Members of Melbourne band Bad Family have had to move their show for Melbourne Music Week this afternoon after a disgruntled neighbour allegedly attempted to stop their show by driving his car down the alleyway in which it was being held.
The show was due to take place in a laneway behind Heartland Records, located on Victoria Street in North Melbourne, at 1.30pm today, but the band claim they were aggressively approached by a man who told them they had “no right to be playing there” during soundcheck.
With The Peep Tempel also advertised to perform as part of Melbourne Music Week, which is an initiative of the City Of Melbourne council, Bad Family’s Harrison Smart told theMusic.com.au today that a male made contact with both he and bandmate Luc Dawson with his car.
“He didn’t hit me but he was ramming me with his car,” Smart said today. “[He was] literally ramming into my leg… trying to push us away with his car.”
Smart told theMusic that the male was acting in an aggressive manner and said he and his bandmates had been threatened.
On Facebook The Peep Tempel have said that representatives from a nearby business were the ones who the disagreement was with. They write that a male told a band member he was going to “break [his] face.”
A representative from the company told theMusic.com.au today that the show “didn’t have a proper permit” to play in the laneway, but the company’s boss said they had “no comment”.
According to Smart, a member of the show’s production staff manoeuvred his own vehicle into a position to block the route to the band and those gathered.
Smart claimed that a man was swearing at the band members repeatedly, who were encouraging him to call police and Melbourne Music Week. The scene was calmed when police arrived and the show began as planned.
After two songs and “as soon as the cops left,” according to Smart, a representative from Melbourne Music Week asked the band to stop playing after allegedly being approached by a second male.
With the tensions threatening to boil over, Luke O’Sullivan from The Hi-Fi, who was in the crowd, invited the band back to his venue to continue the show from 3.30pm today.
“We’ve sent out the SOS and brought in our head of production and security, we’ve got a drum kit coming from Billy Hydes,” O’Sullivan told theMusic this afternoon. “They’re good young Melbourne musicians, but when I got there it was all over. There seemed to be a bit of tension and aggro in the air.”
O’Sullivan said that The Hi-Fi has “never been invited to be a part of Melbourne Music Week, but we’re in the middle of it now, without an invite.”
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