Astroworld, Altamont, and Other Inane Rambling
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”- Hanlon’s Razor
I do not listen to modern Hip-Hop. Contrary to the popular belief that some of those who know me in meatspace may have, this is not out of some antipathy for the genre of Hip-Hop in general. Rather it is because I am old enough remember when Hip-Hop was a performer’s genre based around groups that wrote their own songs, and it wasn’t just manufactured Pop with pseudo-urban posturing. As such, I had no clue who or what a Travis Scott was until my various social media feeds were positively atwitter with allegations of occultism, demonology, drugging, and mind control related to the recent crowd stampede incident during Scott’s recent headlining performance at the Astroworld festival.
I’m sorry to say, to the five nuts on Twitter and the army of pathetic, attention seeking leftists who keep bringing up this “it’s like literally just like the like Satanic Panic” narrative time and time again, you’re gonna have to hold off on that. A cursory reading of events reveals that it is less likely that Scott is some sort of supernatural Svengali or virtuosic student of black magic, and far more likely that the event organizers hired incompetent security who responded in a predictably incompetent way to the goings on of the crowd that they were supposed to be managing. Was it poorly handled? Sure. Could Scott have perhaps stopped performing (provided that he really even had a clear picture of what was going on) until the crowd was under control? Perhaps. However, was it the result of a grand Satanic conspiracy to install the devil as the leader of the United States of America and hasten the march toward the “end times?” No. Now, I’m not exactly a believer, but I do also think that the theoretical most evil and charismatic being in existence would pick a better herald than a not particularly attractive or charismatic fellow who is just above a “manlet.”
Concert crowds – particularly Hip Hop, Metal, and Hardcore crowds – get rowdy. It’s what they do. This is not to disparage “my people,” but it’s true. I’ve been to many Hardcore and Metal shows in my life and I think I can count on one hand the number of them that went down without incident. I’ve seen people rush the stage, people getting trampled in pits, crushed in the “wall of death,” etc., etc. There was even one notable incident at a Morbid Angel show I attended some years back where a Punk “skinhead” type turned the mosh pit into a mass brawl that lasted several songs before security finally dragged him out of the venue by his waistband, bloodied, humiliated, and missing one of his precious “old school” Vans. These things happen, and to see so many of my fellow “metalheads” joining in on the cacophony of idiocy that is selling the idea that Travis Scott is some sort of mind controlling cult leader or some such is just ridiculous, as is the idea that he would have had any other kind of control over the actions of the crowd once they got going. Which brings us to the infamous Altamont Free Concert.
They gray ponytails over at outlets like Rolling Stone, always so quick to do the “hey, man, remember the sixties?” thing, have been attempting to draw parallels to the infamous December 6, 1969 event that heralded the “end of the sixties” or “death of the hippie movement.” For my money, Altamont – despite its far lower death count – still represents something far worse than Astroworld. While it is true that there were only four deaths surrounding Altamont – two who died in roadside hit and run, another drowned in a canal, and the infamous murder of Meredith Hunter – the events of that day rest solely on the shoulders of the festival’s headliners, The Rolling Stones. Earlier that year, the Stones had staged a free concert in London’s Hyde Park (that famously debuted King Crimson, who’d yet to release an album, to a crowd of over 200,000). Security at the event was provided by members of the English branch of the Hells Angels motorcycle club. When planning the concert in California, the band and their organization again elected to employ the Hells Angels as venue security, hiring one hundred members of the infamous gang and paying them in free beer. Unbeknownst to the band and their handlers, what constitutes a motorcycle gang in the U.S. and the U.K. were apparently vastly different things. The American Hells Angels showed up to the concert armed and subjected the crowd to a day of violence that, when all was said and done, left thousands of the 300,000 attendees injured. The thing that separates the violence at Altamont from Astroworld is that Astroworld was caused by a crowd to which security had failed to react adequately, Altamont was instigated by the very group that was hired to provide security. One must really question the wisdom of introducing armed thugs as security into a toxic stew of a hot, irritated audience already replete with rampant drug use and intoxication and then paying said thugs with free beer. For this reason, Altamont still stands – in my mind – as the worst and most easily avoided concert tragedy on U.S. soil.
I’m not going to sit here and say that Travis Scott did nothing wrong. I’ll hold off until the investigations related to this incident are wrapped up for that. He does have a history of encouraging his audience to do stupid things. Of course, where does personal responsibility come into play here? Just because some idiot on stage told you to climb the scaffolding doesn’t mean you have to climb the scaffolding. Try thinking with your adult brain for once. Unfortunately, it is not 1969 anymore, so I can see pearl clutchers forming some sort of movement to sanitize the concert experience. No more standing room only, strict no moshing policies, that sort of thing. I guess time will tell. Also, where does parenting come into play here? Clearly someone is raising these animals, yes? Maybe try teaching your kids not to act like savages early in life so that they don’t become entitled brats as teenagers and maladjusted freaks as adults, yeah? That’s just my two cents. In some ways, the shrieking ninnies of “red rose Twitter” are correct in their comparisons to the so-called “satanic panic” of the 80s and 90s. Wherein the moral crusaders once blamed suicide, animal mutilation, and school shootings on everything from Judas Priest, Dungeons & Dragons, Doom, and Marilyn Manson, they now blame the wages of two generations of overly permissive parents on hidden messages in concert backdrops and on nebulous concepts like cyber bullying and cyber harassment or “patriarchy” and “toxic masculinity.” It would also be a great thing if everyone could stop mistaking idiocy, negligence, and naivete for evil. The organizers of Astroworld were stupid, not evil. The organizers of Altamont were stupid, not evil. Nobody went into either of those incidents rubbing their palms together menacingly and wondering how they could get the maximum possible number of people killed, hurt, or maimed.