It’s a well known rock n roll trope for rock stars to trash stages and hotel rooms around the world. And while a lot of the stories are nothing but hot air, Sydney band Sticky Fingers proved over the weekend that there is still some truth to rock n roll’s reputation.
Sticky Fingers were evicted after their gig at the Union Club Hotel in Wagga Wagga in regional NSW over the weekend by the manager of the venue in what he’s labelled “disgusting” and “childish” behaviour that saw valuable equipment get damaged after a much-hyped gig turned sour.
Speaking with The Daily Advertiser, venue Manager Josh Bradley said, on top of being late, a member of the band urinated on the balcony, trashed sound equipment while on stage, and were abusive towards security.
“They thought they weren’t in the wrong and they could do what they wanted,” he said. “It was plainly disgusting, childish and unprofessional.”
Bradley has considered cancelling the gig mid-performance, but there were hundreds of patrons who had paid $25 a ticket and he feared it would have been impractical to cancel the event, which was organised through social music app PopUpGigs – designed to attract big name bands to Wagga as a means to breathe life into the city’s live music scene.
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“They will definitely not get a gig back here again,” he added, with the venue most disappointed that the band deliberately broke expensive sound equipment that was not their own.
PopUpGigs developer Tolsa Harrison distanced the app from the band and said he was disappointed by their actions.
“Obviously we want everyone to have a good time. We want to bring people together to enjoy good live music,” he said. “The venue put a lot of faith in us. I feel awful about the stuff that happened because it should be about creating good live music.”
It isn’t the first time Sticky Fingers have found themselves in hot water over their on-stage antics. In September last year, frontman Dylan ‘Dizza’ Frost was arrested by police immediately following their set at Rottofest on Rottnest Island in Western Australia.
During the set, Frost had climbed on top of the stage roof scaffolding, and jumped into the crowd. Frost was involved in a scuffle immediately following their set after security confronted him about the incident, which ultimately led to his arrest and eviction from the island.
“The security gave him some grief at some point around the roof climb, and he (Frost) didn’t take well to the way they approached him,” explained Sticky Fingers manager Neal Hunt at the time. Hunt would not comment on the latest incident as he hadn’t spoken with the band.
