I caught Jay Reatard at the Vice Party during SXSW last month. It was sweaty fast rock and roll. Afterwards I ran into him and I can tell you he’s 100% a nice guy. At his recent show in Toronto at the Silver Dollar things got out of control. Let that be a lesson to you stage jumpers, you mess stuff up and you may get a knuckle sammy.
Here’s Jay’s take from his myspace page:
Friday, April 18, 2008
Dear Toronto…
Last night’s show in Toronto got completely fucked up. The Silver Dollar holds 190 people but Craig Laskey the promoter let 350 people in there. That’s cool if there’s some sort of security or crowd control – we don’t need people getting so wild they jump on stage and smash our gear – but that’s exactly what happened. Right when we started playing someone pushed the monitors right on top of Stephen and on to his pedals – breaking them, people were throwing beer bottles at us, a someone jumped onstage and smashed my pedals, another guy took a full pitcher of beer and dumped it all over the rest of my pedals, and then threw it right at my Flying V, breaking the pickup and the input electronics. After three songs all our gear was smashed and unusable. Even when shit gets that crazy at Circle Jerks show there’s at least some security but when I asked Craig Laskey about it before the show he told me “I thought you guys were a garage band.” When we couldn’t play anymore I hung out and talked to people, refunded people’s money out of my own pocket, and tried to borrow gear and finish the set a bit later but Dan Burke wouldn’t get off the stage, too busy talking trash about me.
I’m getting really sick of shit like this happening. We’ll come back in Toronto soon and do a free show to make it up to the real fans in Toronto. And we’ll steer away from greedy promoters who don’t have any control of their shows and who don’t care about doing right by the audience.
That begs the question, assuming you like the musician you’re paying money to see, why break their gear? Also, what musician would you never want to take a beat down from? Seeing the above video, Jay’s on my list.
Myspace: Jay Reatard
people should never pay and always bum rush through the doors at Jay Reatard shows, then throw bricks and used needles at this dude.
this guy’s career will totally nosedive if clubs & promoters start associating him with “people will show up, not pay, rush past security, and throw heavy / pointy / contaminated things at the stage”
let’s make it happen people! we can do it!
THROW THINGS AT JAY REATARD!
let’s get some tshirts and buttons printed up.