5 Concert Tours That Went Tragically Wrong

All of them ended with a band member's death
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 19, 2014 2:20 PM CDT
5 Concert Tours That Went Tragically Wrong
In this 1997 file photo, members of the Australian rock band INXS pose for a group portrait at the Ritz Carleton Hotel in Aspen. Colo.   (AP Photo/James Minchin, File)

A couple canceled shows are nothing compared to the tragedies that befell these concert tours rounded up by Listverse. A sampling:

  • Blind Melon: Frontman Shannon Hoon checked into rehab for drugs after the band's second album was recorded, and doctors warned he wasn't ready to tour. But the 1995 tour went on, with a full-time counselor hired to watch over Hoon. Unfortunately, the counselor's presence was too awkward, and he was fired ... just days before Hoon was found dead of a cocaine overdose on the tour bus. He was 28.
  • The Band: Four of the original members decided to start touring again in 1983. Pianist Richard Manuel struggled with alcoholism and cocaine addiction, and was said to drink eight bottles of Grand Marnier a day at one point. On March 4, 1986, he left bandmate Levon Helm's room at 2:30am and went to his room, where he finished off a bottle, took cocaine, and hanged himself. His wife found him dead the next morning. He was 42.

  • INXS: During the 1997 world tour, singer Michael Hutchence was having serious problems with girlfriend Paula Yates' ex-husband, Bob Geldof. Hutchence badly wanted Yates and her children, including one with Hutchence, to accompany him on tour. After a few despondent phone calls, he strangled himself in his hotel room. He was 37.
  • Metallica: Driving from Stockholm to Copenhagen during their 1986 tour, the band's bus got into an accident, and bassist Cliff Burton was thrown and ended up trapped underneath the bus. The other passengers couldn't save him, and he died. He was 24.
  • The Who: During a reunion tour in 2002, bassist John Entwistle was found dead in his Las Vegas hotel room the day before the first show of the US leg. His cause of death was a heart attack due to cocaine abuse. He was 57.
Click for the complete list. (More The Band stories.)

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