Rock and roll can be dirty work. Occupational hazards include -- to quote AC/DC singer Bon Scott -- getting robbed, stoned, beat up, old, ripped off and sold.
Over the decades, Alabama’s had its share of infamous rock and roll moments. Below are five of them.
FLEETWOOD MAC CONCERT STABBING, SKIMMING FROM VAN HALEN AND JOURNEY
In the first half of the ‘80s, Mobile Municipal Auditorium landed in the kind of headlines no venue wants part of.
At a 1980 Fleetwood Mac concert at Municipal Auditorium supporting the band’s hit album “Tusk,” tragedy struck. During the band’s set, a fight erupted in the second-floor lobby. A teenager from Bayou la Batre was stabbed to death by a 17-year-old Mobile resident. According to an Associated Press report from back then, the fight was related to a conflict between the two teens earlier. The Mobile youth was charged with murder.
In 1984, Municipal Auditorium was rocked by a scandal accusing venue management of skimming from proceeds of 1981 and 1982 concerts by acts like Van Halen and Journey. The scandal resulted in the conviction of Mobile City Commissioner Gary A. Greenough on 14 counts of fraud, extortion and conspiracy. Greenough was sentenced to 25 years, was out on parole after about six years and never admitted guilt. He died in early 2024.
AL.com’s Lawrence Specker says, “There’s a whole school of thought, to which I don’t subscribe, that this [scandal] got Mobile blackballed by the concert promotion industry for decades. The Mobile Municipal Auditorium got everybody in the ‘70s, then things dried up in the ‘80s. Some people have a hard time accepting that’s because of other factors.”
MÖTLEY CRÜE ON TRIAL
During Mötley Crüe’s 1985 concert at Huntsville’s Von Braun Civic Center arena, Robby Miller, a 13-year-old from nearby Athens, sustained an injury that left him blind in his right eye. The incident occurred during Mötley’s pyro-filled performance of metal anthem “Shout at the Devil.”
In 1988, a $1.3 million lawsuit on behalf of Miller and another young fan injured at the concert, Grant’s David Wright, was brought against Mötley Crüe at the Limestone County Courthouse in Athens. Mötley bassist and principal songwriter Nikki Sixx would testify and otherwise represent the band at the trial.
The courthouse was a madhouse during the seven-day trial. A few hundred young metalheads mobbed the place. The trial lasted seven-days.
Miller testified he’d heard a big boom at Mötley Crüe’s concert, before an object struck him in the eye. Wright, 19 at the time of trial, testified he was “positive” he’d been struck by dry ice, used to create smoke effects, propelled from the stage by the band’s pyro. Defense witnesses included a special effects tech for films including “Raiders of the Los Ark” and “Star Wars.”
Sixx, then age 29, testified while the band was concerned about fan safety, he didn’t believe the band’s pyro caused Miller’s and Wright’s injuries. The defense lawyers believed the youths’ injuries were because they’d been hit by glass shards of a bottle others had snuck into the concert.
After the jury was unable to reach a decision based on evidence presented, the judge declared a mistrial. Mötley Crüe later reached an out-of-court financial settlement with Miller and Wright.
RELATED: Mötley Crüe ‘s infamous 1988 trial in Alabama
LYNYRD SKYNYRD AND FANS RAISE HELL
As AL.com’s Mary Colurso recounted in her retrospective on Rickwood Field concerts, Lynyrd Skynyrd played at Birmingham’s iconic baseball stadium in 1975, 1975 and 1976.
The vibe at Skynyrd’s July 4 ‘75 Rickwood show, “seemed like a war zone with fireworks flying everywhere. At least 25 people tried to jump the stage during the concert and were knocked backward into the crowd by gigantic stage bouncers,” according to a fan who responded to an AL.com story about Alabama’s greatest concerts ever.
According to a 1975 letter from Birmingham Hyatt House to promoter Peace Concerts, shared decades later with AL.com, the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd trashed their hotel rooms during their stay.
According to a post on website thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard, during the ‘76 Rickwood concert, “Lynyrd Skynyrd was the closing act and didn’t make it on stage until around 10:30. Unknown to any of us at the concert, all concerts at Rickwood Field were required to end by 11:00 since it was located in a neighborhood. The concert promoter came on stage at 11:00 and told the band they had to quit playing. Much to their credit they ignored him and kept playing.
