Westfest band burns crowd

Fans at the Westfest music festival. Photo NZ Herald.
Fans at the Westfest music festival. Photo NZ Herald.
Fans who attended yesterday's Westfest music festival were shocked to see a band throw a jug of hot liquid from the stage, burning fans in the front rows.

The heavy metal festival was held at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland yesterday, with around 10,000 fans enjoying sets by headliners Soundgarden, Faith No More and Fall Out Boy.

But several fans said an incident during a mid-afternoon main stage set by punk-rock act Antemasque -- featuring former members of At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta -- soured their day.

Hugh Smith said he and his friends took "the full brunt" of the "boiling hot" liquid after the band's front man, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, hurled a kettle into the crowd shortly after arriving on stage.

They were left "shocked" by the incident.

"Cedric threw a plastic kettle full of boiling hot water towards me and my friends," Smith said in an email to the Herald.

"We were standing about four-five metres back. I threw my hand up to catch it before it collided with my friend's face ... this bruised my hand and then splashed hot water all over him and my face. It bloody hurt. My friends arm went all burny pink."

Another Westfest attendee, Henry Mulligan, said the liquid was so hot it was steaming.

"The singer had a full jug of recently boiled water on one of the risers, which was obviously for him to drink, but maybe it was too hot, or maybe he just felt like throwing it anyway.

"He hurled it into the crowd and [it definitely] looked like some people got burnt as steam was coming off the water as it went through the air.

"It landed near us and an audience member picked it up and waved it around for the rest of their set, which must have been 15 minutes tops."

A Westfest spokesman spoken to by the Herald said they were investigating the claim but had no comment to make. The band's management requested the story didn't run, he said.

Another fan said he was hit in the arm and face by the liquid.

"The band took the stage and I heard a 'thunk'," the fan, who asked not to be named, told the Herald.

"Something whizzed over my shoulder and into the crowd behind me. I didn't see what the object was but other punters and I were splashed with hot water, or hot coffee, as it flew by."

Antemasque, one of the bands appearing at Westfest.

The unnamed fan said he wasn't hurt badly enough to seek medical attention.

"It wasn't scalding hot, but it was hot. I didn't get the lion's share of the splash. I got it on my face and down my right arm."

He stayed for the rest of Antemasque's show and said the band's singer seemed agitated throughout the performance.

"Every time he picked something up I was like, 'Is he going to throw that?' You just knew he was pissed off. The last thing he did was hurl his microphone down to the grass in the space between the stage and the crowd.

"He was so erratic you never knew what he was going to do with stuff."

NZH

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