an actual riot broke out at a bboys concert

[b i o n i c]

i see it in my google alerts, but i cant open the story. something about
"While the Beastie Boys were performing, a group of around 30 masked "anarchists" armed with CS gas, iron bars and baseball bats descended on the stadium"

[canucklehead200]

WHAT THE SNAP?!

[b i o n i c]

this does not bode well for american artists touring abroad.

[Kid Presentable]

It's probably up on Big Brother's site.

[kleptomaniac]

http://pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/43693-underworlds-smith-injured-during-festival-riot
http://psit.wordpress.com/2007/06/17/flambe-cars-served-hot-at-ejekt/

:(

[b i o n i c]

i read an article about it, they posted this person's blog containing pictures.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=80669389&blogID=277186333&MyToken=f9821495-fe7d-4482-8684-d0deef5ad3f3

[YoungRemy]

i read an article about it, they posted this person's blog containing pictures.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=80669389&blogID=277186333&MyToken=f9821495-fe7d-4482-8684-d0deef5ad3f3


what the fuck?

Was it because the headliners Madness, Underworld and the Beastie boys are well known for their right wing political opinions?

[Lex Diamonds]

Right wing? Everyone knows the BBoys are dirty pinky commie bastards.

[YoungRemy]

Right wing? Everyone knows the BBoys are dirty pinky commie bastards.


compared to masked, crowbar yielding anarchists, everyone else are a bunch of softies

[b i o n i c]

keep in mind that this was written in greece.

i think they were trying to be sarcastic.

[b i o n i c]

this is actually seems like a pretty serious piece of news with implications much larger than just one show. this seems like the perfect time for much blogging, ranting and raving by mr.s diamond, yauch and horovitz on the main page. with pics and video and all dat shit. im personally looking forward more to the ranting than the raving.

[Parkey]

Greece is a right nice place...

[b i o n i c]

the only problem with greece is all the greek people that live there.

[Parkey]

the only problem with greece is all the greek people that live there.

Ha! George Michael.

[pshabi]

Plenty of coverage on mic2mic. Been up there for days now.

[dave790]

this was on mic to mic. there's videos on youtube i think!!

it's not that big a deal, i mean a few cars on fire, early end to the festival etc... doubt it's much to do with the beasties, seems just a one-off. this shit happens from time to time, better than lots of people being hurt and raped etc

*may well be ignorant to all that occured but when I read some reports it didn't seem so bad*

[Parkey]

Quite. From what I read it doesn't seem much worse than what I've experienced at British festivals. Phoenix 1996 springs to mind...

[b i o n i c]

i love the bboys and everything but im not really that interested in anyone to want to have every last bit of news on them all the time, so most of what i hear about the beastie boys is shit i come across here on in the actual news. im surprised to see no one discussing it here.

i didnt realize that "30 masked 'anarchists' armed with CS gas, iron bars and baseball bats descend"ing on a concert was a common occurance.

you're right this has little to do with the beastie boys (duh) but why does that matter. its got something to do with them, but yeah it coulda been any band. i think this should be alarming to people. this group of people were trying to and were able to make a statement and to disrupt the lives of everyone there. it wasnt just a bunch of drunk pointless impulsive idiots like the woodstock chaos that went down, this seems like something else. i dunno, maybe i need more desensitivation.

EDIT/ADD:

i just read this comment on that myspace blog linked in the article:



Excuse me as we have never met but I was looking on the internet to see if there was any mention of what happened at the Ejekt Festival on Saturday and I came across your comments.

I am a member of Madness. We were looking forward the the show and it was great, a brilliant crowd and we went off happy. We decided to stay and watch the Beasties and we were in our dressing room when the windows were smashed. I realised when I saw the way those people were dressed [crash helmets baseball bats machetes] that it was some sort of anti establishment anti global anti property type thing. They could have easily killed us all if they wanted to.

There was a young girl working in there who was absolutely terrified and tried to hide in a cupboard. If she had done this she would have got killed. As they petrol bombed the dressing rooms. She was a totally innocent person not part of the Evil Heineken empire at all. We get this in London once a year. The same sort of people protest and smash up a McDonalds or something which terrorises the staff who are the sort of low paid slave labour that I assume these people are against. Funny but they never do Burger King or KFC. I suppose that is the price McDonalds pay for being the market leader.

