking shit out of you. You little pussy bitches. Little pussy bitches.”
Watch and enjoy.
T-Pain
February 17, 2019
B’Nai B’Rith Youth Organization (BBYO) Convention, Denver
T-Pain had been rapping for about half an hour at the BBYO event for Jewish youth when he was smacked in the face by a beach ball and quickly pulled the plug.
Afterward, he ranted about what happened in a nine-minute Instagram post. An excerpt shared by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reads: “I’m not about to sit here and get disrespected constantly for a fucking hour. Let me tell you something, I’m the motherfucking goat…. I don’t give a fuck what you little motherfuckers are talking about, y’all 15, 16, you’re not in my demographic.”
Click to see a brief video clip of the beach ball strike that prompted this tirade.
Burna Boy
November 12, 2025
Red Rocks, Denver
Burna Boy is one of the brightest talents in the modern African music movement — and he damn sure isn’t going to let anyone dim his light.
At Red Rocks, Burna Boy noticed that a young woman in a prime seat was asleep, and he took her slumber as a sign of disrespect. The Tab quotes him as saying, “When I stand up here and I see you over there with your girl sleeping in front of me, it pisses me the fuck off. So please take her the fuck home. Fast.”
Here’s the video:
This wasn’t an empty threat. Burna Boy refused to crank up the tuneage again until the couple vacated. But the woman in question didn’t take the ejection quietly. In her own TikTok video, she said, “Burna Boy could’ve handled that situation better than that. He had no idea what was going on with me and he didn’t even care to ask if I was okay. I have been mentally, physically and emotionally drained since my daughter’s dad passed away and I came to his show to put a smile on my face after everything that has happened.”
She added: “He took forever to come out and I was tired. We paid to be there and if I wanted to close my eyes and sleep, I can do that. It is my money that I wasted, not his. And for all of you in the comment section being nasty, how about showing kindness because you never know what someone is going through.”
