Mindless behavior at Indig02, London
Pax Vobiscum pilgrims!
If ever there was a gig that was ripe for ruin, it was the mindless behavior (literally) of obsessive, crazy fans of Mindless Behavior at the Indig02. Never in all my years of live music photography have I ever witnessed such a lethal concoction of hysteria & hormonal puberty to produce such feral behaviour from the predominately girl-dominated crowd. I think the grunge band, Nirvana, nearly got it right with their hit, ‘Smells like Teen Spirit‘ when it came to these fans. It reeked off teen foolishness, that’s for sure. Picture a pool full of killer sharks, and then someone decides to prick their finger with some blood entering the water. There would be a frenzy, right? Not even close. Throw some piranha into the mix, then it’s a full on blood-lust party. Now visualise them as girls, if given the chance, would have ripped Mindless Behavior to shreds, given the chance.
Here’s what the Indig02 looked like by 6.55pm, an hour and a bit before the show was scheduled to start:
You had to hand it to the security team. They seemed way out of their depth trying to control the kids. Young girls were unresponsive to every command issued out. It got so bad that the organisers decided to bypass the support acts of Connor Maynard and one other young man whose name eludes at this point in time. When Mindles Behavior finally did come on, the gig lasted for only 15 minutes, and even that was a miracle in its own. It was pandemonium. Photographers couldn’t get into the pit (for obvious safety reasons, of course), so had to shoot from a wheelchair ramp.
Mindless Behavior with Chips (formally ‘Chipmunk’):
As soon as the boys were ushered safely off the stage, you’d think the fans would make their way out of the venue. NO, SIR!! They actually wanted to storm backstage. Talk about not being able to curb your enthusiasm. If Mindless Behavior ever decide to come back to the UK, I wish them all the very, very best. Maybe their fans would have grown up with a sense of maturity by then.
Just in case you think I’m exaggerating my experience, why not have a listen to a fan who was right in the thick of it, and decided to give her account of how things were on the ground.
If anything positive did come out from the gig, it was that my nieces managed to get to meet the boys before the start of the show, and I got at least one shot of them:
Food for Thought and Soul: ‘If you . . . remember that your brother has something against you, . . . first be reconciled to your brother.‘ —Matthew 5:23-24
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