Guav (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} throwingstardna) wrote,@ 2004-07-27 22:43:00 |
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| Current music: | Gang Riot - Stars and Stripes |
| Entry tags: | bands, pictures |
Hellfest Day Three
I'd like to start this out my pointing out why hardcore kids are way better than metal kids. Contrast the "Wall Of Death" video I posted last week with this Wall Of Death video from Hellfest. In the Ozzfest one, it looks insane until the two sides come together, and then the crowd just kinda gets stuck there, gridlocked. In the Hellfest video, the two sides clash, and then actually battle each other. Now THAT'S Braveheart.
But anyways, on to day three.
I got the venue at around 3:00pm, and I was stressing because I was supposed to film Walls Of Jericho's set at 3:05, and I assured Big Daddy I'd be there in time. I rush up to the back of the stage as Death Threat plays their last couple songs. Matt from MPB is filming them. When they end he asks me if he can film Walls Of Jericho for me, and if I can tape Sworn Enemy for him, because Big Daddy scheduled him to film Sworn Enemy, but he has to set up because Most Precious Blood is on right after them. So I walked around for a bit, and then taped Sworn Enemy, Most Precious Blood, and Death By Stereo all in a row.
I went upstairs and hung out with Chris Baldwin and Nathan some more, got some shirts from To Die For, and chilled for a bit. I was kinda pissed that I wasn't going to get to see The Promise play, because they were playing at the same time as Throwdown on the other stage, and I needed to take pictures of Throwdown's set because I sell the photos of crazy crowd shots to a distribution company for ads, and I could use the money. So I wore a Promise shirt instead that morning. Al told me that I was gonna jinx myself, that you can't wear a band's shirt to their own show—which I know, but my argument was that I wasn't going to see them play. He said if you wear a band's shirt while they're playing, you'll get hurt dancing. I said that I wasn't going to watch them play, and I wasn't going to be dancing.
Throwdown goes on, and I take pictures the entire set. I got a few good pics, and the set was great as usual. During the very last song, I put my camera away, dash across the stage, and jump off JC from CC's back ... Up, and out, I have too much airtime, and kids had a chance to look at this douchebag flying through the air towards them and say, "Fuck this asshole," and move. No big deal. I landed on my feet. But I was moving so fast and basically was coming down from about 10 feet in the air at this point, so I landed and wrenched the fuck out of my left ankle. Al later points out to me that the Promise was playing when I did that dive for Throwdown, and declares his theory intact and even stronger than before. I'm in no position to debate it.
I tape Bleeding Through, watch a few songs of Merauder, check out Life Of Agony from upstairs, and limp around. The big buzz, of course, is the Bad Luck 13 Riot Extravaganza's last show, which is the last band playing that night (except for Fear Factory, which nobody was going to watch anyway). If you're not familiar with who Bad Luck 13 Riot Extravaganza is, then read the bio, and multiply it by 10 (at least). They basically attack the audience, and the audience attacks itself. It's like backyard wrestling amped up on meth and PCP.
I've managed to avoid seeing them live as long as they've existed, and this was not going to be any exception. Rumors were rampant, especially on Sunday, and everyone was terrified of what was going to go down. Everyone I talked to had heard a different rumor. But at the very worst, you knew it was going to be something like this, but on a much larger scale: (5.2MB .mov)
RUMORS:
- They brought a cage, and were going to throw four random kids into.
- They were going to release 100 rats into the crowd.
- They were going to release attacks dogs into the crowd.
- They were going to slaughter chickens onstage.
- They were going to slaughter a pig onstage.
- They had molotov cocktails to light stage on fire.
- They planned on setting the entire venue on fire.
- They were going to kill themselves on stage.
All the chatter going around built it up even more, and even though most people assumed most of what they heard was bullshit, we still knew that some serious shit was going to go down. I didn't want to be anywhere near it, and vowed that I would not be near the second stage. Big Daddy had asked if I would tape their set and I told him to go fuck himself.
