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See also: The Who Kicks Off North American Tour in Fort Lauderdale
British rock legends the Who will be kicking off their 36-date North American tour with a November 1 show at BankAtlantic Center. Though slightly older and with considerably less hair, the band will be playing music from their 1973 double album, Quadrophenia, a psych-rock opera chronicling the life of a schizophrenic English teenager.
It was on this very same tour back in 1973 that the Who experienced one of its strangest onstage moments. A fan from the audience actually filled in for an “incapacitated” band member during a performance. In honor of this unlikely substitution, we’ve assembled a list of the five greatest fan fill-ins of all time, those rare moments when an audience member goes from being an average chump to a rock god in the blink of an eye.
5. Starbucks Manager Serves Up a Mötley BrüeOne
can only assume that a rock star of Tommy Lee’s status would lead a
so-called “destructive” lifestyle. So you can imagine how much of a
shock it was to everyone in Alberta, Canada, when the Mötley Crüe
drummer bailed on a show due to something as lame as tendonitis.
Lucky
for the fans, a local drummer named Harvey Warren stepped up to fill the
void. A Starbucks manager by day and stick-wielding timekeeper of a Mötley Crüe tribute band by night, Warren turned out to have some pretty
decent rock chops, delivering a spot-on impersonation of Tommy Lee that
didn’t miss a beat. And yes, he even got to man the legendary “boobie”
cam.
4. Lil Carl on Jimmy Kimmel Live!On
March 1, 2012, a fresh-from-jail Lil Wayne was scheduled to appear on
an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! The only problem? Weezy never showed.
So in the true spirit of show business, Kimmel called up a random dude
from the audience to fill in for the multiplatinum rapper. The audience
member, a gentle giant named Carl who couldn’t have known less about
Lil Wayne if he tried, was interviewed by Kimmel as if he were the real
deal, fielding questions about Weezy’s criminal record (“got locked up
for speeding”), his favorite sports (“hockey”), and what he did in
prison to pass the time (“read To Kill a Mockingbird“).
3. Holy Shitballs, Mom!Every
mom loves to brag about how talented her children are. But this crazy
mom takes the cake.
Back in 2010, a mother at a Michael Bublé concert shoved
her way to the front of the stage and demanded that the Canadian lounge
lizard sing a duet with her son, Sam, who had just turned 15. But
rather than telling the mom to piss off — like any sensible person
would — Bublé decided to bring the kid on stage and give him a shot. As
it turned out, this Sam dude could actually sing, and Bublé’s response
upon discovering this — “Holy shitballs, Mom!” — is worth watching in itself.
2. Bono Pulls a Fast OneIt
was, by all accounts, a typical U2 concert. In 2011, after a show at
Nashville’s Vanderbilt Stadium, the band had just finished playing its
usual set-closer “Moment of Surrender” and was heading for the tour bus.
But then Bono made an unexpected trip to the front of the stage to have
a chat with a fan in the front row.
The fan he was talking to? A guy
named Adam Bevell, who for the entire show, had been holding a sign that
read “Blind Guitar Player, Bring Me Up!!” Well, bring him up they did,
and within seconds, Bevell was onstage with an electric guitar strapped
around his neck. He then led the band in a touching rendition of “All I
Want Is You,” which he dedicated to his wife. This, according to our calculations, is the marital equivalent of giving your spouse 1
million foot massages.
1. Waxing MoonIn
honor of the Who kicking off its first North American tour in four years, we’ve decided to give the
number-one spot to Keith Moon, whose fame as a drummer for the Who was
rivaled only by his reputation for flushing industrial-strength
explosives down hotel toilets.
During this particular episode in 1973,
Moon had consumed more than his usual number of
horse-tranquilizer-and-brandy cocktails, passing out onto his drums in
middle of the first set. As if this kind of thing happened on a regular
basis, guitarist Pete Townshend then took to the microphone and asked if
anyone in the audience knew how to play drums. “Preferably,” Townshend
said, “somebody good.”
When a 19-year-old named Scott Halpin
volunteered, Townshend brought him up onstage, and the young drummer
from Iowa managed to hold his own until the end of the show. Halpin’s
performance remains legendary in amateur drumming circles, and it even
won him a “Pick-Up Player of the Year Award” from Rolling Stone. As far
as we can tell, Halpin is the only person to receive this award — ever.
The Who performs on November 1 at BankAtlantic, 1 Panther Parkway, Sunrise. Tickets are available at aeglive.com.
