It’s often said by, you know, people like Hulk Hogan or Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell, that into every life, a little fisticuffs must fall.
For Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz, that moment happened late Sunday night. And luckily for the rest of us, the whole thing was captured on a camera phone.
As seen in a video now wildly making the rounds on the Net, Wentz and a member of Fall Out Boy’s security team took umbrage at the way one beefy security guard was treating a fan during the band’s sold-out gig at the Sunshine Theatre in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And when FOB invited audience members onstage to dance during their set-closing “Saturday” – a track from Take This to Your Grave – the whole incident boiled over.
The video shows Wentz standing on a monitor, pulling fans onto the stage while being held by an unidentified member of FOB’s security squad. After the security guard helps a female fan onstage, a member of the Sunshine’s security team begins to have words with him, a discussion that becomes more and more heated until, finally, the Sunshine security guard shoves FOB’s security member and the two begin to exchange punches.
The fight then spills into the crowd, at which time Wentz – much to the squealing horror of the Fall Out Boy fans in attendance – leaps into the crowd and begins throwing punches of his own. The skirmish continues for about a minute, until Wentz is pulled back to the stage and his security guard is restrained by two members of Sunshine’s security.
As the house lights are turned on, Wentz, surrounded by a hoodie-wearing army of roadies, grabs the microphone and shouts, “That’s what you get when you f— with my friends!” At the clip’s end, FOB drummer Andy Hurley can be seen jumping down from his riser and attempting to enter the crowd before being restrained by more members of the band’s road crew.
According to Bob McLynn, a spokesperson for Fall Out’s management, the video clip shows only a fraction of what had transpired during the last song, and the band’s security team was acting defensively.
“A few kids jumped onstage with the band during the last song of the set. The band does not mind this, [because] they love when fans get more involved in the show. The security that was hired by the Sunshine started aggressively throwing kids offstage,” McLynn told MTV News in an e-mail. “We have two security guards out with the band, [and] one of our guys told the Sunshine security to ease up on the kids. At that point, the Sunshine security started with our guy and shoved him, making first contact. Our guys retaliated against the house security to protect the Fall Out Boy fans and to defend themselves and the band.”
McLynn refused to identify the member of Fall Out Boy’s security team that was involved in the altercation, “in case of legal issues,” but added that as far as he knew, none of the parties involved were pressing charges.
He reported that Wentz was “a little banged up in the melee, but he’s OK,” and that FOB’s Friends or Enemies Tour will roll on as scheduled .
It’s not known if the security guard involved in the fight was an employee of the Sunshine Theatre or whether the venue had hired outside help for the show. Several attempts to contact the theater for comment were unsuccessful.
