In recent years, Dave Grohl, Axl Rose and Zack de la Rocha have powered through shows while suffering from broken bones by performing while sitting on thrones, in the first two cases, and on a road case, in the last. Alice in Chains lead singer Layne Staley beat them to it by decades. Soon after the release of Dirt, the vocalist spent several of his band's fall 1992 dates opening for Ozzy Osbourne confined to a wheelchair or standing on crutches, after a mishap on an all-terrain vehicle backstage at a show in Oklahoma City resulted in him riding over his own foot.
One such show took place at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California, where AIC delivered an awesome 11-song set that saw Staley alternately singing on crutches, in a wheelchair and, occasionally, splayed out on a sofa onstage. Through it all, he was nothing less than mesmerizing. Watch above.
"I didn't break my neck, so there's no excuse not to play," the singer reasoned in an interview from the era. And the injury didn't stop Staley from giving it his all. "He jumped out in the crowd with his broken ... with his cast, so I thought that was kind of nutty," added bassist Mike Starr in the same interview. Overall, the band took a lighthearted approach to the incident, even printing up an official tour shirt emblazoned with an X-ray of Staley's broken foot under the band's logo.
