I must have been a lucky sod over the years, I’ve only ever left two gigs early and neither was because the band was bad, far from it. First one was Radio One’s “Summer Of 84” all-dayer at Wembley Stadium, when we left halfway through Elton’s encore song (Crocodile Rock I think) to beat the rush**. Second was Vow Wow at the Majestic in Reading, 87ish I think, because I had a stupidly early start next morning.
** my mate was also there and stayed to the end, another 5 minutes or so. At about the same time I was dropping my girlfriend off at her house in Reading, he was just about getting out of the car park at Wembley.