SXSW video: Death From Above 1979 show erupts into mini-riot

By Andrea Swensson Sun., Mar. 20 2011 at 10:24 PM

Categories: Gimme News, SXSW

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Photo by Craig Hlavaty/Houston Press

What started as a once-in-a-supermoon chance to see a one-off reunion show by cult favorites Death From Above 1979 ended in a dramatic scene Saturday night, as a crowd watching the show from outside the fenced-in backyard of the Beauty Bar decide to take to the flimsy chain-link barrier and pull it down.

Police immediately responded to the incident by calling in backup officers on horseback to help control the scene, then eventually resorted to using tasers and mace to control the portion of the crowd who was revolting against getting locked out of the high-profile show and lobbing beer cans and other debris at the officers.

When we arrived on the scene after the incident, all that was left was a rickety chain link fence and a plastic chair that had somehow ended up on top of the tent that covers the Beauty Bar's outdoor stage:

Photo by Erik Hess

Music writer Craig Hlavaty from our sister paper Houston Press was on the scene during the mini-riot and immediately filed a report of what he saw, and now we have video from one of our SXSW correspondents, Chris Hadland, to show us exactly what went down.

The video is a little chilling, if only because you can hear the tasers going off in the audio, but it also seems like situation was handled pretty quickly and could have turned into a much more severe problem.

Check out the footage here:

Death From Above 1979 Riot at SXSW 3/19/11 from MPLS.TV on Vimeo.

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