1980: Riot Breaks Out at Alice Cooper Concert

The crowd of 13,000 rabid Alice Cooper fans packed into Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition were just barely keeping it together as they sat through a set by the band Zon. Then, after being told that Cooper was running late due to a problem at the airport, they waited another grueling 90 minutes. Finally, Alice Cooper guitarist Dick Wagner appeared on stage to deliver the bad news to a now extremely restless Canadian crowd. Alice would not b e performing due to an illness, Wagner no more got the words from his lips,before chairs began flying onto the stage. It took 200 police officers to get the crowd back under control, dozens were arrested on a myriad of charges,while the venue sustained hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. It would later be revealed that, in spite of the rumors he was out drinking, Cooper had suffered from an asthma attack and was actually ill.