It’s hard to feel sorry for rock stars. They are, after all, rock stars, which usually means they get a paid a lot of money to be pretentious, go out with supermodels and trash hotel rooms.

Or something like that. Very rock and roll.

So when we hear they have somehow come up a cropper, it’s hard to stifle a chuckle. None more so than when they are onstage performing their ‘art’.

And if it’s an injury they inflicted on themselves doing something stupid, then, well, that’s just perfect. Not that we enjoy laughing at the misfortunes of people who are more successful than us.

Actually, that’s a lie – we dedicated an entire website to doing that.

The point is, we are not cruel people. Actually, just forget it.

Look it’s just another list, enjoy.

24. Noel Gallagher

Where and when: Toronto 2008

Certainly, the funniest mishap to ever happen to an arrogant, self-important member of a Manchester band that are not nearly as good as they think they are.

Thankfully, the whole incident was captured on film, but those of you who were on a different planet when it happened, here’s a recap. Basically, Oasis ‘mastermind’ Noel Gallagher had to be taken to hospital after being shoved into his monitor by a ‘fan’.

He broke some ribs and brother Liam got all angry. Hilarious.

23. Patti Smith

When and where: London 2007

Proof – if it was ever needed – that it can even happen to the biggest stars – as the Godmother of Punk tripped over a stray speaker onstage and fell flat on her face.

For some reason, her only injuries were a slightly improved face and a badly-cut elbow.

22. Ian Brown

When and where: Sheffield 2008

The former Stones Roses ’singer’ was left with whiplash and 10 stitches after, in the words of Brown, ’some crackhead pulled me off stage’.

21. Jim James of My Morning Jacket

When and Where: Iowa 2008

The singer/ guitarist was enjoying his guitar solo so much he fell of stage, badly slicing open his head and forcing the gig to be cancelled. If their music is anything to go by, he was probably falling asleep.

20. Tommy Lee of Motley Crue

When and where: Wyoming 2005

Video star Lee had to be rushed to hospital after being hit in the face with a firework from the pyrotechnics display that was accompanying his mid-air drum solo.

19. Arthur Brown of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown

When and Where: Windsor, England

Burning his face was an occupational hazard for rock’s self-proclaimed ‘God of Hellfire’, who would regularly turn up to gigs with a flaming crown.

However, on one occasion, Brown was very lucky to escape serious injury when the liquid methane which fuelled his crown ran down his face and body. Thankfully for him, some fans in the front row quickly doused him in beer.

18. Gene Simmons of Kiss

Where and when: New York, 1973

The Kiss bassist has always been a bit of a showman. But in New Year’s Eve it cost him his hair and almost his life. In the final throes of Firehouse, the bass player indulged in a bit of fire-breathing on stage.

However, the fireball quickly set his heavily-lacquered locks ablaze. Thankfully, a quick-thinking roadie saved him permanent damage by throwing a wet towel on his flaming hair.

It did not put him off doing it – and he has since had half-a-dozen similar incidents. The show-off must go on.

17. Jamie Reynolds of The Klaxons

Where and when: France, 2007

Stage-diving is never a good idea, especially when you are the singer of a band which has virtually no fans. Reynolds broke his leg, but bravely tried to carry on regardless, only to find he couldn’t walk.

16. Matt Bellamy of Muse

When and where: 2004

Michael Vaughan lookalike Matt Bellamy accidentally headbutted his guitar while Muse were performing one of their ’stadium rock anthems’. Funnily enough, I know how he feels.

15. Krist Novoselic of Nirvana

Where and when: Hollywood, 1992

During the 1993 VMA Awards, Nirvana bassist Krist was forced to crawl off stage with a bleeding head after he apparently had forgotten that he had just thrown his bass up in the air seconds before.

14. Shingai Shoniwa of the Noisettes

When and where: London’s Buffalo Bar in 2005.

The Young Knives‘ The House Of Lords poked Noisettes singer Shingai Shoniwa in the eye with a bass guitar string while attempting to kiss her goodbye.

13. Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy

Where and when: New Orleans, 2007

Pete Wenz got so excited jumping up and down he broke his foot. Just brilliant.

12. Gary Jarman of The Cribs

Where and when: England 2007

Not sure if this was actually done onstage, but Jarman once had to be hospitalised while on a UK tour because he got blood poisoning after cutting himself on one of his bass strings.

He discharged himself after an overnight stay in order to attend a gig in Norwich, against doctor’s orders.

11. Mike Skinner of The Streets

Where and when: Cambridge Corn Exchange, 2009

OK, so maybe Mike Skinner doesn’t exactly qualify as a rockstar, but, anyway, while indulging in a bit of crowd surfing, one eager fan grabbed hold of his belt and refused to let go.

In fact, the excited fan pulled so hard, he managed to reopen The Streets singer’s hernia scar. Skinner said: “Looks like a wee organ might pop out of its purpley red, bloody gash.” Nice.

10. Roger Waters from Pink Floyd

When: 1969

The grumpy one from Pink Floyd was hit in the forehead by a penny hurled at him by a disgruntled fan. They must have been playing Money.

9. Lou Reed

Where and when: Buffalo, 1973

We all know Lou Reed has long disappeared up his own arse, but did you know that one crazed fan actually bit him on the bum while he was performing?

8. Iggy Pop

Where and when: London, 2008

The wild rocker has had his fair share of injuries while performing to hostile crowds, but the most recent was of his own making when he hurt his leg badly falling off a speaker stack at the Get Loaded in the Park festival.

7. Till Lindemann of Rammstein

Where and when: All the time

Rammstein’s frontman Till Lindemann is a licensed pyrotechnician who spends entire songs engulfed head-to-toe in flames.

He has burned his ears, his hair and his arms, but as the band frequently incorporates fake accidents into their shows, it’s difficult to know how much of it is planned and which are mishaps.

It doesn’t seem to bother Till though. Bandmate Christoph Schneider explains: “Till gets burned all the time, but he likes the pain.”

6. Aldrin Montecinos of Megiddo

Where and when: Valdivia, Chile, 2004

Montecinos, the singer for Chilean black metal band Megiddo, suffered first degree burns after setting fire to his long beard while performing his fire-breathing routine mid-song.

5. Pete Townsend

Where and when: Tacoma, Washington, 1989

While performing his famous ‘windmill’ guitar-strumming technique, The Who guitarist got a bit carried away when he accidentally impaled his tremolo through his right hand.

Clearly the guitar wanted to get revenge for all the guitars Townsend had destroyed in the past.

4. David Bowie

Where and when: Oslo, Norway, 2004

Bowie is used to having flowers and praise thrown his way, but in 2004 he was almost blinded – by a stray lollipop.

As incredible as it sounds, he was literally millimetres from being having his left eyeball skewered by the sweet’s stick after it was thrown by an ‘adoring’ fan.

Thankfully, it wedged in between his eyeball and eyelid and was removed by one of his entourage. Ever the pro, Ziggy Stardust finished the show.

3. James Hetfield of Metallica

When and where: Montreal 1992

The Metallica frontman suffered second and third degree burns on his hand, arm, eyebrows, face and hair after accidentally stepping into a 12-foot tower of flame that had been rigged to shoot from the lip of the stage at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium in 1992.

Thankfully, his guitar protected him from having worse injuries, but he was unable to finish the tour.

2. Blackie Lawless of W.A.S.P.

Where and when: Someplace during the 80s

W.A.S.P frontman Blackie almost blew his dick off when his flame-throwing codpiece exploded, lifting him several feet into the air.

Thankfully for Blackie, all he got was burnt legs. Apparently, while nursing his wounds offstage he said to bandmates: “If we wrote better songs we wouldn’t have to resort to stunts like this.”

1. Frank Zappa

Where and when: London, 1971

Frank Zappa was forced to stay in a wheelchair for months after being pushed off stage and into the concrete-floored orchestra pit.

The rest of The Mothers of Invention even thought he was dead. But he survived (obviously), but he had to take six months off touring after suffering serious fractures, head trauma and injuries to his back, leg, and neck, as well as a crushed larynx.

