Not the Hockey Kind.
Photographers are usually content to stay on the sidelines, just outside of the action, and just close enough to any free-food-baring table to be safe and well fed. However one of the things they hold in great regard is access, and if that access is denied it’s the photographers who are likely to resort to their own, nerdy, sweaty, and bitchy version of violence. This is exactly what happened.
Crawling over each other, teeth bared, growls and yelps as they clamored for the best shooting position. There were nearly as many photographers swarming around the press pit as there were people in the audience. It was the pit that turned into a seething mass of flesh, magnesium, and precision optics. Fueled by a soundtrack provided by Atari Teenage Riot’s performance on the stage above, and some acid flashback to the 90s rave scene, photographers began to draw blood. The band managed to work the pile of bitchy nerds into a frenzy. Security, powerless against the forces of evil let loose on this afternoon, the Hyena like yelps adding punctuation to the click, click, click, of shutters.
The band fearful for their own safety attempting to make a quick exit by surfing away in the crowd, only to be denied by their own microphone cables. They instead spoke directly to the throng of vicious soul stealers below, and with kind words began to calm them down. Like some sort of shaman, the band once again began to perform, and the photographers, now calm, walked off into the darkness.
Photos to be found here.
Dean Belder
Originally appeared on Vanmusic.ca