I went to the first aid room and had my ankle looked at. They said it was just a bad sprain, and wrapped it up tight. I couldn't really walk on it, I sorta limped/hobbled. As I was finishing up, one of the EMS guys came in and said, "Somone told us we should have an extra guy on duty for this next band." I told him he better have an extra 10 guys on duty. He said "Are you serious?" I explained to him in no uncertain terms that there was going to be a riot, and there was going to be a lot of blood. I didn't mention pitbulls or molotovs, I just told him that they were never going to see anything like this again, and that they were going to be needed. The blood drained from their faces.
The tension and rumors were building as BL13's set time came closer and closer. My vow to go nowhere near the second stage when they played crumbled as BL13 was about to go on. Curiosity killed the cat, but there was no way I could sit it out, I had to see what was about to transpire, plus Bea wanted to watch it, despite my warnings to her and my exaggerations about what was going to happen.The second stage was set up at one end of a basketball court, with bleachers on both side and at the opposite end, where the sound guy was set up. Next to that was a second basketball court. They were divided by long curtains that had been tied back. First we went to the back of the court that had the second stage, thinking we might be safe there. This illusion was swiftly shattered as it was noticed that there were many large, sketchy characters spread out throughout the crowd at the back on the court, all trying very hard to be inconspicuous.
I didn't want to be near the shit, because my ankle was fucked, I couldn't run, and I couldn't defend Bea if bad shit went down. I only had a small knife on me, and I was a cripple. We eventually settled on the far side of the adjacent court, parallel to the stage.
"Most bands start off with a little feedback, Bad Luck 13 starts off with a fist fight."
-Buske
The set started out slowly, with just random fights and small beatings, and then escalated. Shit started flying through the air, full water bottles, barbed wire, and various debris. Then a garbage can. Then a folding chair (which hit Al in the head haha). It was hard to tell what was going on all the time, because we couldn't see what was going on in front of the stage, but flourescent lightbulbs were being broken on people's heads, people were fleeing the crowd, and most of them had abject terror on their faces. I guess those are the ones who hadn't known who BL13 were, or what to expect. I saw Big Daddy onstage filming, and wondered who else was in the middle of it, capturing it for posterity. Various shit was going down, and the crowd was surging back and forth, everyone would start to run, and then surge back to see what was happening. Someone yelled "GET THE PUSSIES ON THE BLEACHERS!" and charged up the bleachers and started beating everyone, and people were pouring off the back of the bleachers and running. Shit was flying everywhere, adrenaline was pumping, and I was scared as fuck but couldn't leave.
Next to me were a few of the EMS guys from the first aid room, and they looked at me and shook their heads. They were scared, shocked, and of course, oddly thrilled. They'd get a call on their walkie talkie and bravely charge into the melee, then emerge with some bleeding person. Then everyone started screaming and the bleachers got flipped over. Which looks really insane. Then the crowd on the other side started pushing the bleachers across the adjacent court, and all we saw was this giant bleachers coming at us like a fucking wall of death, with a hundred kids behind it. I thought we were going to get squashed against the wall, so I grabbed Bea and we jetted around the corner. We did a circle and ended up on the skatepark section behind a plexiglass barrier, standing on a skate ramp. This appeared to be a safe place, until kids started climbing over the plexiglass barrier and infiltrating our refuge. It was about this time that the they shot off the fire extinguishers during their last song, filling the place with fog and finally the power got cut. But they were done anyways.
HAPPENED:
- Baseball bats in the pit.
- Kids getting hit with boxing gloves wrapped in barbed wire.
- Flourecent lights being broken over people's heads.
- M80s being thrown.
- Fire extigusher being sprayed.
- Empty fire extigusher being thrown at people.
- Bleachers flipped over.
- Pig's head being thrown.
- Dead animals and raw meat being thrown.
- Folding chairs thrown.
- More barbed wire.
- Blood.
