A shocked fan who was booted out of a concert for tweeting a negative comment about the opening act has received an apology from the performer at the center of the incident.
The fan, Mike Taylor, was at a venue in Philadelphia to see rapper MC Chris and metal band Powerglove. Support was provided by rapper Richie Branson.
Now imagine this. You’re not enjoying Branson’s performance so you pull out your smartphone and tweet, ““Dear nerd rapper opening for Powerglove/mc chris. You’re not good enough to pander to me. Better luck next time.”
You decide you don’t want to listen anymore so go to get a drink in the lobby. A couple of minutes later, you hear the crowd going nuts in the auditorium. Curious as to what’s going on, you return. MC Chris is on stage and he doesn’t look too happy. Then comes the surprising bit – he calls out your name. Your name. Confused, you raise your hand. MC Chris sees you and yells, “Security is going to take you the fuck out now! That’s what you get for talking shit on Twitter!” Dazed and confused, you get escorted to the exit and told not to return. Yes, that’s exactly what happened to Mike Taylor.
“I realize my tweet is snarky, but I’m a smartass and I can understand a guy being mad and protective of his opener,” Taylor wrote in a Reddit post shortly after the incident. “However, publicly kicking out a long-time paying fan because they tweeted a negative response about the opener of your show? Are you serious?”
The following day, MC Chris apologized to Taylor through Twitter. “Dude I fucked up,” he said. “There’s no other way to say it…. I hate kicking people out and…I hope you take my apology sincerely. I deserve what I’m getting today and I will adjust my hyper critical attitude I’m sorry.”
Things took another twist on Wednesday when MC Chris took to YouTube to offer a tearful apology (below) to “fans and xfans.”
In the apology, he says he often has drunks and hecklers removed from the audience because otherwise he can’t concentrate on what he’s doing. It’s likely many people will find such behavior a little bizarre – after all, it’s a rap concert not a church sermon.
Still, the guy seems pretty cut up by the whole affair and says he hopes he can fix “something wrong about me.” Perhaps in future MC Chris could help himself by switching off his smartphone when the show starts instead of monitoring his Twitter feed in the wings.
As for Taylor, he has accepted MC Chris’s apology and wants to move on. “MC Chris has since apologized to me on Twitter,” he wrote in the Reddit post, adding, “That doesn’t excuse what he did, but I’m fine knowing that this won’t happen again to any other of his fans….but apologizing was a classy move on his part.”
What do you make of the whole episode? Can you sympathize with MC Chris’s decision to boot a member of the audience out in defense of one of the night’s acts?
