Music

Street punk band pummels neo-Nazis at Anaheim concert

by Tyler Munro

If you aren’t the kind of punk who owns a half-dozen jean vests, you might not be familiar with Street Dogs. So, first, some context: They’re the pet project of Mike McColgan, original singer for the Dropkick Murphys and vocalist on their best album, Do or Die.

So, McColgan was performing with Street Dogs on St. Paddy’s Day in Anaheim, when he spotted a bunch of shirtless neo-nazis late in their set. Ever the loud-mouth, he called them out.

“Who here believes all men are created equal?” he asked the crowd. All but the racist goofs raised their hands. It got worse from there. Later in their set, one of the badmen rushed the stage and taunted them with a Nazi salute, at which point the OC Weekly reports guitarist Lenny Lashley dropkicked him.

We can’t confirm the dropkick, video of the fight, below, does clearly show Lashley stopping mid-song and setting down his guitar before jumping into the crowd. The brawl that ensues is lengthy and clear, and as the story goes, escalated further when someone tossed a chair off the upper balcony. Security eventually intervened, and Lashley escaped with his pride (and a few bruises to match).

It’s worth reiterating that this kind of thing isn’t tolerated at any show, but pulling it at a testosterone filled Street Dogs gig wasn’t the smartest move. We don’t condone violence, but when its against people still stupid enough to peddle racist Nazi trash, we don’t exactly condemn it, either.

More curious to us is that this happened at Anaheim’s House of Blues, a Disney-located venue that notoriously won’t book metal bands because of how spooky and scary they are. And if that’s their hardline, maybe they should be al title more careful when it comes to letting racists into shows.

Here’s footage of the fight — skip to 4:45 for the action.

And here’s McColgan’s statement on the incident:

At this time I would like to officially address what happened in Anaheim. Last night at our show in Anaheim at the House Of Blues while we were playing our song Final Transmission for a dear departed fan and friend of ours USMC Jordan Stanton when we noticed a group of Neo nazis rough housing and intimidating our fans and throwing up sieg heil salutes in the air. Their very presence, their hateful,bigoted and ignorant ideology is odious to us and completely unacceptable. We with fans, friends and the assistance of security removed them from the crowd and in the process of mitigating them out some of us sustained superficial injuries. We can attribute those injuries only being superficial in nature to the House Of Blues and their exceptional staff, our fans and our friends. After they were removed we continued with our show and finished the show without incident. In closing we submit this no neo nazis are allowed at our shows. We have always believed in equality and that all people are created equal. We will not suffer or tolerate bigotry in any manifestation. PERIOD!!!!

Respectfully Submitted,
Mike McColgan
Street Dogs