Jay Ferguson, ex of Spirit, blew the Doobies off the stage on a nightly basis in support of his Thunder Island album. I used to work for Jay as his lighting designer. He had a remarkably tight band and he was a one man wrecking crew on stage. The press coverage started to become embarassing for the Doobie Brothers so we came off their tour and started headlining our own in smaller venues.
'they blew'em off the stage'
what concerts have you attended, where the warm up act blew the headliners away.....my examples...brownville station upstaging zz top to the point where people where chanting 'brownsville station!' during the littl ol' band from texas' set.....another..t.rex upstaging lynyrd skynyrd(yes there really was such a show), and the grass roots upstaging cream.