“Is this your mom?” Pink asked the crowd member, as seen on footage shared to Twitter.
After the fan confirmed the contents of the bag, Pink, nervous and a little shaken, replied, “I donno’t know how to feel about this.”
The singer, who was also reportedly gifted a wheel of brie cheese at the show, is not alone in questioning what to do in the face of strange or unruly fan behavior.
In late July, Cardi B appeared to pelt a concertgoer with her microphone after a drink was thrown at her while onstage in Las Vegas. The rapper, who has been recorded throwing a mic in moments of frustration more than once, appeared to shout at the audience member as security guards flocked around her. A representative for Cardi B did not immediately return a request for comment late Sunday.
“Most people in the live events industry are insistent that audience behavior has changed (for the worse) — it’s now more rude, less rule-bound, more aggressive,” said John Drury, professor of social psychology at Sussex University.
That’s not necessarily the case, he noted, though a surface-level news scan looks compelling.
In mid-June, singer Bebe Rexha was struck in the face by a cellphone that was tossed by a fan from the crowd. Earlier this week, Kelsea Ballerini was popped in the face by a random object — believed to be a bracelet by fans — during a performance at Outlaw Field in Boise, Idaho. Footage shared to social media showed singer-songwriter Ava Max being slapped in the face by an audience member during a show in Los Angeles — though it’s unclear if the incident was staged.
And those are just the most recent examples.
Back in February, Ice Spice had to stop a performance after the crowd became unruly. Bad Bunny threw a fan’s phone into water at a January show in the Dominican Republic, according to Rolling Stone, explaining in a now-deleted Twitter post that the fan showed a “lack of respect” by pushing the device in his face. Rapper Kid Cudi walked offstage at the Rolling Loud festival in Miami last summer after audience members tossed water bottles and debris at him. In October 2022, a fan threw their phone at Steve Lacy. The singer asked for it and proceeded to smash it.
Drury’s recent research, which he said is funded by Live Nation, shows the phenomenon can be blamed on a “mixed picture” of chaos old and new: the impulse to throw one’s iPhone at one’s idol and more traditional let’s-go-HAM attitudes long associated with fandom. Some shows may have a little more edge to them, but concerts haven’t actually changed that much since rock-and-roll’s rise in popularity in the 1950s and 1960s.
“It’s a false flag. It’s nothing. It’s getting back to normal,” said Paul Wertheimer of Crowd Management Strategies, a Los Angeles crowd safety consulting service, who noted that concert-going dramatically waned in the early years of the pandemic.
Decades past were no less anarchic. If it wasn’t Tom Jones catching underwear or punk rock bands batting off bottles hurled their way, it was chaotic Woodstock festivals (yes, even the original). One notorious example — Green Day was stuck in a mud fight in 1994, caused by upset fans angered by the weather. Or take Kid Rock’s performance at Woodstock ’99, when he asked fans to toss their water bottles onto the stage.
“It’s from the beginning of rock-and-roll,” Wertheimer said. “It’s been going on for decades and decades.”
Unruly behavior among audience members has always been a way for fans to show their undying adoration for their favorite artists, said Lucy Bennett, a lecturer at Cardiff University.
This harks back to something innate, she said: fans want an intimate experience with their favorite artists, they want to be acknowledged and to show others that they have a deeper connection to the performer.
“These acts also allow these fans to demonstrate their knowledge and foster fan cultural capital,” she said. “They can be performances of fan identity that states to others ‘I am a fan.’”
Kelly Kasulis Cho contributed to this report.