Diamond Days Fest: Day Three Recap

When “These Are Powers”:http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=88172454 took the stage on the third day of the “Diamond Days Fest,”:http://www.myspace.com/diamonddaysfest the scene was looking like something out of a Pentecostal revival meeting with vocalist Anna Barie maniacally pacing back and forth as if she was possessed by demons. A little more than an hour later, it was the audience who was possessed.

“It became total mayhem. People were smashing stuff with chairs,” said Michael Crowder of The Olives. “I saw one of my cymbals in the air [being passed around] and I was like, I’m out of here.”

As you might recall, “Friday’s events”:http://www.heebmagazine.com/blog/view/249 were cut short when neighbors called the police and the pastor at the “Church of the Messiah”:http://www.lutheransonline.com/servlet/lo_ProcServ/dbpage=page&mode=display&gid=00008000001052803985994010 pulled the plug. But, when it happened again on Saturday night, this time just as headliner “Sunburned Hand of the Man”:http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=81618827 took to the stage, the 300 or so audience members had had enough. “This was not your typical, rock show you see in a club,” said Diamond Days producer Jay Diamond. “There were a lot of combustible elements here.”

And combust it did.

“I looked up at John Maloney [of Sunburned Hand of the Man] and saw this grin on his face,” Diamond recalled the morning after the show. “The crowd caught on and just started dancing to the drums. They were caught up in the moment… you rarely see a creative burst of energy from a Brooklyn crowd like that.”

Audience member and recent Brandeis University graduate Joshua Louis Simon, was somewhat less philosophical about the near riot: “There certainly was a lot of violence directed towards folding chairs.”

What do you think?