‘Every night I thought I’d be killed’: The miserable reality of being a support act
On-stage disasters from down the years.
Live concerts can be the very definition of glitz and glamour – but behind the curtain, the reality can be extremely grim. Just ask these support acts.
Imagine it: having to get up on stage and perform at your best when you’re not even the main act that the thousands of people in the audience came to see.
Earlier this month, a singer-songwriter revealed the ‘disastrous’ end to what should have been the night of her life: supporting Coldplay on a worldwide tour.
Unfortunately, that singer – Indian artist Jasleen Royal, who was booed off stage – isn’t the only support act to get a raw deal from an unforgiving crowd.
Have you ever had bottles of urine thrown at you, been brought to tears in front of thousands, or had an axe thrown at your head? Well, these guys have.
Here are some of the very worst stories about having a bad night when you’re a support act, with tales from every level of the live music industry.
Jasleen Royal Jasleen Royal was booed by Coldplay fans in January 2025 (Picture: @jasleenroyal)Jasleen Royal, 33, is an Indian singer-songwriter who’s been in the business for just over a decade and got the chance of a lifetime when she was asked to support Coldplay on a worldwide tour in January 2025.
But things started badly and went downhill from there, with Jasleen’s set plagued by sound issues and technical problems that derailed the show.
Speaking in a documentary called Dare To Dream, Jasleen revealed that her in-ear monitors malfunctioned, leaving her unable to hear herself.
Jasleen, who sings in several Indian languages and was billed as Coldplay’s ‘mystery guest’ on the night, was sadly drowned out by boos from the crowd.
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‘There’s a lot of pressure. I’ll die. I swear I’ll die. I’m still processing. There’s a lot to process. I don’t want people to think that she did not deserve to be here, or: “Why is she here? We just want Coldplay”,’ she added.
Later on that night, Jasleen was brought back out on-stage by Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, and the two performed a duet – a decision that fans also questioned after the concert was over.
Prince Prince had food hurled at him by Rolling Stones fans in 1981 (Picture: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty)Prince died in April 2016, and the world of pop is still in mourning. The legendary singer-songwriter and producer was one of the most influential and successful pop musicians of all time.
But back in 1981, before he’d scored any top 40 hits in the UK, he was treated brutally by fans of The Rolling Stones while supporting the rock band on their Tattoo You tour.
You might wonder why a pop musician who utilised funk and dance in his music would end up supporting the ‘Dad rock’ of Mick Jagger & co. – and it turns out the crowd was similarly confused.
People began hurling food towards the stage, with bottles and cans soon following. Prince’s bassist that night, Mark Brown, said: ‘I got hit in the shoulder with a bag of fried chicken; then my guitar got knocked out of tune by a large grapefruit that hit the tuning keys.’
Gig promoter Bill Graham came onto the stage to diffuse the situation, but failed, with the support slot ending after four songs and Prince reportedly leaving the venue in tears.
Prince vowed to fight the negativity at the Stones’ next scheduled concert two days later, but received similar results and never supported them again.
Texas ‘Do you think it’s alright to throw bottles at a wee lassie up here on stage?’ (Picture: Gie Knaeps/Getty)Scottish pop-rock band Texas have scored 13 top 10 hits in the UK to date, as well as three number one albums, but once upon a time they were just another new act trying to make their way.
After the sudden success of their debut album, Southside – and its lead single, I Don’t Want a Lover – the band were transported to stardom and invited to support fellow Scot rockers Simple Minds on tour in 1989.
But things didn’t go well, with the band reportedly having plastic bottles of urine thrown at them – not just at a gig in Cardiff, but at Wembley Stadium as well.
Lead singer Sharleen Spiteri stood defiantly on stage, reportedly asking the crowd: ‘Do you think it’s alright to throw bottles at a wee lassie up here on stage?’
More bottles were thrown after one of them apparently hit Sharleen on the head, with more and more objects being chucked until the band left the stage.
After that tour, it took another eight years for Texas to repeat the success of I Don’t Want a Lover – but they had the last laugh, becoming one of the biggest-selling British acts of all time during the 2000s.
