Without even bringing the political aspect into this - if you act like an asshole to a band at a concert, don't whine when you get called out on it.
Holy shit, it's getting really annoying seeing this actually get traction on music news sites. Most of these reports are half assing the actual reporting of what went on. I was actually there for the whole "incident". I'm just going to copy+paste what I wrote on Reddit, and it actually details what the speech was about. It's long, but there's a TL;DR at the bottom. I hope video of the speech comes at sometime soon: I was actually at the show that this happened. Most articles and comments back and forth have wildly misconstrued what happened. The speech in question happened in between their last song of the set and their encore. Everyone else in the band left the stage before the encore and Joel stayed and began to speak about how he's always felt welcomed in the metal/hardcore/punk community, that its somewhere for those who are broken and/or different. And then he brought up the person who he saw wear a Trump jersey earlier in the day (didn't point him out in the crowd or anything) and brought up that it has the potential to make those there to escape the world outside feel uncomfortable, especially those of color, LGBTQ people, or other ethnic backgrounds. He ended it by saying that he didn't care what people believed in politically, but when it impedes on others feeling safe and comfortable at their shows that's where he has a problem. Dude in the Trump jersey also apparently threw a fit over the heal us shirts that Silent Planet was selling (according to Garrett on Twitter). Dude could have avoided the whole incident if he would have just worn literally almost anything else in his closet. And before anyone try's to claim I'm some blinded fan, I've been super indifferent to Amity in the past and was pretty underwhelmed by their performance (everyone else did great though!). Moral of the story though, just don't wear potentially divisive shit to a show! The experience should be about unity not division. TL;DR: Speech was more about the scene being a safe and comfortable place for others, and the way the symbolism behind the jersey that can impede on that. The guy also had a fit over the heal us shirts that SP was selling. Edit: And I also don't understand where people have been getting this whole "he dedicated 10 minutes of their set to calling him out" shit. Do you know how long 10 minutes is lmao? That would have been like 1/6 of their show. They would have had to cut like 2-3 songs if that were true. It was like a minute long, minute and 20 seconds TOPS.
Seems like this guy wore the shirt just to trigger people but I do have a problem calling out people for wearing clothing displaying a political opinion, even if its an unpopular one (aside from outwardly hateful words and images, obviously). Just makes me a bit uneasy when a crowd enforces a political consensus and determines that anyone who disagrees is unwelcome or fair game to berate.
Yeah but there are certain groups of people who see someone wearing Trump attire and have legit reason to think they could possibly be in some type of danger.
Usually I'm not one to post the other people's social media pages in circumstances like these, but news sites have already named him/linked his page as well. Anyways, this shit is petty and dumb. 2019: the year that MAGA drones took over metalcore shows.
From a financial standpoint this for sure is only a win for the bands and the venues. I honestly would love if the bands could turn this around and give a portion of all ticket sales and/or merch sales to a good charity or foundation (Safer Scenes, A Voice for the Innocent, etc).
If they think Amity has a lot to say about this, just wait. Buddy has no qualms about coming at people for their shitty political beliefs.
help!! goin to the show tomorrow, but will be workin late. what times do each of the bands hit the stage? i really don't want to miss senses fail.
Senses Fail go on about 90 minutes after the show starts. So if Belmont goes on at 7, expect Senses Fail to go on around 8:30.
How has the turnout been for these shows? I saw SF with Silverstein at the same venue as this and it was maybe half full
Felt like there was a lot of people there for Senses Fail. At least it seemed like a lot of people left after they played. I wouldn't say half full, but it was noticeably smaller for Amity.
During SF it was jam packed once they left it cleared out A LOT but still a really decent crowd for TAA.
Coheadliners are generally that way. Whoever plays 1st has the biggest crowds because there will always be people there for that band only. If TAA was playing first people would clear out after them. I wouldn’t read too much into it.
When I said half full, I meant the whole show. At the senses fail/ Silverstein coheadliner, it seemed like the floor filled in after Senses Fail was done. There still weren’t a lot of people there though. I will also say that this was opening night of one of the Star Wars movies but I’m not sure how big a part it would’ve played (I’m only including that because Buddy thanked the crowd for coming instead of seeing SW)
Also for that SF/Silverstein coheadliner it was in support of PTTFYH and they have definitely regained a lot of steam with their most recent album. Shame though, I love hardcore senses fail
That tour was awesome. I'd say that was my favorite live SF performance. It's weird to see those bands not fill a room together when they individually do it out here in California all the time.
It was a great show and I loved hearing all of those PTTFYH songs live but it was just empty to the point of being awkward