I don’t know much of what goes on in Greece although I did witness the Liverpool football match fiasco but you sort of expect that at a football match. In my opinion there are some people who just crave violence in any form and use pseudo politics right or left wing as an excuse to have an outlet for it. Maybe Heineken use slave labour but who makes those baseball bats or the crash helmets they wore I wonder. Were that ethically sourced from local fair-trade outlets? The sad thing is no Heineken sponsorship no Ejekt festival. A lot of bands will avoid Greece this summer. Maybe these morons could give something back to the community for a change and organise a festival themselves.

You are right. They are the fascists.

yours Chrissy Boy
Brighton, U.K."

[dave790]

yeah but that's greece for you. festivals aren't a common occurence over there. sorry, but look at their football matches if you want evidence that there's nutters who disrupt and cause chaos etc at big events all the time, or even just normal ones... some greeks like their rioting quite clearly!

again, whoever was playing at that festival i'm sure the same thing would've happened anyway. to me, it's more about organisers of events in greece sorting things out security and safety-wise. of course it's not nice people having to experiance this shit on the rare occasions of US bands playing gigs, but that's the greek authorities for you when it comes to these sorts of things.

and parkey... pheonix 96? you went? i recall seeing some decent performances by the prodigy, manics and terrorvision when i was a kid on the telly - had a tape and everything. looked pretty quality to me - maxim's whole silver glove/scary contacts thing was really kicking in!

edit: just read the madness guys comments, sounds pretty mad. seeing as they didn't kill anyone else though (that's correct yes?) i can't see why they'd have killed the greek lady. still, horrible stuff.

[b i o n i c]

again, this isnt about a few drunk nutters who like to kick shit. its about a group of organized people with a goal who were able to easily disrupt a bunch of people's plans in an attempt to send a message about something. they want to get bands and that whole business to stay away, and they might get it for a while.

[Parkey]

and parkey... pheonix 96? you went? i recall seeing some decent performances by the prodigy, manics and terrorvision when i was a kid on the telly - had a tape and everything. looked pretty quality to me - maxim's whole silver glove/scary contacts thing was really kicking in!



Prodigy utterly owned that festival. It still ranks as the greatest live show of my life. They really were at the top of their game back then. I think I had that tape too... It's all on Youtube now mind!

[YoungRemy]

the parthenon's in Athens

the pantheon's in Rome

Shaq thought the Parthenon was a nightclub

[b i o n i c]

its all greek to me

[Axl Z]

yes i needed, some time to get away,
i needed some peace of mind....

[mudfoot]

"Riot fight, Riot fight, Riot fight, Riot fight
Riot fight, no we don't fight on friday night".

[ericlee]

Holy crap, they aren't messing around with the c.s. gas. Freakin shit will leave snot rockets hanging down to your chest.

What the fuck man. That's probably going to spark some different kind of security measures, mostly the kind that will be very much a pain in the ass.

Was it the Hackerz?

[befsquire]

seeing as they didn't kill anyone else though (that's correct yes?) i can't see why they'd have killed the greek lady. still, horrible stuff.
what i read from that is not that they were seeking to kill her, but that if she'd hidden in cupboard in the dressing area, she could have been killed because that was targeted.

[sapfonelo]

hi guys
I happen to be Greek, living in Athens and a big fan of the Beasties.... I have off course been to the concert, so you should take a minute to read this:

