18 May 18 – 24, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Iron Curtain Ridglea Theater in Fort Worth bans Terror, pos- sibly other hardcore acts after dispute. BY CHRISTIAN MCPHATE T he battle of hardcore band Ter- ror versus Ridglea Theater owner Gerard “Jerry” Shults raged online for days. Terror lead singer Scott Vo- gel kicked it off Saturday afternoon with a tweet: “Ridglea Theater in Ft. Worth easily has the worst security this band has encoun- tered in all 20 years of existence. And if you know us, that’s saying a lot,” he wrote. A video of the incident involving a secu- rity guard snatching a microphone, which prompted his tweet, appeared Friday night on Twitter. By Tuesday evening, the video had 1.3 million views. Terror has close to a million followers on social media, and they were quick to re- spond to Vogel’s post by sharing their own complaints about Ridglea Theater. “Same place that the maga sound guy started shit with Zulu,” wrote @ravensinss “Let’s not forget the registered sex of- fender that’s employed there as well,” wrote @DILLON_DINOSAUR. “So instead of let- ting him go, they now make anyone under 18 have parental supervision to attend.” The registered sex offender, Jerry Warden, had worked for Ridglea last year. Observer readers might remember Warden’s recent bid to become Arlington mayor. He received 2% of the vote, and authorities charged him with fraud since he was a convicted felon trying to run for public office. Warden is still battling his case in Tarrant County. Shults, who is in his late 70s, said he let Warden go over a year ago after finding out about his sex offender status and then ex- plained his take on the Friday night show. “Stage diving, spin kicking, windmilling, punching, crowd killing were banned by the theater for the safety of everyone,” he said. “Any bands, promoters, types of music that condone or encourage these activities are not welcome at the Ridglea entertainment complex.” On Monday, No Cure XXX tweeted that the band was moving its June 6 show from Ridglea Theater. In a May 9 post, online metal publication Lambgoat shared news about the incident involving the security guard along with comments from Shults, who had been re- sponding to people on social media. “I admit we could always do better but in [this] case Terror decided they wanted to in- cite a riot maybe for publicity?” Shults wrote. “So it’s no problem :) Terror is banned. Hard- core knows our house rules: no stage diving, kicking, punching, crowd killing period. Knocked loose and others know this and don’t try to cause a riot like Terror did. Doubt there is a venue in DFW that will take them.” Shults then sent a direct message to Lam- bgoat: “Metal fans rock, so far hardcore fans just want to screw things up for metal fans. Core ‘dancing’ equals crowd killing, mosh pits and crowd surfing is chill. Stage diving is a recipe for the venue getting sued.” Terror was on tour with The Black Dahlia Murder as part of the Verminous Remnant North American Tour. They were joined by Frozen Soul, Fuming Mouth and Phobophilic. Third String Productions booked the 13+ show at Ridglea Theater. Shults said that the show was getting progressively violent, so Ridglea Theater raised the age to 18. In the May 9 Lambgoat post, Shults went on to claim that he didn’t realize Third String Productions was booking the hard- core band. “I thought it was all death metal,” he wrote. Shults then pointed out that they depend on those who book the venue to explain pol- icies to the bands. But Mike Ziemer, the founder of Third String Productions, claims that they met with the full Ridglea Theater crew a few weeks ago to discuss “what IS and ISN’T al- lowed from the types of moshing and crowd surfing to what ages are appropriate for what shows.” “I brought up this show with The Black Dahlia Murder and told them since Terror and Frozen Soul were large hardcore bands, we wanted them to hire outside security for the barricade and have their best, most level headed and pit knowledgeable person in the pit area,” Ziemer said in an interview with the Observer. “We also requested an EMT on site. Neither of these happened. Not only were they understaffed on security based on what we had agreed to, but they had their normal T- shirt security dudes that clearly had some is- sue with this type of music from the jump.” Ziemer also mentioned several issues from the Friday night show: The venue did not allow merchandise sellers to bring water bottles to their tables. Security pushed fans back into the crowd. Security was on their phones and not catch- ing people misbehaving. Security antago- nized the bands. The owner of the venue decided to talk to the bands and to tell them what was and wasn’t OK. “No owner of a venue should be walking around a venue getting involved in all the operations when we have rented out the space,” Ziemer said. Ziemer said Vogel from Terror had been trying to throw the microphone to a crowd surfer so he could sing into it, “as is custom- ary at these shows.” A security person caught it then unplugged it and plugged it back in and taunted the singer by saying, “I don’t think so.” In his comments on social media, Shults claimed that the security guard was re- sponding to Vogel allegedly trying to get the crowd to rush the stage and that Vogel had thrown the microphone at the security guard instead of the crowd surfer. Vogel denied Shults’ claim. “The venue can say what they want,” Ziemer said. “But every band and fan was beyond confused by this behavior.” The difference, he explained, is that other venue owners will usually take the fans’ side, reprimand the security guard and apologize for the behavior. “Jerry chose to taunt everyone by making jokes about new T-shirts that say ‘I don’t think so’ and further digging a hole that we can’t dig him out of even with our best attempts,” Ziemer said. “It’s really sad to see a venue known for decades of metal, hardcore and heavy shows say the things he did about the community. He didn’t try to hear anyone out or have a conversation, he just stated his own beliefs and opinions and that was that. I feel like he could have taken a breath or a step back and realized if an entire community is coming for him, that his guys were in the wrong. ... “I have never seen a venue act this way or not try to follow the mantra of ‘the customer is always right.’ While I believe there are peo- ple who come to concerts to start problems and are worthy of getting kicked out, he made a generalization about arguably the hottest genre of music in our scene right now.” Arlington band Frozen Soul posted tweets encouraging other bands to find different North Texas venues and skip The Ridglea. Adan Cedillo Arlington’s Frozen Soul is telling bands to play venues that aren’t Ridglea in Fort Worth. | B-SIDES | t Music puffnstuffsmokeshop.com WE CARRY CBD! CuRREnt StoRE HouRS: MON-THUR 10aM - 10pM •FRI & SaT 10aM - 11pM • SUN 12pM - 10pM The Best Selection & Prices of Smoking Accessories and more in DFW! 2714 Elm St • 972-803-5151 armouryde.com MONDAY – FRIDAY 5PM–2AM SATURDAY & SUNDAY 11AM–2:00AM Cocktails • Beer Traditional Hungarian Fare