“Things escalated and the promoter ended up turning off the power to the band’s amps midway through ‘Free Bird.’ The audience went apesh*t, and things quickly got out of hand. it was one of those situations where you start to fear for your life. As I was trying to get back to my car, the limo carrying the band was trying to drive through the crowd and ended up getting pelted with bottles and cans even though none of the situation was their fault.”
ALLMAN BROTHERS BUSTED
A little more than a month before the release of the live album that made the Allman Brothers Band stars after years of grinding, the Southern rockers were arrested in Jackson, Alabama.
The Allman’s 1971 double-LP “At Fillmore East” was recorded during two March shows that year at that New York rock mecca, where Jimi Hendrix’s epic concert LP “Band of Gypsys” had previously been recorded.
Ten days later, the Allman Brothers, the Macon, Georgia via Jacksonville, Florida band then known for songs like “Dreams” and “Midnight Rider,” were on their way to play shows in New Orleans, Montevallo and Tuscaloosa. That’s when singer Gregg Allman, guitarists Duane Allman and Dickey Betts, bassist Berry Oakley, drummers Butch Trucks and Jaimoe Johanson and their road crew were braced by a police officer at a Jackson truck stop.
As told by author Scott Freeman in his 1996 Allmans biography “Midnight Riders,” and recounted in 2016 by Ultimate Classic Rock, “His instincts were good; the guys were a walking drugstore. They were charged with possession of heroin, marijuana and phencyclidine, the animal tranquilizer better known as PCP. Duane, Gregg, Jaimoe, Dickey, Butch, Berry [and roadies] Willie Perkins, Joe Dan Petty and David ‘Tuffy’ Philips were all arrested and charged with possession.”
According to Freeman, “Gregg had paranoid fear of jail cells and went crazy, climbing the bars and screaming before Duane made him shut up.”
The Allmans and roadies spent a night in jail before posting bond. Facing prison sentences if convicted, the band reaching a plea deal that involved paying around four grand in fines and court costs.
THE NUGE GETS CANCELED
In the ‘70s, Ted Nugent was known for arena-shaking songs like “Cat Scratch Fever” and “Free-For-All.” Along with Kiss’ Ace Frehley and a couple years later Eddie Van Halen, Nugent was a huge influence on budding young guitarists back then. In the early ‘90s, Nugent reached the MTV generation via gleaming hits like “High Enough” and “Coming of Age” by Damn Yankees, his supergroup with Night Ranger’s Jack Blades and Styx’s Tommy Shaw.
In recent years though, in the mainstream Nugent isn’t known for music but for his outspoken far-right politics.
In 2023, Nugent’s radical beliefs got a concert of his at Birmingham’s Avondale Brewery canceled. Alabama isn’t exactly a Blue State politically. Yet after a stop on Nugent’s farewell tour was announced for Avondale, the venue’s Facebook page was snowed under with a thousand or so comments.
Most of those comments weren’t smiley-face-emojis. As AL.com’s Mary Colurso reported, “They slammed the rocker as hom*ophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, an intolerant hate-monger and more.”
A few days later, a day before tickets were set to go on sale, Avondale announced Nugent’s concert was canceled. A venue in Brandon, Mississippi picked up the date on Nugent’s tour.
As Colurso reported, Nugent gloated in a social media video, “You see that smile on my face? You can’t cancel me.” He also addressed the Birmingham kerfuffle, labeling those who protested the show “lunatic fringe.”
That same month, I interviewed Derek St. Holmes, who sang lead vocals on many classic Nugent tracks like “Stranglehold” and “Hey Baby,” to advance a St. Holmes show in Huntsville.
Asked if Nugent’s politics have diminished his guitar legacy, St. Holmes said, “The answer to your question is yes, I do. I want to go to a concert and have a good time — I don’t want anybody to bring the six o’clock news by me again, especially over a loud mic. Should we [the classic Nugent band] be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? Oh, yeah. But we won’t be because of politics and rhetoric. But maybe one day they’ll pull their heads from underneath their armpits.”
Stories by Matt Wake
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