This year millions of people threw buckets of iced water over their heads, in the name of ALS. Many hallowed names in the rockstar community – from Dave Grohl to Def Leppard – wanted to join in. Here are our favourites...
DAVE GROHL
Grohl’s faithful adaptation of that prom scene is the daddy of kooky celeb ice bucket challenges – no pig’s blood in sight. Whoever knew that novelty fundraising and bearded Sissy Spacek impersonators were so compatible?
DUFF MCKAGAN
Real men don’t piss around with washing-up bowls and a few ice cubes. They get thrown, by two Washington Huskies, into a bath of iced water. American footballers + Guns N’ Roses bassist = very hench ice bucket challenge.
DEF LEPPARD & KISS
This was never going to be understated. The massive crowd, Paul Stanley’s spectacularly over-the-top speech, the ALS sufferer brought on stage, Joe Elliott’s T-shirt bearing the command ‘FUCK CANCER’… Both admirable and exhausting.
LES CLAYPOOL
The back gardens, the self-conscious grins… Ice bucket challenges were getting a tad predictable. Enter Primus nut-job Claypool, in a pig mask, playing a double bass. “That’s some cold-ass shit,” quoth the pig man, post-dousing.
JASON BECKER
As a 19-year-old guitar virtuoso, Becker was diagnosed with ALS. At 45 he braved a bag of ice on his head (his tracheotomy tube prevented the full water bucket treatment). Wittily done, and quietly poignant.
