“Somebody had stolen some equipment from the opening act and we got blamed for it. The crowd went crazy”: Ricky Byrd on the disastrous Joan Jett gig where they were wrongly accused of stealing gear – and the audience turned on them

Ricky Byrd has recalled his worst onstage experience, during which a crowd turned against him and Joan Jett after they were wrongly accused of stealing electric guitar gear.

Chances are we’ve all played to less-than-ideal crowds, but it’s probably unlikely that you’ve ever had to face the ire of a room full of people who have taken it upon themselves to exercise some form of misplaced justice following a bizarre backstage incident.

As the Joan Jett guitarist remembers in the new issue of Guitar World, he and Jett were opening up for the Scorpions during a European show. Unfortunately, the act that came before them reportedly had their gear stolen – and they took the blame. Even worse, the crowd took matters into their own hands.

“There was this one time when I was with Joan Jett. We were opening for the Scorpions at an indoor stadium in Spain, and the crowd got a little rowdy,” he says. “Something went down as somebody had stolen some equipment from the opening act that played before us.

“Somehow we got blamed for it, so the crowd went crazy and somebody threw a 9-volt battery, and it hit me right above my eye.

“We stopped the show, and Joan and I just stood in the shadows. I remember me and her looking at each other going, ‘I’m not going back out there.’”

Jett herself has spoken about the disaster gig in the past, although Byrd’s mention of false accusations and stolen gear adds a new layer to the tale. As Jett told it, the crowd’s fury was largely a result of the local opening act dropping out – which Jett was wrongly blamed for.

“There was another band on the bill," she once told SiriusXM (via Loudwire). "Rosa Negro was the name of the act. So we had two nights in this city in Spain. Rosa Negro was on first, they were a Spanish band, and then we played and then the Scorpions played.

“The next day, it’s supposed to be the same thing and there was a car show in town and the Scorpions wanted to see the car show, but in order to do that they had to blow out one of the bands. So, they blew out Rosa Negro, who had a girl lead singer and they blamed me, saying I didn’t want another girl on the bill.

“So that night, I was bombarded with spit, loogies... cause this was a local band. You had guys drunk, working up loogies… spitting on me… and there are pictures of me drenched in spit and stuff hanging off of my guitar. They wanted me to leave, and I would not leave, because I didn’t do anything [wrong], I didn’t understand it.”

Visit Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitar World, which features interviews with Zakk Wylde, Billy Corgan, Kiki Wong and Khruangbin.