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If you look out your window, you’ll see that the world is currently in a dire state.

Once-proud businessmen are reduced to skeletal husks of men, scuttling around rubbish bins with only their own shoes for sustenance. Families are selling their beloved household pets for thirty pence so they can afford to buy a newspaper to live under for a month.

Flaming corpses of villainous bankers pave deserted mud tracks which were once bustling high streets.
Most people are in agreement that this is probably the worst time ever to be alive. In fact, the majority of the population is only bothering to struggle on in the slim hope that the development of time travel will, one day, allow us to return to a time when everyone in the world chose to buy nothing at all from Woolworths rather than having that decision forced upon us. But, for one infamously cheery man, this grim reality is simply unbearable.

Noel Gallagher has taken time out of fingering through his dog-eared Beatles songbook to criticise the news for being a bit gloomy of late. This, remember, is the man whose back-catalogue could instantly evaporate all the happiness from Santa’s workshop. Gallagher whined:

“It’s really bad, man. In one sitting watching Sky News the doom and gloom is outrageous. Recession, recession, stabbings, corruption, murder, desolation, despair.”

We can only imagine what Noel Gallagher’s ideal half-an-hour of current affairs would be. Perhaps the news should forthwith avoid any nationally important event if it makes Noel Gallagher a bit upset and, instead, take the form of an expansive, sprawling list of every single uplifting event to take place in the country that day? This should be considered if only to avoid a stunted attempt at social commentary on Oasis’ next album, currently rumoured to have the working title of News Is Sad.

We’ve often wondered who the ‘and in other news…’ stories at the end of each bulletin were aimed at. Now, we’ll be able to envisage Noel Gallagher’s childlike delight as he beams on, his eyes as big as saucers, at a tiny kitten being rescued from a lemon tree. In fact, it’s rumoured that Oasis’ only demand for the backstage area of their concerts is that the YouTube video of Christian the Lion is played in a constant loop on 50-foot screens as the band look on, arms linked, holding a brave silence.

Instead of feeling down about the media coverage of the recession, perhaps Noel Gallagher should ask himself what he can do to help it? For example, Noel Gallagher, why not relocate a struggling family of five in your vast, Amazonian eyebrows? Why not test your song writing prowess and see if you can come up with a clever rhyme for ‘bankers’ in a benefit single? But, most importantly, please stop pilfering from aging musicians before Ringo Starr is discovered destitute, dressed in an old potato sack, eating cat food from his cold, bare hands.

This was a guest blog by Jamie Ross, the man who has been in so many newspapers recently that he may as well be a titty model. He writes Cancerous Capers. You’ll like it.

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But some things are still too much to cope with. Like lumpen, coasting indie music made by, in part, the bloke from Heavy Stereo, for instance. And that’s why China has banned Oasis from performing there.

The Chinese government’s official explanation for the Oasis ban is that Noel Gallagher performed at a Free Tibet concert in 1997, although we’ve heard rumours that actually Vice Premier in charge of agriculture Hui Liangyu banned them because he much prefers the music of The Bluetones.

In recent years, China has softened its stance on allowing Western acts to perform within its borders, which is probably a good idea because the last Chinese pop CD we bought made us want to chop off our testicles and plug our ears with them.

And, by and large, this has been a success. True, there’s been the odd upset along the way – like Bjork yelling out “TIBET!” like she was trying to stop it falling down an open manhole, and Sharon Stone being a gigantic dicksplat – but generally things have gone OK. The Rolling Stones have even performed in China, for crying out loud.

They can’t have gone down too well, though, because China has decided that it doesn’t want Oasis – essentially The Rolling Stones with less good songs – to play there.

