This link was sent to me by a fellow MCR fan who attended the May show at The Pageant in St. Louis. I was shocked at first, but cannot bring myself to be overly sympathetic. Read on to find out why.
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2008-05-14/news/just-shoot-me/
I was at the show that night and had to sign a waiver in order to get my pass, which seemed very stringent to me. When I reviewed the agreement, I thought it stated that you could only shoot during the first three songs and that you could not use the photographs you took for anything outside of the publication you were photographing for. I thought it also mentioned no camera phones could be used during the show. It was extremely strict and I remember feeling a bit nervous after signing it. It didn't matter if you had a photo pass or not- after your time in the pit was over you needed to exit the area and not even think about photography while you were still in the venue. I can remember chatting with Todd from ishootshows.com, a regular photographer at The Pageant, about this. He had never had to sign a waiver before either and we both were a little taken aback by it. I'm too German to even think about not following the rules so I was determined to play it straight and narrow all night. I'm always too grateful and shocked that I've been granted the opportunity to shoot a show so I am usually operating under a submissive mindset anyhow!
After I finished shooting and joined my friends, I was standing in view of the photographer when she was shooting from the balcony. When I spied her I thought "good on her, but she needs to watch herself." Security was tapping on shoulders all night. It was not the most relaxing atmosphere despite the fact that the band out on a helluva show. I hate that she was so excessively manhandled like that and it's good that MCR tried to compensate her, but she was in direct violation of the agreement. Full stop.
I have never had a bad experience with security at The Pageant. They've been annoying at times, in fact J and I got in trouble a few times with those guys because we didn't want to stand where they wanted us to stand, but they've always been a necessary presence that we have to accept and we do. They've never been rude or aggressive. If anything, they've been guys we'd share a laugh with when things got really crazy. When I read this article I knew it couldn't have been a Pageant security dude being so aggressive. In fact, the more I read about it, it was indeed an MCR security guard who may or may not be employed by the band anymore after this incident. -K
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