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Bristol venue denies encouraging Fat White Family boycott
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 1 September 2014
Bristol venue The Fleece has denied that it has attempted to convince other venues not to book Fat White Family, following an incident there last week.
In a post on Facebook, which has since been deleted, the band claimed that one of their girlfriends had been thrown out of their dressing room at The Fleece by “horrible bully boy bouncers that basically attacked her”, before the whole band were asked to leave by the venue’s owners and then began “calling up other venues warning them about us and trying to stop them from booking us”. They also said that “the people that run The Fleece in Bristol need [to be] lined up against a wall and shot”.
Following the deletion of that update, another appeared in the early hours of Friday morning, in which the band claimed that their manager had removed the first and conceded that “it may have been a little over the top”.
They continued: “We don’t actually want to see anyone from The Fleece lined up against the wall and shot, but it has to be said that the bouncers and managers at that venue were some of the strangest power tripping creeps we have ever come across. After chucking us out of the venue because one of our girlfriends didn’t have an access all areas pass they went on to contact all the venues we are playing at on our up and coming tour and try to encourage some kind of boycott of The Fat White Family”.
Speaking to the NME, a spokesperson for the venue denied that it is encouraging other venues to boycott the band, saying: “There has been no attempt to convince venues not to book the Fat White Family or cancel upcoming shows. There is a network of venues in the UK who discuss how shows go and notify others if they have a show which is out of the ordinary so that the future dates can be prepared with additional bar staff, security or any other requirements”.
They continued: “Unfortunately the band has got the wrong impression on this and we are sorry they feel this way, however, we were acting in a way to make sure the rest of their tour was a success, and not in any way hinder them”.
The band are currently scheduled to play three headline shows in Glasgow, Manchester and London this month, as well as appearing at Bestival this weekend.
