While playing a show at the Forum Theatre in Melbourne, Australia on November 21, members of the band Brian Jonestown Massacre surprised their fans by breaking out into a brawl onstage. Video of the altercation was posted on social media, where frontman Anton Newcombe can be seen telling guitarist Ryan Van Kriedt to leave the stage.
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“Cut off this guy’s mic, put down my guitar, party’s over captain,” Newcombe can be heard telling Van Kriedt. “We actually don’t need you. Go. Put my guitar down on the stage and think about what’s happening,” Newcombe continued.
“You better think about this one, man. Because this is forever!” Van Kriedt replied. He put his guitar down and began leaving the stage, where he and Newcombe exchanged middle fingers as they crossed paths. The fight escalated into shoving, and then Newcombe seemed to hit Van Kriedt over the head with his guitar.
The two then scuffled in a scene that looked like it should be overlaid by “Yakety Sax.” Newcombe and Van Kriedt threw punches at each other, running to the front of the stage and even knocking someone over during their brawl. Eventually, they were separated by security, and Newcombe got back on the mic. He was cut off mid-sentence when the venue’s safety curtain dropped. The show ended abruptly, and so did the band’s tour. This show was the ninth of twelve they had planned for the Australia tour, which has since been canceled following the brawl.
Currently, there is no explanation for the fight. The venue for their November 22 show, the Theatre Royal in Castlemaine, posted on its website that Brian Jonestown Massacre had canceled the show “on medical grounds.” Instead, the theatre will be playing Talking Heads’ 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense. Neither the band nor the Forum Theatre have made any comment since the fight.
(Featured Image by Justin D. Renney/Getty Images)
