Musicians have stopped concerts before to tend to their fans. Pop singer Pink stopped a 2013 concert to comfort a crying little girl who had apparently witnessed a fight. Harry Styles of teen woo-hoo band One Direction stopped the show to direct security towards a fainting fan. Country singer Jake Owen stopped the first song of his show to have a male fan thrown out for hitting a woman.?He later said, “If you’re a man and you touch a woman, you’re a bad dude, man.” He didn’t mean it as a compliment.
And country star Tim McGraw stopped a recent show to break up a fight and even brought the little girl caught in the middle of the fight onto the stage with him. That’s how you overwrite a bad experience with a good one — nice one, Tim.
So the news from a May 31 Staind concert in Kansas City shouldn’t surprise anyone: singer Aaron Lewis stopped in the middle of a song to verbally blast male fans who, he said, were groping a girl while she was crowdsurfing. What made it stand out for me was the level of anger (not to mention profanity) in his voice. Here’s the video of the incident, but I’m warning you not to play it at work or while your Aunt Hepzibah is doing her tatting:
Don’t dare fire up the video? Here’s a transcript, with all the profanity redacted NSA-style:
Listen up you f—–g a——s, that f—–g girl over right there is like 15 f—–g years old and you f—–g pieces of s–t are molesting her while she’s on the f—–g crowd. Your f—–g mothers should be ashamed of themselves, you pieces of s–t. You should all be f—–g beaten down by everyone around you for being f—–g pieces of s–t. If I f—–g see that s–t again, I swear to God, I will point you out in the crowd and have everyone around you beat your f—–g a-s.
My reaction: “H–l yeah, Aaron! [further comments redacted for Aunt Hepzibah’s benefit]”
I could, if I really wanted to, downgrade him a bit for being a little uncreative and repetitive in his use of profanity — there’s so much profanity to choose from in the English language, and so many different ways he could have berated the deficient little creeps in the crowd who were taking the opportunity to get in a little sexual assault and molestation on the side. But the message is clear and powerful, and I stand behind it 100 percent. And from the cheers of the crowd, they were more than ready to jump in and wail on some molesters.
After the guitarist resumed playing the song, Lewis said:
“Now, girls, feel free to crowd-surf safely.”
Good to hear all around. It’s been years since I’ve paid any attention to Staind, but I think I’m gonna go fire up some videos on YouTube and say nice things about Aaron Lewis and his righteous outrage on behalf of a girl who has the right to be secure in her person, whether she’s standing at a bus stop or crowdsurfing at an outdoor festival.
Published writer since 2001, focusing on politics, history, Web development, and other topics. First book is coming soon.
