News :: Bands Boycott Crawdaddy
Shocked but not at all surprised to hear that staff at Crawdaddy were involved in what can only be described as a brawl at Home Star Runner‘s final gig last Saturday. A thread on Moshspace gives first-person accounts of the incident, reporting that security staff apparently reacted aggressively to members of the audience who were bouncing in the front row, punched at least one woman in the face, repeatedly throttled one guy, caused injuries to another’s arm and when the Gardai were called, arrests were made on punters. The audience at these gigs is usually pretty young, as HSR played an all-ages gig there earlier that day too and by all accounts, it was far more boisterous than the night show.
Home Star Runner are understandably horrified that their last-ever gig was marred in such a way and equally disgusted by the turn of events, those who were in attendance at Crawdaddy on Saturday night have called for a boycott on the venue. There are photos of the melee on Flickr. Another band have already cancelled a gig that was due to take place this weekend. In 2007 I had issues of my own with the security at the POD complex, which involved turning up (completely sober, polite etc!) with an official photopass only to be dragged out of the pit and my camera bag thrown across the floor which resulted in thousands of euro in damage to my equipment. There are certainly other instances of POD being sued over security complaints but the fact that Gardai and trained, professional staff were apparently so excessively aggressive to these kids is nothing short of scary.
http://www.moshspace.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11721
EDIT :: POD have released a statement (via GoldenPlec’s eyewitness report)
There was an incident last Saturday night in Crawdaddy during the Home Star Runner performance.
Crawdaddy management have investigated this incident, met the security and venue staff involved, and watched the CCTV footage. We can categorically confirm that no females were struck or injured, and that security acted in a responsive manner to being physically attacked. Security responded to prevent the incident escalating further.
Both Crawdaddy and P&B Security have a zero tolerance policy on any aggression or unpleasantness in our staff. Security had the safety of the members of the public at the forefront of their minds when they moved the trouble outside the venue.
When the Garda intervened, one band member and one member of the public were arrested.
Extremely curious to note that POD are suggesting no females were struck and that the paying gig-goers instigated the violence by attacking the security staff. If that’s the case then it will be interesting whether or not the requested CCTV footage reflects this.
The way I see it, the audience at Whelans for Adebisi Shank’s album launch a few weeks ago was as crazy as it gets yet caused no concern to the security staff in that venue despite full-scale moshing, crowd-surfing and a stage invasion. If the POD security were ‘professionals‘ in event management and crowd control, why the huge disparity between the two shows? For such outrageous behaviour to have kicked off, someone must surely have been at fault and strangely, in the case of Adebisi Shank at Whelans, a large, energetic crowd was peacefully dispersed simply because the security staff treated customers with respect.
EDIT #2 ::
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Thanks Nay,
I was going to hold off giving this story to you until I had more statements from those directly involved and I’ve since been talking to a representative from Pod.
I think it’s becoming clear at this early stage that we will not stand for violence as gig goers, in or out of uniform.
No worries dude, I heard about it at a party early on Sunday morning but didn’t realise how serious it was til I checked the story out today. Strict door staff are one thing, there are always losers who need to be removed from a venue (I can include myself in that unfortunately) but this just seems so incredibly extreme and unwarranted. Hope it gets sorted.
Security guards are notorious for raining on the good time parade. Lots of time, they are formerly popular kids who look for any chance they can find to exert power over weaker people. Whatta shame.
Well these particular security guards seem to be notorious all too regularly. But it’s funny that you mentioned popularity…
http://bit.ly/dqpPD0
Sick, sad individuals… People who enjoy causing physical harm to others should never be put in any position of power. Here’s hoping Karma has its way.
“The way I see it, the audience at Whelans for Adebisi Shank’s album launch a few weeks ago was as crazy as it gets yet caused no concern to the security staff in that venue despite full-scale moshing, crowd-surfing and a stage invasion.”
In fairness a professional security staff or venue wouldn’t allow full-scale moshing, crowd-surfing and a stage invasion because it would be in breech of regulations and leave them wide open for claims.
But Whelans did. So are you going to suggest that the venue, and its staff who have worked as security there for years, are unprofessional because they were able to actually handle a rock gig in a calm and capable manner?
Yes. Security are employed to manage the interests of the crowd and management and certainly not allow crowd surfing or a customer on stage. Regardless of how you think they should act, these are the cold hard facts of the issue.
Do you think the manager of Whealans would condone customers on his stage?
I reckon so, seeing as they’ve been booked to return as a support band in October! And the cold hard facts in the case of Crawdaddy are there in video, photo and written testaments from witnesses who saw security personnel create an extremely agressive situation out of nothing. Look at the live music photos, they show a completely happy and relaxed crowd, nothing untoward at all, no situation to be handled. See for yourself:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iseanie/4985076290/in/photostream/
However the main point here, and you can’t argue with this, is POD’s own stance on the matter, as outlined above:
“Both Crawdaddy and P&B Security have a zero tolerance policy on any aggression or unpleasantness in our staff. Security had the safety of the members of the public at the forefront of their minds when they moved the trouble outside the venue.”
So firstly, there wasn’t any trouble from customers in the venue and secondly, the bouncers deliberately contravened their orders by using unpleasant and aggressive tactics on customers, members of the public, as documented in the evidence of videos and photographs that clearly show people were left with visible injuries as a result of their treatment at the hands of the staff.
Wat de fuck is de big deal,they were causing trouble and got dragged out by the bouncers….Build a bridge yiz sad pricks!!