Jimi Hendrix Who thought it was a good idea to pair Jimi Hendix with The Monkees? (Picture: Peter Timmullstein/Getty)Back in the 1960s, Jimi Hendrix and The Monkees were two of the biggest acts in the world – but to say they were part of two very different scenes is an understatement.
Somehow, the two acts were billed together for a tour in 1967. To this day, nobody knows the true story of who organised the concerts… which didn’t last long.
Hendrix – who died in 1970 aged 27 and was known for his wild and unpredictable stage persona – was apparently left playing ‘parents and young kids’.
While the early gigs on the tour went okay, the shows became increasingly ‘farcical’ to those who remember, and Hendrix apparently began to feel agitated by the disapproving crowds.
Hendrix was quoted shortly afterwards by the NME, saying: ‘Some parents who brought their young kids complained that our act was vulgar. We decided it was just the wrong audience. I think they’re replacing me with Mickey Mouse.’
Ween Ween were defended by the act they were supporting (Picture: Austin Chronicle/Getty)Ween’s experimental approach won them many fans, including influential hardcore punk frontman Henry Rollins – but it also turned quite a lot of people off.
By 1990, Henry had left his band Black Flag and was touring solo around America, and he invited Ween to support him for a few nights, having been a fan for some time.
But after Ween played a few songs, the crowd was beginning to turn against them – and that forced Henry to take drastic action before he was due on stage.
He came out and addressed the ‘mixed reaction,’ stating: ‘[Ween] came out of a total musical vacuum, out of total darkness. There is one ray of light, and it’s Ween. I know there are a few of you who don’t like Ween – my suggestion is that you start liking them now.
‘[One day] you’ll be able to say you saw them before their rocket to stardom. There will always be detractors, there will always be someone to deny true genius.’
In a way, Henry was right. While Ween never quite got on the ‘rocket to stardom,’ they did have some moderate chart success on both sides of the Atlantic through the 1990s and early 2000s.
Suicide If it’s a choice between plastic bottles and axes – pick the bottles… (Picture; Roberta Bayley/Redferns)In the late 1970s, The Clash were one of the biggest bands in the country and riding high off the success of their second album, Give Em Enough Rope.
To celebrate, the legendary punk band decided to use their UK tour of 1978 to showcase some artists they’d recently discovered and liked the sound of.
One of the groups chosen for the support slot was pioneering electro-punk duo Suicide, whose independently released self-titled debut album from 1977 had flown under the radar.
It’s safe to say that Glasgow’s punks didn’t take too kindly to Suicide’s raw electronics, with someone actually throwing an axe at the band while they were performing.
They told The Guardian in 2008: ‘Every show felt like World War Three in those days. Every night I thought I was going to get killed. The longer it went on, the more I’d be thinking, “Odds are it’s going to be tonight”.’
‘I guess we were too punk even for the punk crowd. They hated us. I taunted them, saying “You have to live through us to get to the main band”. That’s when the axe came towards my head, missing me by a whisker.’
Bring Me the Horizon Bring Me the Horizon got used to being bottled off stage in the 2000s (Picture: Jo Hale/Getty)These days, Bring Me the Horizon are one of the biggest rock bands in the world, bringing their brand of alternative metal to arenas everywhere.
But 20 years ago, around the release of debut album Count Your Blessings, they were a bunch of teenagers with floppy emo hair and skinny jeans – and make no mistake, metalheads hated them.
They got a dose of just how hated they were when they supported American heavy metal group Killswitch Engage on their 2007 tour of Europe.
Bring Me the Horizon guitarist Lee Malia told Metal Injection in 2022: ‘There was gatekeeping – [people said] we didn’t fit or we were trying to be metal and all this stuff.
‘When we used to do support tours, I’d say 80% of people hated us,’ adding that the group were ‘booed and bottled’ on more than once occasion during the late 2000s.
He continued: ‘When we first got started [as a band], we got hit really bad with the metal guys hating us and giving us grief all the time, but it is what is.’
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