Chuck AWOL, who Big Daddy had convinced to film (along with Anderson from The Promise) wrote:
"I was given "pit-cam" duty. My fear was curbed after I got a full, open hand slap to my nose during the first chord. After that it was all gravy. Bleachers topled, people screaming and running for their lives, fireworks, dead animals, barbed wire, folding chairs, light bulbs, rotten garbage, trash cans, bottles, blood, skulls and harsh language. Pure chaos."
Some other accounts I came across today:
"I saw everything from a kid taking a fluorescent light bulb and throwing it like a javelin into the middle of everyone to a metal chair flying at least a hundred feet across the building and cracking a kid in the face."
"I just got home from the hospital an hour ago. I was either stabbed or got hit by falling glass in the shoulder. I was punched in the face numerous times and I fell down in a pile of broken glass. One of the EMTs was beaten down himself and sprayed with a fire extinguisher."
"Goats head, which was in the BL13 van for at least 3 days—and most likely bacteria ridden—was picked up by some fruitbag who took a bite out of it. Said fruitbag goes outside, passes out and gets taken away by the ambulance. As they're carting his sorry ass in the vehicle, he looks into a video camera and says "BAD LUCK 13 FOR LIFE!"
DIDN'T HAPPEN:
- No flamethrower.
- A stampede did not kill three kids.
- Girl did not get hit in the head with a sawblade and killed.
From what I can tell, the girl who everyone is saying got his in the head with a sawblade is actually
pinkzeppelin71, who wrote:"All of a sudden, I get hit in the fucking forehead with something, and I can't see out of my right eye, and I can feel that i'm bleeding all over myself. I look down, and I see this melon-shaped object on the bleachers near my feet. I feel and smell the shit in my hair and down my arm, and I realize that I got hit with a chunk of a cow skull and I have cow brains in my hair and on me. I have brains and blood in my right eye and I can't see out of it. I freak out, and push my way to the end of the bleachers. almost every person who saw my face as I pushed by went slack-jawed. I heard guys screaming, "Let her through, let her through! she's hurt!" I jumped off the bleachers and made my way to the exit, blindly rushing through the crowd."
Eyewitnesses must have saw the blood covering her face, and thought the brains in her hair were HER brains. After their set, their was a crowd around the first aid room, looking in the windows at the room filled with bleeding people. I went back to the High Roller video room and watched some of the footage Big Daddy shot. Shit was crazy, as you'd expect from a BL13 show, but the truth is, it looked way worse from my vantage point on the floor. All I saw was shit flying, people running and screaming, surges of the crowd. I saw a mob reacting. Watching the footage, I now see that one of the safest places to be was right in front of the stage and the dancefloor, which was relatively clear. It's the crowds on the sides that are the targets, and one guy running at the crowd with a bat is enough to cause dozens of people to scream and run, whether he hits them or not.
This is not to say that it was a walk in the park—because it fucking wasn't—but just that crowds are more dangerous than individuals, and the mob reaction might have been scarier than what they were reacting to. This was proven after their set when Big Daddy was outside filming the crowds reaction in the aftermath. At one point, he and someone else locked arms like a two-person wall of death and ran at someone as a joke. The entire crowd outside screamed and ran like hell in all directions, thinking shit was popping off again HAHAHA. He has it on tape, I need to see it.
Then again, people DID get fucked up. But nobody could seem to tear themselves away, and after the first 15 seconds of mayhem, everyone who was there was there by choice. This is not to say that I think rampant destruction is cool or that I think Keith should have booked them—violence for the sake of violence itself never interested me, and it would have been nice to have Hellfest at Rexplex again—but I don't feel bad for anyone who got hurt after the first half-song. If I got gashed with a bulb, I'd have nobody to blame but myself, as I knew the risks involved in watching BL13 and I made a conscious choice to be there.
I had more to write about Hellfest in general, but I'm tired of typing this shit, and I still have to write about the horrible day I had today. Besides, nobody reads these long entries.
