Spiritbox ejected a fan from a recent show in Phoenix, Arizona for allegedly violent behaviour.
As the Canadian metalcore outfit played Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre last Wednesday (July 15), singer Courtney LaPlante paused the show before playing last year’s single Soft Spine to kick out some that she claimed was “hurting everybody”.
Footage of the encounter is now circulating online.
“Zev [Rose, drummer] is taller than us and he’s up on the kit, and he sees some fucker right now,” LaPlante says in the video (via The PRP).
“We’re not gonna play another song and this show is not gonna continue until we make sure everybody out there is safe. So I need you guys to be tattletales, who’s the fucking freak that’s hurting everybody? Point him out… Point him out. He went that way? Well guess what, fucker? We all saw you, and we know where you are. Your ass is gonna get kicked the fuck out.”
The singer then addresses one of the alleged victims of the unruly concertgoer.
“Hey are you OK, bud?” she asks. “I know that you didn’t mean to draw attention, I’m sorry to draw attention to you, but that’s fucked up, OK? This isn’t the damn gold medal karate match, OK? This is a rock’n’roll show. Alright, it looks like security’s got him. Let that be a lesson to anybody out there who fucks around tonight.
“Because our security, they’re very nice and they love you guys. But they have let me know that if they have to, they will baptise a motherfucker and they will tune you up. Because what’s most important, safety, right? So if anybody falls down, what are you going to do? You’re going to pick them up, OK?”
The Phoenix show was part of Spiritbox’s ongoing North American tour with Evanescence and Nova Twins. The shows continue tonight (July 22) at Cascades Amphitheater in Ridgefield, Washington. The band are also booked for a run of European shows which start in Glasgow, UK on September 12. Jinjer and Dying Wish will support.
Spiritbox released their latest album, Tsunami Sea, to positive reviews last year. Metal Hammer’s Rich Hobson gave it a near-perfect 4.5-star score and said that they’d become “a band who could contend with Bring Me The Horizon and Sleep Token as the next zeitgeist-setting metal act”.
LaPlante collaborated on a standalone single called End Of You with fellow vocalists Poppy and Evanescence’s Amy Lee last September. In a recent Hammer interview, Lee reflected on the experience and said, “Courtney and Poppy are both amazing and very different from each other.”