That’s right, Oasis have been banned from China, either because of Noel Gallagher’s participation in a Free Tibet concert 12 years ago, or because anyone who likes Oasis in China can already buy Definitely Maybe on CD, which is better because it doesn’t have a piss-poor hour-long version of I Am The Walrus artlessly tacked on at the end of it like an Oasis concert would. But anyway, Billboard reports:

Officials within the Chinese Ministry of Culture only recently discovered that Noel Gallagher appeared at a Free Tibet benefit concert in New York City in 1997. “Oasis are extremely disappointed that they are now being prevented from undertaking their planned tour of mainland China and hope that the powers that be within China will reconsider their decision and allow the band to perform to their Chinese fans at some stage in the future.”

Oasis shouldn’t get downhearted about not being able to play in China. Jay-Z has also been banned by the Chinese government, so now they’ve got something else in common apart from being old and past their prime and not really liking each other very much. And being married to people from crappy girlbands. Actually, Jay-Z and Oasis have more in common than we thought. How odd.

Incidentally, does anyone happen to know if China has any restrictions on bad-tempered entertainment bloggers? Because if it means avoiding Oasis for the rest of our lives, we’ll be on a eastward-bound plane by dinnertime. And that’s a promise*.

*Not a promise.

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Instead of years of artistic exploration, they just decided to release their best album first and continue to bill new releases as “the best thing since sliced Definitely Maybe”. Only to disappoint every time.

Last year Oasis released their seventh studio album Dig Out Your Soul. To be fair, it did have its moments but nothing that pushed the creative boundaries. This obviously proved to push one man to dig out his anger by attacking Noel Gallagher when Oasis performed in Canada.

Because everyone in the world spends more time recording grainy footage on their phones than paying attention to gigs they pay over the odds for, the comedy attack on Noel Gallagher was captured on video. During a performance of Morning Glory, 47-year-old Daniel Sullivan crept onstage and gave the main force behind Oasis a good pasting.

Unless the attacker was extremely powerful, or Noel Gallagher doesn’t consume enough dairy products in his rock n roll lifestyle to produce strong and healthy bones, Noel fell to the floor and broke several ribs. But not enough for a local Chinese restaurant to extract them and create a special one-off Oasis spare rib dish with Mancunian sauce.

Because the incident was captured on video for the world to gawp at, the charge assault was brought against Sullivan. The video – which makes him an internet celebrity alongside Star Wars kid, the strange Leave Britney Alone guy and the fat man who dances to Romanian pop songs – sadly did nothing to stop the authorities bring extra charges against him.

This extra charge? Aggravated assault! We know, we aren’t completely sure either, but the NME confirms the grim news. Surely the charges should be dropped as he did the public a great service by twatting a loud-mouth bloke from Manchester who complains about everything. No?

Maybe the chords weren’t right when Don’t Look Back In Anger was played? Or perhaps Sullivan was sick of hearing about a band whose career wouldn’t have developed if it wasn’t for high profile spats with Blur, threatening to split up every other year, getting pissed at every opportunity, randomly having a go at other supposed famous people and sacking band members every four and a half minutes?

We don’t know, but when court day comes, we’re going to stand outside the courthouse with banners and party food to hopefully celebrate the judge’s decision to not bang him up for 14 years. At the moment that is the sentence hanging over his head. All because Noel Gallagher couldn’t live up to his hardman image.

Like Michael Jackson’s kiddie touching case, we’ll release an army of doves if Daniel Sullivan is found innocent.

Though with a credit crunch we may have to do with AIDS-ridden seagulls instead. Just don’t tell anyone. OK?

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These are some of the sounds that all boxers experience when they are in the ring and go through the procedure of splattering someone’s brain across the ring. Or, if you’re Mike Tyson, an opponent’s ear. On Saturday Amir Khan went down in an impressive 54 seconds thanks to Breidis Prescott and lost his unbeaten record. While he had a sore head, the people who paid £14.99 for the match will have probably been a bit annoyed. They could have literally been on the crapper and missed it.

Now, Noel Gallagher from Oasis isn’t someone we’d think indulge in boxing. Maybe in the past, but not now he’s turned into a grandad of rock n roll. Famously blaming video games for messing up the minds of the nation’s youth, we think he’d be more inclined for a steaming mug of tea and a pair of furry slippers. Even a couple of rich tea biscuits may push him over the edge.

