Peter Maffay is a stage artist through and through. After a 50-year career, one of Germany’s most successful musicians is going on a farewell tour in 2024. The now 74-year-old, who only didn’t make it into our ranking of the top 15 pop stars of all time because he also celebrated great success as a German rocker, enjoys songs like “Du” (1970), “Es war Sommer” (1976) or “You have to go over seven bridges” (1980) cult status among hit fans.
Not everything always went so smoothly, as the Transylvanian native revealed to the Playboy podcast “After hours” in 2021. He will probably never forget his worst performance in his lifetime. “It was humiliating,” he says in the interview. But what had happened?
Peter Maffay and his worst performance: angry Stones fans threw eggs at him
The time of the disgrace falls on July 1982. Peter Maffay, who, according to “MDR-meine-Schlagerwelt”, was already a big name back then thanks to his legendary album “Steppenwolf”, which had been released three years earlier, had gradually moved towards German rock and was with it His band was booked as the opening act for the Rolling Stones at the Müngersdorfer Stadium in Cologne. But things didn’t go as planned by the band and their lead singer.
Because the opening act’s performance probably didn’t suit the taste of the Stones’ fans at all, as we all know, not the most squeamish ones. Quite the opposite: “Everything flew onto the stage – including eggs. It was a shock. It was humiliating,” said the rock and pop singer in an interview on the Playboy podcast. But the Tabaluga singer, who recently appeared on the “Giovannni Zarella Show” in the ZDF In retrospect, he once again demonstrated his stage skills in honor of Roland Kaiser.
Peter Maffay and his worst appearance also had something good
Looking back on his old years on the stage, Peter Maffay, the 1982 stage disgrace, can detect a healing crack in the young artist, who is bursting with self-confidence: “I think if we hadn’t really gotten our act together, we would have become megalomaniacs,” says the German pop rock legend flatly 40 years later, the tone is conciliatory.
By the way: A grand seigneur of German pop music recently died at the ripe old age of 95. The pop world is mourning the death of pop legend Henry Valentino.