Holiday Of Horror South 2008 shut down because of spilled drink.
We would like to apologize to everyone that attended our 10th annual Holiday Of Horror show this past Friday at the Pearl Room in Mokena.
The show was shut down about 5 songs into Macabre's set by the head of security. We believe his name was Andre.
In all the years of doing shows this may be the stupidest chain of events we have ever been a part of or even witnessed.
Opening the show was Chicago's Maggot Twat.
They wanted to make the show something special and full of holiday cheer so they brought an organ from home.
They would play Christmas songs for people when they came to the show when they arrived and in between bands.
Spam, one of the members of Maggot Twat was finishing up a Christmas song as Macabre started their set.
He was pushing the organ to the side so he could go and check out the show.
While moving the organ a drink with ice in it spilled onto the concrete club floor. A blonde haired Pearl Room security guard with a ponytail insisted that he clean the drink up. He followed instruction without making a big deal about it. He picked up ice cubes one by one scattered on the dirty floor.
As he was on his hands and knees cleaning up the security guard was yelling at him pointing out the ice cubes one by one.
After picking up ice cubes he got up and started to talk to ponytail and another security guard in a plaid shirt.
For the record, at no time was his behavior anything that could even slightly be construed as aggressive,
A witness saw plaid shirt leave through the front door, talking on his cell phone. Ponytail went to the main bar and got a bar rag from the bartender. Spam came back and ponytail tried to hand him the bar rag, telling him to wipe up the floor. Spam was to the point of, "are you serious, man?". Not angry, not aggressive, just incredulous. During this discussion, a fan took the bar rag from ponytail and started wiping up the floor, in an effort to diffuse the situation.
Spam walked away to the bar and joined some friends.
Plaid shirt guy came back inside and motioned to ponytail, per a witness observation. Spam was told to leave and he said he couldn't as his band and all his gear was inside. and ponytail started dragging Spam out in a choke hold and another security guard grabbed his arms. Plaid shirt escorted them out, along with a few random people. Spam did not resist.
Wes from Elfvis / Imperial Battlesnake ran out after Spam. Another witness left also and ran out to see ponytail, plaid shirt and another guy on top of Wes in the doorway. Wes was on the goung with his face pinned between the door and the concrete with trhe 3 guys on top of him, hitting him. The witness jumped on top of plaid shirt, telling him to get off him. Plaid shirt knocked her back and told her "not to touch me". By this time, there were at least a dozen people gathered, yelling at the security guards to stop.
The witness came back inside and called Macabre's manager. He came within 1 minute and was told get outside.
He found spam on the ground rubbing his face and was trying to find out what was happening.
Police sirens could be heard approaching as well as an argument from behind. Looking back he saw Wes in a choke hold and ran over to help.
He got in between Andre and the other security guards and ordered them to let him go. The pushed him back and in the same motion kicked one of their knee's into the balls telling him to go away. Andre then told Macabre's manager to make the problem go away.
the story doesn't end here, so far a drink was spilled and two of the support band members were assaulted.
Macabre's manager next goes inside the club to retrieve the cell phone and glasses from Wes that were thrown down after he was assaulted. Then went and met Wes at the back door to deliver his items. Upon arriving Wes was using a borrowed cell phone and calling the police on the Pearl Room security guard assaults.
The police arrived quickly and they talked to Macabre's manager, the head of security and of course Wes. Almost all the police soon left without incident when the head of security informed Macabre's manager that HE was shutting down the show because the problem didn't go away. There was a quick back and forth discussion and Andre wouldn't back down. He was informed that everything that had just happened had nothing to do with the band that was on stage performing and he said he didn't care and the problem had not gone away once again. Please note that the only problem that started this all was a spilled drink. It has been learned that Andre told the owners of the Pearl Room that the police said to shut down the show. Macabre's manager was there the entire time and that did not happen, this was the choice of Andre.
The show was then shut down and every was told to leave.
After all this people were still looking to buy merchandise, but were forced to leave immediately.
The Pearl Room, The Chicago Metal Factory and Future Entertainment have been working together to try and sort everything out and resolve the incident.
Both ponytail and plaid shirt have been relieved of their duties and are now out of work.