Something that literally did push him over was a crazed fan when Oasis played a recent gig in Toronto. Why the fan showed his love by knocking him over rather than tattooing Noel Gallagher’s initials into his own testicles is beyond us. Anyway, for some comedy falling over by the Oasis bloke, watch the clip below. He gets shoved over around the 1:30 mark.

Or that's what we thought. Turns out we were being a little bit hopeful – in actual fact Noel Gallagher is slowly morphing into a Daily Telegraph letter-writer. While picking up an award recently, Noel decided to speak out about hoodies and knife crime and how it's all probably got something to do with computer games.

He went into a little more detail than that, but anyone wanting to hear more of Noel Gallagher's thoughts on society would be well advised to buy the forthcoming Oasis album Bloody Immigrants (And Don't Get Me Started On The NHS).

When you're the principle songwriter in a band like Oasis, there are only a few rules you need to live your life by. One is that the words 'fly', 'high' and 'sky' rhyme, another is that there's money in playing 15-year-old songs to arenas full of balding nostalgia-craving thirtysomething men who still consider Jo Guest to be the epitome of style and glamour night after night, and the third is that young people should be feared.

Just a few weeks after Noel Gallagher famously said that Jay-Z would be a disaster for Glastonbury because his music's all bang bang bang and he's not a proper musician because he doesn't have any songs about magical pies – we're paraphrasing – he's decided to take the time to speak out about the rising tide of knife crime.

While picking up a Silver Clef music award recently, Noel decided to launch into an angry tirade about all the stabbing that's been going on in London recently with all the reasoned arguments you'd expect from a millionaire rockstar with a history of prolific drug abuse. BBC News reports:

"In my day, status was trying to be somebody, do you know what I mean, not trying to kill somebody?… I don't even know what Cameron or Gordon Brown are going to do about it… People say it's through violent video games and I guess that's got something to do with it. If kids are sitting up all night smoking super skunk and they come so desensitised to crime because they're playing these video games, it's really, really scary."

We can see Noel Gallagher's point here – we recently spent about an hour and a half playing Super Mario Galaxy before going out and stabbing a nun in her neck for nothing more than shits and giggles. These sick video games should be banned, because everyone knows that the world's first recorded crime happened six hours after Pong was released.

Anyway, we shouldn't pick on Noel Gallagher too much for becoming a youth-fearing old fogey – he's not the only celebrity to speak out about Broken Britain lately. No, Noel Edmonds has also been at it. So that's the man who wrote Cigarettes And Alcohol and the beardy git from Deal Or No Deal – perhaps they should team up and become a crack vigilante duo, putting an end to street crime with nothing more than prematurely old grumbling and bizarre facial hair.

Besides, we're probably missing the main point of this story here. Noel Gallagher still wins awards? Weird.

Now, this makes him a prick for a number of reasons:

1) It’s obviously bull-shit.

2) Who does he mean when he says ‘most music fans’? Have you ever met anyone who isn’t a fan of music? Everyone who ever existed is a fan of music and hecklerspray knows a few of them: not one has ever claimed Kaiser Chiefs are the successors of Oasis. Only Ricky.

3) He’s obviously only doing it in the vain hope that Noel will retaliate, on the off-chance it could turn into a war like the Blur/Oasis feud of old, like he tried to start with the Arctic Monkeys, which of course failed spectacularly, what with Kaiser Chiefs not being fit to lick either of their comparatively Messianic assholes.

What Ricky should try is starting a war with that Johnny Borrell fella. It’d be a far fairer playing field; the prick-to-prick ratio would be much better balanced.

From the deep, dark depths of his own anus, Ricky Wilson spoke to The Sun:

Oasis have disappeared up their own arse. They think they are Led Zeppelin. They’re not.

Err…Led Zeppelin? What? Yes, it could be argued that Led Zeppelin have made the voyage up their own rectum from time to time, but they did write Stairway to Heaven, and were also capable of writing a song that wasn’t verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, end.

They are therefore entitled to the occasional holiday up their arses.

