Abstract This study deals with the dynamics of a large flexible column with a tip mass-pendulum arrangement. The system is a conceptualization of a vibration-absorbing device for flexible structures with tip appendages. The bifurcation diagrams of the averaged system indicate that the system loses stability via two distinct routes; one leading to a saddle-node bifurcation, and the other to the Hopf bifurcation, indicating the existence of an invariant torus. Under the change of forcing amplitude, these bifurcations coalesce. This phenomenon has important global ramifications, in the sense that the periodic modulations associated with the Hopf bifurcation tend to have an infinite period, a strong indicator of existence of homoclinic orbits. The system also possesses isolated solutions (the so-called “isolas”) that form isolated loops bounded away from zero. As the forcing amplitude is varied, the isolas appear, disappear or coalesce with the regular solution branches. The response curves indicate that the column amplitude shows saturation and the pendulum acts as a vibration absorber. However, there is also a frequency range over which a reverse flow of energy occurs, where the pendulum shows reduced amplitude at the cost of large amplitudes of the column. The experimental dynamics shows that the periodic motion gives rise to a quasi-periodic response, confirming the existence of tori. Within the quasi-periodic region, there are windows containing intricate webs of mode-locked periodic responses. An increase in the force amplitude causes the tori to break up, a phenomenon similar to the onset of turbulence in hydrodynamics.