Trophy Eyes - Suicide and Sunshine (June 23, 2023) • Page 4

American Dream was solid, but being the follow up to Chemical Miracle did it no favors. CM would be hard to top

 

All of their albums are pretty good, there's a pretty controversial take for you all.

 

I completely agree with this incredibly hot take

 

Incredibly unfortunate situation - John stage dove into the crowd at the Buffalo, NY show on April 30th. He landed on the head of a young fan and broke her neck. Some people report that she said she "couldn't feel anything" and is possibly paralyzed. She will require extensive surgery and rehab, after which the prognosis is still pretty unknown (as with all spinal cord injuries).

Video of the dive: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrophyEyes/s/4jwArI2HHt

Link to her GoFundMe: Donate to Support Bird's Recovery and Rehabilitation, organized by Stephanie Brown

TE stopped the show, and John rode in the ambulance with the fan and stayed with her at the hospital.

John is a very large dude at 6' 6" and gave no heads-up to the crowd whatsoever that he was about to jump in. The fan didn't even have time to react. The venue also had a "no stage diving" policy. Horrible all around.

 

Brutal

 

Damn

 

Important to note that there are no less than a dozen "NO STAGEDIVING OR CROWDSURFING YOU WILL BE EJECTED" signs in Mohawk Place that have been up for years. Been to many shows there and it's an immediate escort out of the venue if you stagedive or attempt to crowdsurf.

 

Damn that’s so sad.


I see the band donated $5k.

 

Man, not a good situation. Hoping she can recover. I’ve seen people comment other places some shitty stuff about the person that was injured. Bottom line is if there is no stage diving signs then artists should respect that as well. Their IG post wasn’t transparent either. At first I was under the assumption the person themself was likely injured while crowd surfing or moshing.

 

Horrible situation all round.

Most concert venues I've been to have a no stage diving policy and/or a no mosh pit policy accompanied by accompanying signage and it still happens. I'm sure they won't be the last punk band to stage dive in front of a no stage-diving sign, and they sure as hell haven't been the first. I think the demonising of them as a band I've seen probably requires a bit more nuance.

EDIT: For clarity, this is more in response to things I've seen on Twitter where people are acting like they're the only band to ever stagedive and this should be the end of their career. Obviously the outcome in this instance is awful and shocking. Stagediving has been part of their live show for a long time, as it has many other punk/hardcore/emo bands. Very rarely does it lead to accidents as horrible as this one.

 

Most venues have signs discouraging moshing or crowd surfing to reduce any liability, but I haven’t seen it enforced except for a few occasions.

The only time I’ve really seen a vocalist do something like that is when Soupy jumped off of the speakers of the Satyricon into the crowd back in 2010 which was probably a good ten foot jump, but everyone knew he was jumping. To do it without warning is a bit careless, but I wouldn’t write the band off for that. It’s a just a really shitty situation.

 

Horrible accident and I’m glad to see that the band is taking accountability and keeping in touch with the victim and family.

“No Stage Diving” signs are usually there to cover the venue legally if something like this happens but I’ve always felt a bit uncomfortable about stage diving/crowd surfing in general. I know this band can be very stubborn but I hope they reconsider this part of their set, I certainly wouldn’t be doing it again any time soon after a tragedy like this.

Enough about the band though we should focus on the victim, donate if you can!

 

Mohawk Place got shut down in late 2000s when someone stage dove, hurt themself, and sued the venue. Venue shut down for years until they could repay the lawsuit. Since reopening in mid 2010s, they have a dozen signs all over for this reason and an absolute zero tolerance policy. The stage is barely two feet off the ground and it’s a 200 cap room.

I have been to multiple shows where I’ve seen security throw people out for crowd surfing or getting on stage to dive off. Security has also cut the sound from the PA during a show when the band was encouraging stagediving anyways.

It’s a zero tolerance policy there for artists and fans and not just a couple signs here and there to cover their liability.

 

Yeah after watching the video, that was incredibly reckless. Like there’s some light push moshing going on and John just jumps out of nowhere. It’s not like this was a hardcore show with the crowd going crazy. The injured fan is a pretty small individual who had no idea that was coming. That’s a very tiny stage so the impact was very direct and John is a big dude.

I know it’s an accident, but that was very stupid and makes me question whether they should be continuing to tour right now. In this case, wouldn’t the band be more liable to be sued than the venue? Like the artist clearly broke rules and caused a very serious injury due to their careless behavior.

 

Absolutely. Stupid and reckless, however accidental. Hopefully she recovers.

 

This situation is getting a lot of attention now. Big news outlets are reporting on it, PopCrave made a tweet about it and it’s even being discussed in a celebrity gossip subreddit I am in. Crazy.

When they said the “fuck you” to that person last year who called them out for the mosh culture during their set, I admit that I thought they (the person who called out Trophy Eyes) were being dramatic at the time, especially since they were being smug about it, but with this happening? There probably WAS truth to their mosh culture being unsafe (I have never seen them live so can’t say for certain)

 

Trophy eye crowds have been pretty mild when I have seen them. The person who criticized them last year was an Against The Current fan who did not enjoy the moshing/stage diving from Trophy Eyes crowd when TE opened for ATC. That is more an issue of clashing fanbases than TE doing anything wrong. I’ve seen stuff like that before when bands like SYG would open for poppier bands and the fans of the headlining acts would get all bent out of shape by people aggressively moshing. I mean in that case move to the back or side of the crowd to avoid people moshing. It’s not that hard.


This case is much different in that John just dove with no warning and his carelessness hurt a fan who didn’t see it coming. The NY Post article on definitely brings up interesting points about “implied consent” with moshing/stage diving. For my money I’ve always hated stage diving. Been hit in the head by many people who did it carelessly. I don’t mind moshing or crowd surfing as it pretty predictable. For what it’s worth it seems like this tour continued on without issue. I’d hope the band is being much safer and learned from this. What a shitty situation.

 

Not sure where else to share this, but there’s an update on the condition of Bird from her friend Leo:

 

i saw the recovery update on twitter, i also donated to her gofundme, they are close to their goal!!

Fundraiser for Bird Piche by Stephanie Brown : Support Bird's Recovery and Rehabilitation (gofundme.com)

 

Wow - wonder if it's a new album or EP. Either way I'm pumped

 

Enmore is a theatre/music venue in sydney FWIW.

 

What a song.