no review and piss poor riot footage

Still waiting for Cub to get back to me for the Bad Dreams review.

This weekend there was a riot at a punk show I attended in San Bernardino. Unfortunately I don't have that many pictures of what went down - I took a few and they are blurry. What's worse is that just about all the pictures I've seen are on the shitty side, including news photos. I've seen a bunch of video bits of the action on you tube and only one is really watchable. Here it is, showing damage done to Jack in the Box, which along with a Carl's Jr, probably got smashed up the most. I did not see this happen as I had followed fleeing punks down another street. The mass exodus from the area was caused by threats of police violence and use of pepper spray to clear the area near the parking lot. As a result many (myself included) were kept away from our cars for about three hours and had to roam the San Bernardino streets. Wandering punks were everywhere, filling up every business that was open in order just to have somewhere to go. Most everyone I talked to was in a worse situation that I was, and was missing friends or had possibly been abandoned by friends who could not find them and had been told to leave the scene.

The reason people were separated stems from people fleeing out of different exists of the Pavilion when the tear gas hit the crowd. The choice to gas the crowd was one of the biggest mistakes in my opinion as it started stampedes and people did get stomped. Fortunately, a friend of mine knew that something was about to go down and we followed him over towards the exit so we were some of the first people out the door. Broken Bones was finishing up 'Decapitated' when the crowd suddenly surged towards the exits.

I had gone outside, near the parking lot stage, to see the fighting that was going down in between the Varukers and Broken Bones sets, but there were far too many people watching these fights for me to see a thing. I know what happened from accounts online from the Final Conflict singer. After two very injured people were evacuated, punk continued to throw beer bottles at the handful of cops present. I must say that I agree with the account that blames the punks, because no one should be hit with flying beer bottles. I do not think the cops should have retaliated with tear gas, not just because of all the kids and innocents who were gassed, but also because with a move like that, like it or not, the violence would surely escalate.

As I was in the back stage area, watching people funnel out the exit doors, I knew that there would be a riot because the show was obviously not going to continue and the three headlining bands had not yet played. The very low helicopter overhead barking orders only excited the angry punks. I might mention that the crowd was very drunk, not just those of age either, their was shitloads of drinking in the parking lot.

Anyway, we were herded in a couple of directions, and ended up being some of the last to leave, but I only saw the beginnings of the destruction in what became the ground zero area. At the end of the night, driving out of there, we drove past the wrecked-up stuff. Jack in the Box and Carl's Jr were totally smashed and as were a handful of other business down that street, though those seemed to suffer mostly from smashed windows and it looked like less people had actually been inside those buildings.

There is a website someone sent me a link to with pictures of one very injured person - warning, graphic, this is not a horror movie. To see the pics on this guys site, click the icon in the bottom left corner of the view and then click 'British Invasion 2K6 Riot Pictures'.

my awful pictures - clickable thumbs


This pic just to show you how big the show was. It's The Varukers playing on this massive stage.


This blurry picture shows a crowd around a pit, which is not the dance floor, but a fight. My friend was holding me up to take this picture. No doubt a lot a people on the edges taking shots at those fighting. I'm sure that it was ugly like that.


People squeezing out the back doors.

Here are news pics:

from all I've read, the only fire was a dumspter fire


displaced punks


saw stuff like this a lot

More pics and opinions and links to galleries at the British Invasion 2K6 myspace page, where people, even me, all have something to say about the evening.

Last minute find - video footage of the mob beating up neo nazis - well this is a good a look at it as most people got.

More horror posts soon - and Fangoria Los Angeles is soon, anybody going?