First of all, it's true - Greece is one of the countries where riots and manifestations are vary common. It is more likely that one would experience a "violent" one, where cups use all of their "tools" (chemical stuff, gus, machetes, their physical strength etc) to destroy the manifestation, arrest innocent people, hit innocent people, (also meaning women, old people, students etc), be glad of what they're doing, express their complexes...
On the other hand... these actions are usually accompanied by the so called "anarchists'" actions, where a group of people throw molotovs (bottle of beer full of petrol and fire) , stones, machetes and other stuff to the cups, to the embassies and other considered-by-them enemies. hopefully, every now and then the tv news not only show the police violence, but also question their authorities , rights and actions.
Apart from the above though, the Beasties concert is another story.... While the concert had begun (Madness had already finished and the Beastie Boys had just started playing) a group of 300 people was trying to get in without a ticket.
- Usual thing here, it happens often and most of the times they manage to get inside.. I have seen many concerts this way..we don't always have money to pay the price of all these concerts!! (BY THE WAY THE LAST 7 YEARS A LOT OF GROUPS ARE COMING EVERY SUMMER. FINALLY ITS AMAZING...ITS NOT TRUE THAT THEY DON'T COME HERE VERY OFTEN..THIS SUMMER 70 FOREIGN GROUPS -off course 99% american & UK) Anyway, then it also depends on the group.i.e. the rage against the machine had left the doors open so that everybody would enter, whereas other groups make it impossible..but anyway, this time I had paid (60 euros for madness, b.b, underworld is a LOT of money) cause i didn't want to miss them - obviously.. -
THe first time they dint manage to get in, but then they made a second try and everybody got inside... although many people told me that the security guys were really violent and also had machetes and things like that ...I strongly disapprove... a larger number of security would do, rather than these "measures" !! Afterwards, 50 people entered supplied with machetes and knives....they attacked the dressing rooms, put 2 fires and burned 6 of the festival's organizers cars.. OFF COURSE we (the public) were not really in danger, but one of the Underworld really got injured by one brick that hit his window and got to the hospital. then they smashed the Heineken fridges and everybody got the beer for free and stuff.. Meanwhile the Beasties were playing, and then one guy came to the set and told them something-i then looked at that direction and then i realized their was the fire -.... then they said "we ove you all..gotta say thank you Athens-Greece.we gotta make movements..peace " (you can see this at the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVee8PLN3R0&mode=related&search=) and left after 1h that they had played.. from a friend I know they would had regularly continued for another 45min so im still very pissed off!! then i went towards the fire and stuff to see what was going on ...All the security had gone, there was nobody that looked "suspicious" for the incident, just all the fans that were looking at the flaming cars and wondering what the fuck was going on.... The Beasties disappeared once and for all and I doubt it if they're ever coming back for all us 5000 people that remained staring with the mouth open. Im not sure if i agree with their attitude , after all we all know what their name stands for and they were not REALLY ACTUALLY running any danger...and i mean..one fire km away from them at an open place .. so what? couldn't they continue?? - by the way, we were also expecting them to come 7 years ago, when they out of the blue called off the show, because the war in Yugoslavia had just started (i.e. the Americans had just started to bomb Yugoslavia) and thus they decided not to come to Greece for security reasons!??...hellloooooo?!it's another country! there was no war here !we make part of the EU for the last 30 years - anyway, this time maybe they got frightened knowing that the dressing rooms were being attacked and that 1 star got injured!?oh, i dont know, maybe they were right, and anyway they're the ones to decide off course.. but im soooooooo pissed of that the concert was interrupted and that they didn't finish their marvelous playing! after all, how many chances do we have here, in Athens to see them again??!! also because you could really see that they were enjoying it, the crowd was enjoying it. we were all so stunned from this magic atmosphere... what a pittyyyyyyyyyy! anyway, the organization company is a total shit, since they didnt manage to handle the situation and, furthermore, after everything happened, they TOTALLY DISAPPEARED.. you couldnt find a single person that was taking care of things.. of us!! all the crowd was going out and there was nobody to control the situation if something further had happened...ASSHOLES 60 euros and no "security" for us, uh?
we now know that these 50 persons that entered and became violent,were another security team that wasn't chosen to take the concert.... and so they tried to destroy it, to fight with the "chosen ones" or something like that.... its so ridiculous that i couldn't believe it.. for the first 5 days all kind of stories were heard, - also the one about the right-wing -thing of the groups - hilarious! - but the truth is the most ridiculous and sad one... that is the security companies thing..... what a shame what a shame
I so much would love to see them again, but I really doubt it... i'd have to fly to another country or something..................
I'd really like to tell them how many people really appreciate their music here... help me do that pls :confused:

ps: a taste of what was happening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK_i5GGukb4