The Smith Street Band frontman Wil Wagner has come under fire from fans unhappy with the way he handled an incident at his band’s recent Perth gig. Wagner reportedly took disrupting a fight in the mosh a little too far.
The Smith Street band was performing at the Capitol in Perth on Friday night with friends Luca Brasi, Joelistics, and Jess Locke Band as part of their current national tour, which wraps up in Melbourne later this week.
As a reviewer for The Music notes, the performance was proceeding swimmingly, rather ironically taking a turn when Wagner and the band pulled out their new song ‘Death To The Lads’.
As Wagner told the crowd gathered in the Capitol, the new tune is about when you’re having a good ol’ time with your mates and it gets ruined all of a sudden because a bunch of boneheaded lads show up and ruin it.
Not long after the Melbourne outfit launched into the song the performance was interrupted by a punter who basically decided to imitate the very drongos the song was criticising by “throwing punches to the side of the stage”.
An incensed Wagner reportedly “screamed” at security to kick the punter out, which was met with jubilation and support from the crowd. But it was after this positive response that some say Wagner took things too far.
“I just f***ing want to play one show without f***ing idiots,” Wagner told the crowd (which is fair enough). “You wonder why no f***ing bands come to Perth.” This comment, however, was met with “boos and moans” from the audience.
The atmosphere of the gig reportedly plummeted and things didn’t improve after Wagner decided to play through a few more songs only to unleash another “lecture” on the crowd concerning gig etiquette, even threatening to dissolve the band.
“For once in my life I want to play a f***ing song to f***ing good people,” he said. According to The Music‘s Nichola Gray, Wagner claimed that if every one of the band’s gigs is going to involve a fight, the band will just have to break up.
Wagner’s comments have led to raised eyebrows from more than a few of the punters present at the gig. “That was tough to hear,” Alex Towler wrote on Facebook. “I completely agree with your attitudes towards ‘lads’ at gigs, but the rest of us were there to enjoy great music together.”
“As much as I am a fan of deterrents to violence, deterring violence WITH violence at your show tonight was completely and utterly pathetic,” wrote Dan Tatum, taking Wagner to task for how he handled the fighting punters.
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“To see a guy fighting in the crowd, and to crumble to the point of trying to fight him in return, completely nullifies every point you were trying to get across in all your statements. How does this make you any better than the violent member of the crowd you were trying to fight?”
However others, like April Matters, were more sympathetic towards Wagner’s attitude. “I know a lot of the reaction to the way the Perth show was handled has been negative but honestly, good on him.”
“It sucks that a chain of events pushed him to explode on that level but someone needed to say it! F***ing lads need stop making the alternative music scene a place for them to be f***ing wankers.”
