Music

The Story So Far's singer dropkicked a female fan in Toronto

by Jeremy Mersereau

UPDATE: Becca Illic has contacted us to identify herself as the fan in this video. She says she was not hurt and does not “have any malicious feelings toward the band whatsoever.” Illic explains that she “got up on stage and tried to take a stupid Snapchat video” but her “phone wasn’t working properly to load the app so I stood up there longer than I had anticipated.”

The violent response of Parker Cannon may still send a bad message to fans about their personal safety, and Illic admits that “some people don’t mind that behaviour because it is to be expected, but some do.” She concludes that she “cant wait to be at their next show, only I’ll cool it with the Snapchats!”

The story so far: The Story So Far, a pop-punk outfit from Walnut Creek, California, played Toronto’s Mod Club Sunday night. During the show’s final song, frontman Parker Cannon (ugh) was caught on tape surprise dropkicking a female fan, ostensibly for the crime of daring to take a selfie with the band she loves and paid to see.

Yikes. Those cheers that greet Cannon’s surprise assault on a fellow fan don’t do much to raise my esteem for The Story So Far’s fanbase, teens though they may be. Sure, stage-crashing for a selfie isn’t the best look in the world, but I think dearly hope we can all agree that a 23-year-old man forcefully dropkicking a woman in the back for doing it is about, oh, 800 orders of magnitude shittier, not to mention extremely dangerous and stupid.

Apparently, Cannon didn’t get the memo the first time: why would you do this to your fans?!

The social media reactions to the Toronto clip range from the well-thought-out and admonishing:

To the, uh, less so:

Something tells me you’re not an impartial observer, @TheJoshSoFar.

So far, there’s been no comment from either party, but expect that to change if this continues to gather steam, which it should. Still, in 2016, being a woman at any kind of live music event, but particularly punk shows, can be an exercise in frustration at best and fear at worst. That’s even before sleeve-tatted grown men calling themselves Parker Cannon start dropkicking every back in sight.