"Faris Rotter sounds faintly bemused. 'Nothing like this has ever happened to me before,' he says, of an incident at a recent London show by the band he fronts, gothic garage rockers the Horrors. 'The promoters of the gig saw me eyeing up some ceiling fixtures and took the precaution of saying that if you do anything to them, you'll be chucked out of the venue. Then later on they said, if you jump into the crowd, you'll be chucked out of the venue as well. So I said to them, 'Why don't you give me a list of things I can't do?'
The promoters allegedly responded with a list of 14 forbidden onstage activities, that range from the straightforward ('Do not break the microphone'), to the mundane ('Do not turn the volume up'), to the faintly disturbing ('Do not make explosives').
'I think I've probably done all those things,' admits Rotter. 'I haven't actually made explosives, but I have emptied the gunpowder out of a rocket and made a ring of fire and set it alight. But I was quite surprised they were unused to dealing with stuff like this. It says, "Don't go into the crowd." Not every band goes into the crowd, but it's a common occurrence'."
Link: Alexis Petridis on gothic garage rockers the Horrors | Rock | Guardian Unlimited Music.
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