Throwing things at musicians while they’re trying to perform isn’t a new phenomenon – just ask Daphne and Celeste, who famously got pelted with bottles by a raging crowd at Reading & Leeds festival back in 2000. Tom Jones used to regularly dodge flurries of airborne knickers during his Sex Bomb heyday, while Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner was once the target of a fan’s sock.
What does feel different now, however, is the frequency and seriousness of these kinds of incidents. It’s one thing chucking a water bottle onto a stage, but it’s another thing entirely deliberately aiming objects at artists – in some cases leaving them with serious injuries afterwards. This year, both Ava Max and Bebe Rexha have been hurt by fans invading their stages or throwing objects directly at their faces.
