As we previously posted, Every Time I Die had a run in with Club Infinity security at their annual Christmas show in Buffalo, New York. The video was posted and opinions were formed, and in a recent email to Upstate Metal the band had to say this about the incident:
“Apparently there’s an Internet. And on it, there seems to be a video floating around from our Christmas show in Buffalo last Friday. Is it of us playing a brand new song for the first time? No. It’s of a bunch of people pushing and pulling other people. It’s hardly a fight. It was a misunderstanding manifested in an aggressive fashion. The club had a strict “no people on stage” policy which we were not made aware of…we have a strict “we love when people get on stage” policy that security was not made aware of. While outside earlier that evening, a certain security guard even told me how awesome the last “Five Finger Death Punch” show was because people rushed the stage. There has always been a rule in Every Time I Die and that is “do what Five Finger Death Punch does. No more, no less”. Therefore, I fully expected that with fair warning (which I can be seen giving) kids would be allowed to join us in typical ETID/FFDP fashion. Security was not having it. With the safety of our fans being top priority, we tried to ameliorate the situation. It was hot and confusing and irrational and immediate as most fights are and in retrospect we have discovered that it was all due to a lack of communication. We respect the venue, the promoter and the securities obligation to keep the band safe. Had they been informed of our complete disregard for our own lives, however, perhaps they wouldn’t have seen the stage raiders as a threat, but they did, and interests clashed. To the venue, we are sorry for the unfortunate miscommunication between us and your staff. To the people that travelled, we are sorry about our set being cut short and the fact that most of you didn’t get to receive a Shitty Secret Santa gift…to our friends, how much fucking fun was that?”
From the stand point of watching the video, it’s pretty simply put that the video makes the entire mishap seem a bit worse than what it was. It wasn’t a matter of “security brutality”, and it was clearly a miscommunication. Did the staff overreact? Quite possibly. To be human is to err. Of course with the ever rising costs of overhead to keep a venue up and running, I suppose a touch of panic was understandable. However, if a venue is going to book hardcore or metal bands, they shouldn’t bitch about the crowd getting so into it. After all, it IS Every Time I Die.
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-Christine Palmer
UpstateLIVE Archive - October 2011-March 2013 