Attila Fan Assaulted by Show Security Shares His Story
Attila’s show at the Turner Hall Ballroom in Milwaukee, WI this past Thursday night took a turn for the worse when guitarist Chris Linck spotted venue security hassling a fan in a way he felt was inappropriate and jumped into the crowd to intervene. The show ended abruptly after the incident, and Attila frontman Chris Fronzak later defended his bandmate’s actions in a series of posts on Twitter, stating, “We will always stand up for our fans. If someone hurts you, we will jump off the stage & fight the shit out of them. Nobody hurts our fans.”
Now the fan who was allegedly being physically assaulted by security has come forward to share his side of the story. The fan, Dustin Olwig, shared the ordeal in detail with TheSickest.co. Here is the entire transcript of the chat:
As of February 16th, You were just being Attila fan that was just enjoying a rock show, Until you unfortunately had confrontation with a security guard who got very violent with you and other fans attending, How were you involved in incident, Tell us more about it?
Well, I am a huge fan of Attila that for sure. I listen to them every day because they are just as brutal as myself. I live the same no fucks given lifestyle. Being big fans, my brother Cory Olwig, and my friend Austin Bruhn all decided we were going to try and get over the barricade by crowdsurfing (as Fronz demanded the crowd to do), as we wanted to meet and sing with Fronz during his live performance. My brother threw Austin up first, security instantly slammed his head into the metal barricade, then I was about to go over and I didn’t even make it half way over the barricade before They pulled me the rest of the way over, by grabbing me around my neck and slamming me to the ground. Then they all started punching me while I was on the ground, Chis Linck then jumped on to the security guards to help me. The first guard that grabbed Linck, my brother pulled him off, punched him in the head and put him in a head lock and wouldn’t let go until Linck was back on stage. I then broke free from security, ran to the right of stage and just sat on it until the show abruptly ended. Also our friends Nathan Youngwirth and Chad Stern were attacking the guards from the other side of the barricade trying to get the off of me and the band.
Did Security say anything to you or anyone else while this was going on? Did you see security threaten anyone else, was there any warnings about no moshing or stage diving?
They didn’t say anything that I could personally hear. They just kept hitting me and my friends. They threatened my brother, me, and Austin right away because they knew we were going to do something. I heard no warning about moshing at all nor were any signs posted not to. They let everyone throw down the entire whole show but when the end came they got violent with us. If you review the video (below), you can see my brother (the guy with no shirt) holding security off their guitarist Chris Linck. You can also see me being pulled down and hit as well as Austin being escorted off by the security with Chris behind him.
What happened after the fight as Attila ended the show abruptly and while you were still inside the venue. Did anything happen to security guards who cause this issue that you were made aware of?
The guards were getting yelled at by Attila from stage and we decided to book it out of there before we got into any further trouble. On the way out two security guards tried to stop us but thankfully they were are all just a bunch of out of shape guys that couldn’t run in the end and to be honest I think they just can suck our fucks.
If Olwig’s allegations are true, they paint Turner Hall Ballroom’s security staff in an absolutely terrible light. Security’s job is to protect every person in the room and treat them all with respect no matter what; no matter how tired they are at show’s end, no matter how dickish fans in the pit are behaving, no matter what the band dictates the audience do from the stage.
On the other hand, it’s possible there is another side to this story; we’ve yet to hear any official comment from the venue. We’ll update you if and when that happens.
You can watch video of the incident below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUTulVsHg5Y
[via The PRP]
