Of all the bands you might expect to see play a state fair, Corrosion of Conformity aren’t one of them. However, if you’re in North Carolina this Friday (21), it could be your lucky day, as they’ll be playing the Raleigh event at their “Homegrown Music Fest” between”A Night of Praise” (on the 20th) and “Ultimate Johnny Cash Tribute” (on the 22nd). However, the event won’t be the first time the band played the Dorton Arena. That would be back in 1984, two years after the band’s formation. The “Battlerock ’84” battle of the bands didn’t exactly go the way the band wanted ti to, however, ending after police shut it down. They thought that then-singer Eric Eyche was inciting a riot. From the News Observer:
In Eycke’s telling, he didn’t do much actual performing during COC’s abbreviated set. He came out, whipped the microphone cord around, the mike went flying and he spent most of COC’s time onstage looking for it as the rest of the band played on.
“Like all early COC shows, when they played it was like a jet landing and a bomb going off at the same time,” said Richard Butner, who was in the crowd. “Once COC started their beautiful racket, people began to slam-dance and a few got up to stage-dive.” That’s when the problems started, as uniformed State Fair officers took to the stage to keep stage-divers off. There were scuffles between audience and officers as the mosh pit continued. At a certain point, the stage crew decided enough was enough.
They moved to shut COC down and pulled the plug. The head of the stage crew wound up onstage in a confrontation with Eycke, and he sustained injuries after being thrown into the crowd. That got the cops’ attention. “What ensued was a misunderstanding,” said Steve Bass, the promoter. “They saw Eric as instigating a riot, so they tried to restrain him, put hands on him and it did not go well with the crowd.”
Eycke wound up being charged with disorderly conduct, inciting a riot and three counts of assaulting law-enforcement officers. However, what might be the best part of the story comes from Woody Weatherman’s parents, one of whom was issued a summons for hitting a cop, and probably not the one you’d expect. Here’s the adorable tale from the Weathermans:
[via Dangerous Minds]
