[youtube]http://youtu.be/XE969ItsKaA[/youtube]
We’ve covered jumping off of stages and jumping off of balconies recently, so why don’t we also talk about charging the stage en masse? Over the weekend at Soundwave Festival in Brisbane, Australia, Thy Art Is Murder allegedly challenged the crowd to push through security and hop onstage. Naturally, the crowd obliged as you can see in the video above (you can see another, clearer video here).
There are claims that frontman CJ McMahon shouted the following:
“There are thousands of you and dozens of security. Smash them. All of you get on the stage. We wanna see someone put in hospital.”
This obviously didn’t go over well with festival organizer AJ Maddah who tweeted several messages about the incident before kicking the band off of the tour:
Really fucking clever. Risking the lives of my staff, the police, security and injuring your own fans. And destroying other bands’ equipmenr [sic]
Thy Band Are Fuckwits. Thy Band Are Kicked Off Tour.
Thy Art Is Murder did end up apologizing with this post on their Facebook and met with Maddah to talk about the matter:
Apologies to all affected by our set today at Soundwave Festival. We will see you tomorrow 4pm at Stage 6A Sydney.
After the apology, Maddah decided to belay his decision on kicking them off the tour and offered the following comment:
Just met with TAIM. Hopefully we’ll see a more considerate band on the rest of the tour.
Get all that? So, keep in mind that Maddah’s issue wasn’t necessarily that people wanted to be (and succeed in) getting onstage, but rather that the band was apparently encouraging the crowd to break through security. Allow us to offer a quote from Randy Blythe on security at shows:
“Security is there to protect the band, the fans, and your [the venue’s] business.”
Regardless of what McMahon exactly said to the crowd, security guards deserve respect for what they do at shows, and any action made to interfere with their job can lead to exactly the kind of situation Randy was in. Props to Thy Art Is Murder for stepping up and apologizing though.
[via News Feeds]
