The big story yesterday was the alleged assault by Danzig to an amateur photographer Neil Dalton. Initially, Dalton posted a statement saying that he was grabbed and roughed up by security and that Danzig himself attacked him and everybody left him bloodied.
We sent out a call for eyewitness reports and we received a few very detailed, differing accounts from what Dalton originally posted. One person in particular mentioned how he snuck out of the venue during the encores and witnessed Dalton being pushed out by security and warned not to return to the venue. He mentioned Dalton then rushed back in and shortly thereafter, was again pushed out by security, but this time he was bloodied and thrown to the floor, at which point Danzig stepped out and kicked him in the ribs and swung a few punches before being shuffled off into his tour bus.
Since our initial eyewitness account post, we received two more detailed eyewitness accounts from fans in attendance.
The following was from somebody in the mosh pit, who was right by Neil, and did not have favorable things to say about the amateur photographer:
I was at the show last night. First off, there were signs all over the venue telling people that taking photos / videos was not allowed. The security dudes were reminding the audience not to take photos all night, even before Danzig went on stage. Here's what I witnessed:
Earlier into the show (maybe a half-hour after they started playing) Glenn briefly stopped singing to call Neil out. He told Neil to put the camera away, stop filming, because it won't end well. I guess Neil cooperated that time since the show continued on well. That first confrontation lasted maybe 30 seconds at the most. Now, the main incident of the night: Neil's filming the show and Glenn points to him and says "You. Goatee Fucker. I see you. Yeah, you! I'm talking to you, Goatee Fucker!" And starts telling him to stop recording. Whole crowd is all tense and excited at this point, everyone craning their necks to see what's gonna go down. I couldn't quite hear Neil but I know he had to be mouthing off and continuing to film since Glenn got more and more aggravated, starts calling him a motherfucker over and over. Glenn tells Neil to come up onto the stage so Glenn could "break his spine" / "smash his skull". Neil decides to try going up on stage and he moves up through the crowd to get closer to Danzig. Glenn was crouched down by the edge of the stage at this point, and there were three or four security guards between the crowd barrier gate and the stage to keep Glenn from actually pulling Neil onto the stage and beating the shit out of him. Once Neil got up to the crowd barrier gate, the security dudes escorted him out of the venue. Glenn was still pretty pissed about the whole thing for a minute or two after Neil was removed. He said, "There's always one or two people– Everyone else here is fucking awesome, but there's always one or two people who are fucking assholes and feel like the rules don't apply to them. They think the rules apply to everyone else but them." So Glenn had a few words to the rest of the audience about the incident, how shitty it is that people can't follow rules, and then the band starts playing again and everything went well for the rest of the evening.
There was another claim that the security guards were unfair. I thought they were excellent and just doing their jobs. In fact, the security guards let me and my friend take photos of Danzig's stage set-up before the band members came out. One of the guards was caught in the photo and even smiled for the picture! They were shining flashlights at people with phones / cameras during the show, then telling those people to stop it, and they shut down a lot of people during the show so that they never had to be called out by Glenn. They know that this is the kind of stuff Glenn does when someone films him so they were doing their best to stop it before it came to that. When Glenn threatened to fight Neil and Neil was moving towards the stage to take him up on that offer, they had no choice to intervene and remove Neil since they can't remove Glenn. What do they expect security to do? Allow Glenn Danzig to fight a dude on stage?
The next eyewitness account is from a fan who was also outside the venue after the gig, who corroborated that Danzig was out there punching the dude:
I've seen the article you posted about the guy being punched by Danzig and me and two of my friends, Rémi and Charles, were in the alley behind the Metropolis when it happened.
I can confirm that this guy is not a liar. I don't know him and I have absolutely no reason to stand up for him..but i think it's not fair that people are calling him a liar when he is only telling the truth.
Right after the show, we went in the alley, we saw Glenn Danzig punching the guy in the face. Right after that he ran back into his tour bus while his huge bodyguard punched the guy once again and made him fell to the ground. After that they threw him one of his shoes. Then his girlfriend came and took care of him.
That's what we saw.
So that's two people that confirm that Danzig attacked Dalton. Since the ensuing viral storm, Dalton has issued a new statement on Facebook clarifying his statements as to when he was attacked:
Holy shit,I didn't expect this Danzig incident to go so viral and to get so much support.I am so grateful to all the people asking am I ok and sharing it.My Facebook is blowing up and understandably. Firstly, I do want to clarify a few things that have become a concern for some people.
I was taking a few photos that night, I wasn't filming as Danzig said. And I am not a professional/amateur photographer (I believe this was a misprint), and I was using my own phone to take the pictures. Also with my previous post I can see how it seemed to jump away from the witness statements, When I originally posted, He called me up on stage and his security guards dragged me off, It was 2 separate incidents I was referring to.
1.) Danzig did call me out while he was on stage and said he would 'break my fucking neck'
2.) When I was dragged off it wasn't through or up on stage, I was not on stage at all that night. They dragged me out the back way. When I was brought out the side by security and got a beat down by two of his security guards.I returned back to the venue because that's where my friends where and was in disbelief of what happened, got spotted and brought out the side again for the same treatment but this time Danzig himself came out himself to punch and kick me.There are police reports and paramedic reports to verify all this and a few have messaged me saying they witnessed it. .With the internet I already know I'm going to get you deserved it,you're a pussy,I bet you where being a drunk dick trolling bullshit but really don't bother.Anyone that knows me knows I'm a huge metal fan,have spent hundreds and thousands over the years to see and support what I love. I own every Misfits/Danzig record out there and travelled 6 hours to see this show and had no intentions for this to happen and I wish it didn't I have a fucking misfits tattoo for fuck sake so why would I lie or make this shit up.I live and breath metal.
I'm not looking for my 5 minutes of fame and I'm not looking for a pay day. Point of all this is ,I was a huge fan of Danzig, And as most people know this kind of incident has happened before with Danzig and honestly it's not right and people need to know what he's like to his fans who got him to where he is. Feel free to share this.Thanks again to everyone who's supporting me with this it means so much.
Here, Dalton readily admits that he was taking photos when instructed not to. So, while I can't possibly justify a 60-year-old man attacking a fan half his age, especially when that fan is being held back, I can understand that Dalton was not quite the innocent man he initially made himself out to be.
Ultimately, the takeaway here is keep your fucking phone in your pocket at a Danzig show!
