The Red Room club, Vancouver, B.C.
It’s not often that we take the time to take issue with a venue, but last night for the Swollen Members show, we experienced our fair share of bullshit and manhandling. Our photographer, a small 110lb woman, while in the middle of taking press photos was forcibly grabbed and completely removed from the venue. The beefy, 350lb security guard in charge of doing this was extremely aggressive towards her – a woman who was neither posing a threat, fighting or struggling, but trying to express to him that she was attending the show under the pretense of taking photos for an approved and requested review.
What this was to prove, or who this showed an example to is beyond me. No idiot in the audience that was hellbent on causing a problem or a ruckus would have been dissuaded to fight due to a small girl being removed. Plus, the fact that she wasn’t physically fighting him, but solely trying to speak with him was a reason for him to lose his temper and physically force her out of the club, damaging her clothing in the process.
Upon bringing this up with the club’s head of security that same night, and the management, we were met with excuses and claims of “That didn’t happen.” With “16 cameras” as we were told that were videotaping it, apparently it still didn’t happen. So to the people who run The Red Room, if you wish to refute the fact the she struggled while being forced, that she didn’t endlessly try to talk to the guy and she wasn’t forcibly pushed, please, show us the footage. But from what we experienced, the truth is that a show review that was otherwise going to go well, turned into a review of the club and the physically aggressive security picking on the wrong woman instead of the moshing, drunk and angered men who were intent on causing fights and actually making a problem for the club and it’s patrons.
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