File this one under “bureaucratic bullshit.“
There’s been plenty of extremely legitimate reasons why musicians have been banned or kicked off flights over the years. But in this particular case we’ve been left scratching our heads. Hard rocking Brisbane maniacs Violent Soho cleaned up at last night’s AIR Awards, taking home Best Independent Album and Best Independent Hard Rock, Heavy or Punk Album. But the band revealed they almost didn’t make it down to Melbourne for the ceremony, and the airline’s delicate sensibilities – coupled with a simple t-shirt – are to blame.
The band’s guitarist James Tidswell was initially prevented from boarding their Melbourne-bound flight due to what airline personnel at the time labelled as a “threatening” t-shirt. The shirt in question, a simple little black t-shirt, featured the song title of Painters & Dockers 1990 Australian rock classic “Eat, Shit, Die.” That’s it. That’s all there was to it. No offending images or iconography. No extreme or violent language or insinuations. Just a song title featuring a word so engrained in the Australian lexicon that major daily newspapers print it uncensored.
Hell, they even posted an Instagram photo of it.
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@j_tidswell wasn’t allowed on the plain wearing his Painters and Dockers shirt – they claim he posed a threat.
I mean, right? “Threatening.” Really? For a situation in which people are herded onto a sardine tin of death to be placed in rows of seating barely wide enough for a broom handle, rendering the number of people on the plane who would actually have had a full view of the shirt at around four. And that’s only if he had an aisle seat.
Fortunately, somewhat cooler heads prevailed eventually, and Tidswell was allowed onto the flight. But the airline only did so after laying down the demand that he turn his shirt inside-out.
Tidswell, being the goddamned Aussie legend that he is, did them one better.
Well played, lads. Well played indeed.
Photo: Mark Metcalfe via Getty Images.
via FasterLouder.
