I was watching the Maysles documentary about Paul McCartney and The Concert For New York City last night and was struck by the fact that they showed Maccas reaction backstage to almost all the performances with the exceptions of Richard Gere's plea for "non-violent tolerance" as well as Susan Sarandon and Hillary Clinton being booed. I was at the concert and I remember these moments vividly. I dug out my copy of the show on DVD and scanned through it for these parts of the show and realized that the audio had been edited to remove the booing and they had even edited in cheering for Clinton! So it got me to thinking about a few other times I had been to shows where celebrities or musicians expressed their view and were resoundly booed by the crowd.

I was at the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary tribute concert in Madison Square Garden when Sinead O'Conner was booed loudly because of her Saturday Night Live performance that involved tearing up a picture of the Pope in protest of chuch child abuse. The noise was so loud that O'Connor saw no point in starting the scheduled song. She told the keyboard player to stop and the microphone to be turned up, and then screamed over the audience with an improvised, shouted rendition of Bob Marley's "War". Then she looked straight to the audience for a second and walked off stage. Kris Kristofferson, who had intro'ed her, comforted her as she wept stage left. This was at least left on the official VHS version intact.

I was also at a Pearl Jam show in 2003 at the Nassau Coliseum where the band was met with boos from the crowd and chants of "U-S-A" while they played the song "Bu$hleaguer" with Eddie Vedder wearing a George W. Bush mask. Eddie Vedder responded by defending his right to free speech and then the band played a cover of The Clash's "Know Your Rights".

I caught 2 shows on the CSN&Y "Freedom Of Speech Tour" at Jones Beach Amphitheater and The Theater @ MSG and at both shows there was quite a bit of booing from the crowd during Young's "Living With War" songs.

Anybody here remember any others? I'm sure there are plenty.

Natalie Maines (of the Dixie Chicks) is the example that springs immediately to my mind. Her onstage comments that she was "ashamed that the President was from Texas" (ie...W) resulted in a public backlash against the band. Country radio stations boycotted the Dixie Chicks & refused to play their music, and Maines reportedly received death threats.

I'm willing to guess that the reason the ceremonies from the final game at Tiger Stadium have never been released on DVD is because the crowd booed every mention of the stadium to which the Tigers were moving.

At a couple of Roger Waters shows we went to, much of the crowd booed lustily when he performed "Leaving Beirut."

The other example that springs to mind is the "bigger than Jesus" comment that was attributed to John Lennon. The ensuing backlash included protests, boycotts & record burnings, particularly in the Bible belt.

I've never heard any booing during those shows (although given the quality of most of the tapes, it's hard to tell what ANYTHING is), but you CAN hear the cherry bomb that went off in Memphis during the evening performance of the song "If I Needed Someone".

Is there a recording from the first Dylan electric guitar performance where he was booed by all the hardcore folkies?

My friend saw that show performed in New England and the crowd went dead silent during that song. Apparently, people were going "what the hell" and didn't know what to make of it. I guess it killed the momentum of the show.

Just to clarify, I wasn't intending to suggest that the Beatles were boo'ed at any of their ensuing concerts (although after re-reading Mr. Fuse's original post, I can see why you inferred that in the context of the thread). I was simply speaking to the general topic of unpopular speech by a performer.

Thanks.

In the 90s I saw The Coasters at Busch Gardens in Tampa when the lead singer digressed into a mini rant about corporal punishment, your basic "it was good enough for me so it's good enough for today's kids" type of thing. No one booed but it felt awfully uncomfortable, especially at a theme park.