Bottling is an action where a concert audience throws various objects at the performers onstage. This generally happens when one act in the lineup is of a completely different genre from the rest of the performing artists, especially festivals where the majority of bands are related to heavy metal and punk rock music styles, or when the performing band in question has a poor reception among dedicated fans of the genre.
While bottling generally involves empty or full bottles of water, it is also common for bottles to contain urine. Other items, such as garden furniture, mud, fireworks, broken glass, shoes, dead animals, and molotov cocktails (unlighted and lighted), have also been recorded as thrown items.
Below is a list of bottling incidents by decade and year.
1970s Metallic K.O. is an infamous live recording by The Stooges: during much of the performance, Iggy Pop sings while pieces of ice, eggs, beer bottles, jelly beans, and various other objects are thrown at him in response to his audience-baiting. In the essay "Iggy Pop: Blowtorch in Bondage", critic Lester Bangs calls the album a "documentation of the Iggy holocaust at its most nihilistically out of control." He describes the Stooges' concert he attended that immediately preceded the Metallic K.O. performances:
On 27 January 1973 while performing at the Grand Hall in Kilmarnock, Scotland, The Sweet were driven offstage by bottling, inspiring the band to write The Ballroom Blitz. Ten-Cent Beer Night—On June 4, 1974, during a game between the Texas Rangers and the Cleveland Indians at Cleveland Stadium, unruly and drunken fans repeatedly disrupted the game and, after the Indians tied the game, invaded the field and threw bottles and other objects, including hot dogs, lit firecrackers, radio batteries and folding chairs. Both the Rangers and the Indians sought refuge in their clubhouses. The Indians forfeited the game to the Rangers. On June 3, 1977, restless fans threw rocks and beer bottles at Led Zeppelin when a concert in Tampa, Florida, was ended early due to a severe thunderstorm—even though the tickets said "rain or shine"—resulting in a small riot that left over 100 injured due to crowd crushing. In 1978, AC/DC were bottled on stage at the Seattle Center Coliseum after Angus Young got onto Bon Scott's shoulders and walked into the audience, but the band continued playing after this incident. The Ramones were booed and pelted with various objects, including sandwiches and bottles, at the Canadian World Music Festival in Toronto in July 1979, with the abuse only ending after Johnny Ramone flipped off the crowd six songs into the set. Disco Demolition Night—On July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, fans during an anti-disco rally before the second game of a Detroit Tigers–Chicago White Sox doubleheader raided the field and threw bottles, firecrackers and lighters. The White Sox forfeited the game to the Tigers. (The Tigers won the first game, 4–1.) At a Jethro Tull concert in Madison Square Garden on October 12, 1979, a fan threw a rose onstage which hit Ian Anderson, wounding his eye with a thorn. The band was forced to cancel the next two shows while Anderson recovered. He appeared at subsequent concert dates wearing protective goggles.
1980s Peter and the Test Tube Babies were repeatedly spat on during the recording of Pissed and Proud. On the album, the lead singer can be heard asking the audience to "Leave out the gob, we had a shower this morning, you cunts." In October 1982, Talk Talk were relentlessly bottled at the Genesis reunion concert at Milton Keynes Bowl on 2nd October 1982 In 1982, The Who played a show at the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Florida. The two support acts were Joan Jett and The B-52's, who were both pelted with food and bottles by a section of the audience who were only there for The Who. The B-52's ended their set 20 minutes in due to Cindy Wilson being hit in the stomach with an apple. As documented on "Geneva Farewell" from You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 5, a July 1982 Frank Zappa concert in Geneva ended early due to audience members throwing cigarettes on stage. Steel Pulse were heavily bottled by fans waiting for punk rock group The Stranglers' act at the Reading Festival in 1983, starting the festival's trend. On April 6, 1985, Deep Purple performed at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Partway through the show, Ritchie Blackmore was hit by a wineskin thrown by an audience member. He stormed offstage, ending the show. Dutch Claw Boys Claw were pelted at Pinkpop 1986 with everything from mud to food to bottles after singer Peter te Bos started throwing objects into the audience, ranging from his half-eaten apple to test pressings of their new album to his own shoe. The spoof heavy metal band Bad News were bottled extensively in 1986 at Monsters of Rock, prior to the band's musical performance beginning, with Rik Mayall trying to bat some missiles back at the audience with his guitar. The Communards were bottled at Pinkpop in 1987. Jimmy Somerville briefly left the stage but returned to finish the set. Meat Loaf and Bonnie Tyler were bottled at the 1988 Reading Festival. In 1989 a very young Texas were opening for Simple Minds in Cardiff Arms Park. The band temporarily halted the show due to being continually pelted by a sea of plastic bottles. Lead singer Sharleen Spiteri angrily chastised the crowd who stopped throwing in response: "Do you think it is alright to throw bottles at a wee lassie up here on stage?" at which point a lone bottle was thrown, it arched through the air towards the band and as was clearly seen on the large stage monitors hit Spiteri directly on the head. A huge cheer went up and a deluge of bottles followed, not letting up until Spiteri and Texas had stormed off stage.