Oasis too, it’s true, have on occasion made trips up their own jacksies, as all who can remember All Around The World will testify. But, dear Ricky, they did write Live Forever and, although living forever is a horrifying prospect, especially with the prospect of you clogging up the airwaves of eternity, it does qualify them for a visit.

You, however, wrote Ruby, and the only asshole you would do well to visit is hecklerspray’s, as our shit will rub sense into anyone.

Anyway, that’s enough arsehole talk for one post. Ricky Wilson added (brackets added by us, obviously):

Our new album is shaping up. I reckon it’s our best stuff yet (no huge achievement). I played it to our manager the other day, who has known us for over ten years (ten years! Wow! So what?), and a smile just spread across his face as soon as he heard it (the morons will lap up this, cha-ching!). He reckons that it’s the best material we have come up with. It isn’t finished but, in my mind, I know exactly where the vocals are going now and how it will sound (not hard to predict). Mark Ronson is producing the album (Mark Ronson! Fuckadoodledoo! Can Kaiser Chiefs be saved by the inclusion of a trumpet? No). He turned down a lot of people to work with us — a lot of big names, who I won’t mention (so modest of you Ricky). When he does that to work with us, we must be doing something well.

Yes, despite everything you do seem to sell a lot of records. The world, we are afraid, is designed for crashing bores.

Basically the point we’re trying to make is that this guy is twat.

Thanks for reading.

Read More – Kaiser Chiefs Ricky Wilson: ‘Oasis have disappeared up their own arse’ – NME

Weird. Anyway, where were we? Oh yes – as Oasis were recording their new album at Abbey Road studios, a crazed stalker type apparently tried burst in on them, spooking them so much that they've hired a team of policemen to guard the studio for the time being. Not much is known about the identity of Oasis' new stalker, although he reportedly accused Noel Gallagher of ripping off all his music and lyrics for the new Oasis album during the encounter.

With that in mind, police are seeking to question Paul McCartney, John Lennon, any of Slade or a time-travelling version of Noel Gallagher from 13 years ago. 

Oasis are the sort of band with fans who all think they're a bit crazed, when really they're just Ben Sherman-wearing Wetherspoon-dwelling meatheads with haircuts like Miles from This Life who start to cry like confused monkeys if they hear a song with more than three chords in it. Fans who say the word "proper" when they mean the word "large."

But, although you're technically able to classify anyone who awaits the new Oasis album with anything other than a shrug and a sinking heart as 'crazed', it takes something special to become a genuine, 100% scary, crazed Oasis stalker. Something as special as, say, claiming that you've written the new Oasis album yourself and Noel Gallagher has somehow stolen your thoughts and used them for his own good.

Funnily enough, that's what appears to have happened to Oasis, thanks to a young Greek man who wanted to confront Noel Gallagher about this alleged song-theft at Abbey Road studios last week, where Oasis are recording their new album. The world's most alarming cockney told The Sun:

"The guy showed up in a proper rage. He meant business and was clearly off his rocker. He claimed that he had written all this material that Noel had nicked off him for the new album. The fella was fuming and was threatening to beat Noel up over it all. He was cursing at staff and being really threatening so the cops were called in. He tried to force his way into the studio but couldn’t get through. He heard the police were coming and turned on his heels. By the time the bobbies got down there he had gone."

Noel Gallagher will have to be careful now he's got a stalker – because nobody really knows what type of stalker he is yet. He could be a Sandra Bullock-type stalker who'll try to run him over, or a John Cusack-style stalker who'll make all kinds of claims about how much he loves Noel Gallagher. Just so long as he isn't a Colin Farrell-style stalker – we never want to hear a song called I Fucked Noel Gallagher In His Ass on MySpace or anywhere else.

But, once again, we need to make it clear that Noel Gallagher needs to keeps his wits about him at all times now, because let's not forget that this stalker thinks that he's written Noel Gallagher's lyrics. And if a man can rhyme 'magic pie' with 'passer by' then there's no telling what other atrocities he's capable of.

Read more:

Noel Has To Get A Police Guard – The Sun