A raised middle finger: is there anything more quintessentially rock’n’roll? As a gesture of defiance, it’s as timeless as it is unambiguous. Nothing says “I don’t give a f***” quite like the sight of an erected third digit, aimed in the direction of an authority figure. Think of Johnny Cash at San Quentin prison. MIA during the Super Bowl halftime show. Ricky Martin “flipping the bird” at George Bush over the Iraq war. Of course, doing it to those in power is one thing. But what about when that finger turns on your own audience?
That’s exactly what happened on Saturday, when Mike Kerr, the frontman of West Sussex-based rock band Royal Blood, lost his rag with the audience at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Dundee. Annoyed by a perceived lack of energy from attendees, Kerr began making derisive remarks on stage, branding the audience “pathetic” and suggesting they didn’t know who the band were. At the end of the set, he walked off with his middle fingers raised to the crowd. The strop has already prompted a fair amount of blowback on social media, with some branding the incident “arrogant” and “hateful”. Kerr is far from the first performer to chastise an audience, of course. He’s not even the first performer this month: just two weeks ago, American rapper Lil Wayne was seen abandoning a gig in Los Angeles after just 30 minutes, having seemingly grown frustrated with the lack of enthusiasm shown by the crowd for other members of his rap collective. Kerr’s spiky confrontation was particularly egregious, however, and speaks to a sense of entitlement that misunderstands the fundamental appeal of live music.