1990s On October 30, 1992, at José Amalfitani Stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the opening act for Nirvana, the all-girl band Calamity Jane, were pelted with mud, rocks, and trash, and booed off the stage. In response, Nirvana intentionally sabotaged their own performance. Pavement were bottled during a Lollapalooza event in West Virginia in 1995 with mud. A rock hit Stephen Malkmus in the chest, causing Malkmus to storm off stage, abruptly ending their set. The incident is featured in the documentary Slow Century. Everclear front man Art Alexakis was pegged in the mouth with a full water bottle at some point during the So Much for the Afterglow tour. The bottle knocked loose one of his front teeth. At a November 5, 1993 concert at Empire Polo Club, Pearl Jam were pelted by hundreds of shoes thrown by the audience and were forced to play behind their amplifiers. Eddie Vedder addressed the crowd, joking that he and Jeff Ament were going to be at the gate after the show and beat up every barefoot person they see. He then stated that instead, the band were going to donate the shoes to charity. A recording of the incident was included on Pearl Jam's 1993 Fan Club Holiday Single, and the recording of the song "Blood" was included as a b-side on the Daughter single. On August 10, 1995, at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California, Dodger fans threw souvenir baseballs onto the field during the seventh and ninth innings of the Dodgers' game against the St. Louis Cardinals. The latter disruption came after umpire Jim Quick ejected the Dodgers' manager, Tommy Lasorda, following a questionable strikeout call. The Dodgers forfeited the game to the Cardinals. On September 17, 1995, Silverchair's Daniel Johns had a bottle thrown at him during a performance of the song "Israel's Son" at Santa Monica Pier when he was 16 years old. He received multiple stitches to his eyebrow, which he later turned into an eyebrow piercing. On December 23, 1995, at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, during a game between the San Diego Chargers and the New York Giants, Giants fans threw snowballs in the stands and onto the field, primarily aimed at the Chargers. One snowball hit a member of the Chargers' coaching staff, knocking him to the turf. Referee Ron Blum threatened to forfeit the game to the Chargers if the snowballing did not cease. The Chargers eventually overcame the snowballs and the Giants, defeating them 27–17. The Sex Pistols were bottled off stage at Denmark's Roskilde Festival in 1996. The band left the stage briefly after only two songs but returned to play another three. Johnny Rotten asked the crowd to stop; however, bottling continued and the band ended their set with Rotten criticising the crowd for failing to "police themselves". On June 17, 1997, at an Ozzfest event, concert goers began throwing bottles at the bands on stage, smashed box office windows, started fires, and overturned cars after the announcement that Ozzy Osbourne would not perform. A full bottle of Sprite was thrown at James as they performed at V Festival in the mid-1990s. It struck lead guitarist Adrian Oxaal on the head and temporarily dazed him; after a few moments, he continued to play and the set finished without further incident. During her performance at Pinkpop 1998, some people in the audience threw a couple of eggs at Dutch singer Anouk. In response, she took off her shirt and finished her performance in a red bra, as was shown on Dutch television. The Manic Street Preachers were heavily bottled at the Swansea Heineken Festival in 1993. After a bottle hit Nicky Wire in the head, James Dean Bradfield led the band off stage. The band eventually came back onstage and finished their set. In 1999, Kevin Rowland was bottled at Reading Festival, after appearing wearing a dress and stockings and being accompanied by two female dancers in stockings."I was nuts", The Guardian, 19 September 2003 During the Woodstock '99 festival, Canadian folk rock band The Tragically Hip were pelted with rocks and bottles by audience members who were there to see harder metal acts on the bill like Kid Rock and Rage Against the Machine. Some American concertgoers reportedly taunted the band and their fans by singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" while the group performed a brief rendition of "O Canada".
2000s
2000 Daphne and Celeste were heavily bottled at the Reading Festival, and left the stage at the start of their last song. Pop punk favorites Blink-182 were scheduled to follow them later that day. The duo accused the crowd of "wasting so much food", which was one of the items thrown at them. The duo themselves have differing opinions if this incident was the beginning of the end of their time together.
2001 Marilyn Manson was bottled during OzzFest at The Docks in Toronto. A fan threw a water bottle at the stage during the song "The Nobodies" just before the end. Immediately bassist Twiggy Ramirez pointed it out to Manson, who demanded that the fan who threw the bottle approach the stage for a duel. After the fan did so, Manson returned the bottle to him, allowed him to climb onto the stage and goaded him into throwing the bottle again after a countdown. Manson responded by throwing a bottle of his own, which hit the fan in the face, and he was also pelted by many more water bottles coming from the crowd. Following losing the duel, Marilyn taunted the fan, saying "Who's got the good aim now? You fucking bitch. Get the fuck off my stage, you pussy." He then proceeded to play the song "Rock Is Dead".