Action that occurs at concerts
Bottling is an action where a concert audience throws various objects at the performers onstage. This generally happens at festivals when one act in the lineup is of a different genre or audience from the rest of the bands, especially festivals where the majority of bands are related to heavy metal and punk rock music styles.[1]
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.[1]
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:[circular reference]
The audience, which consisted largely of bikers, was unusually hostile, and Iggy, as usual, fed on that hostility, soaked it up and gave it back and absorbed it all over again in an eerie, frightening symbiosis. "All right," he finally said, stopping a song in the middle, "you assholes wanta hear 'Louie, Louie,' we'll give you 'Louie, Louie.'" So the Stooges played a forty-five-minute version of "Louie Louie," including new lyrics improvised by the Pop on the spot consisting of "You can suck my ass / You biker faggot sissies," etc.
By now the hatred in the room is one huge livid wave, and Iggy singles out one heckler who has been particularly abusive: "Listen, asshole, you heckle me one more time and I'm gonna come down there and kick your ass." "Fuck you, you little punk," responds the biker. So Iggy jumps off the stage, runs through the middle of the crowd, and the guy beats the shit out of him, ending the evening's musical festivities by sending the lead singer back to his motel room and a doctor. I walk into the dressing room, where I encounter the manager of the club offering to punch out anybody in the band who will take him on. The next day the bike gang, who call themselves the Scorpions, will phone WABX-FM and promise to kill Iggy and the Stooges if they play the Michigan Palace on Thursday night. They do (play, that is), and nobody gets killed, but Metallic K.O. is the only rock album I know where you can actually hear hurled beer bottles breaking against guitar strings.
- 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.[2]
- 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.[3]
- 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 after six songs into the set.[4]
- 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.[5][6] He appeared at subsequent concert dates wearing protective goggles.
2020s
2021
On October 16, 2021, University of Tennessee fans threw bottles and other objects, including a golf ball which hit Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, onto the Neyland Stadium field after the Tennessee Volunteers were ruled to have been stopped short on fourth down with 54 seconds remaining. The game was delayed some 20 minutes. The Rebels defeated the Vols, 31–26.[58] The commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, Greg Sankey, announced the following Monday that the University of Tennessee would be fined $250,000 for its fans' bottling.[59]
2022
- In July 2022, Lady Gaga had something thrown at her from the audience during a concert on her Chromatica Ball tour.[60]
- On December 17, 2022, during the second quarter of the Buffalo Bills' game against the Miami Dolphins at Highmark Stadium, fans threw snowballs onto the field, briefly delaying the game. Referee Bill Vinovich threatened the fans with a 15-yard penalty against the Bills if a snowball hit anyone on the field. The snowballing eventually ceased and the Bills would defeat the Dolphins 32–29.[61]
2023
- On June 18, 2023, Bebe Rexha required stitches after she was hit by a fan's cellular phone during one of her concerts. The suspect was caught and arrested.[62]
- On June 28, 2023, Kelsea Ballerini was hit in the face with a bracelet. After a break to check for injuries, she came back to the stage to resume her performance.[63]
- On July 5, 2023, at a Chicago stop on his "It's All a Blur" concert tour, a fan threw a cellphone at Drake from the crowd, seemingly hitting him in the arm.[64]
In fiction
The title characters were bottled in a pivotal scene in The Blues Brothers, famously only protected by a mesh of chicken wire.[65][66]