Those that attended the Poplife Anniversary Party at Grand Central on Saturday, read the review, or just heard about it might be a bit confused by the comment Surfer Blood lead singer J.P. Pitts guitarist Thomas Fekete made mid-set. "Awesome venue, too bad it's run by a bunch of dicks," he said, before launching into another song. "We will never play here again."
Yesterday, the band Tweeted "their side of the story" and mentioned:
page, publishing a blog post titled "The Poplife Incident," which has
since been removed and replaced by this. In the original post, the guys explained in detail that the venue's security
wasn't at all nice or helpful, and because of the comment they made during the
show, they were no longer going to get paid.
mentioned how great the fans were, but went on to say that they
can't believe showgoers were charged so much ($20) to see them. Though they
gave the performance their all, they explained that they were so upset by everything that
happened between the venue and the promoters that they left immediately after their set.
As
might be expected, Poplife wasn't too happy with the sudden negativity.
One of the brand's founders, Barbara Basti, says, "The band was treated with
hospitality and respect, nothing less. If
they (the band members) choose to behave otherwise, it has no
reflection upon the venue or the event."
payment is simply being mailed to their management company, as
opposed being given to them last night.... They were not (still are not,
apparently) happy about that." Poplife then went on to Tweet today:
Word has it Surfer Blood's post was changed to just a mention of their June 30 benefit to be more "PC."
"I was there and confirm the security was being SO disrespectful. Iwork for a local college radio station and I went outside to get the
drop from the Pains of Being Pure at Heart. I held open the door so I
could get back in and was holding it with my shoe but a security gaurd
yanked the door back closed with my foot still holding the door. My leg
got fucked up and when I tried to keep the door open I was just like, 'I'm with one of the band members right now, I need to get back in!' The security guy was not having it and responded, 'It doesn't matter.' Kip
from Pains was really sweet and told me to follow him through the
artist/back entrance. The security was just vicious, though. Needlessly
so. Sorry this happened to you guys. Miami still loves you."
Update: Thomas Fekete says, through a series of Twitter updates today:
"I (Thomas) made the comments on stage at Poplife, not JP. Sincere apology to Poplife (who is indeed paying us) and fans, never thought this would turn into an episode of Gossip Girl. While we will still never take part in anything like this again, everything has been resolved and we wish Barbra the best with all of her future endeavors."
