Wednesday, October 31, 2007
It has been reported recently by Blabbermouth and DotMusic.com that two fans of Finnish theatrical hard rock band Lordi were robbed at gunpoint on Friday in Louisville, Kentucky, United States and the band’s manager as well as a bodyguard were shot at. No-one was injured.
Following a gig in Louisville the band had split up, with three of the members going to a nearby bar for a drink. Lead vocalist Mr. Lordi, his wife, and keyboardist Awa had entered the tour bus, while manager Rikk Scholvinck and a bodyguard were escorting two fans towards the bus.
According to those at the scene, a van pulled up next to the bus and several youths emerged, at least one of which was carrying a gun. Mr Lordi describes what happened next: “One of the men with a gun took a fan, a girl, put the gun to her head and forced her to lie down on the ground. Also one of the boys froze on the spot while the others fled away, including Rikk and the bodyguard while another man started shooting at them. Luckily he missed and no one was hurt. Rikk ran to the bar and called the police who arrived soon. In a moment we were surrounded by like five police cars but the guys managed to escape. They were a group of drug addicts that had stolen the car earlier that night, and police were already looking for them but have still not managed to catch them.”
“The girl that was held at gunpoint is obviously very shocked. We did our best to comfort and calm her down, but one can only wonder what could happen when people start running around with guns and even using them! It is a bit amusing that the boy fan was just happy he didn’t lose the t-shirt he was wearing with all the autographs on it, even if they both lost everything else.”
Both the fans were given lifelong all access passes to Lordi concerts worldwide to compensate.
Lordi has had previous altercations with criminals in the US. Earlier this year the bus the band was using for their tour as part of Ozzfest was hijacked with several of the technical crew on board. During the same tour, two other fans were also robbed. “This was like a deja vú of that, once again we were surrounded by police cars and their flashing lights,” Mr Lordi commented.