The bluegrass guitarist took the stage at Fishers Event Center in a minor league hockey helmet the night after an audience member struck him with a projectile, prompting blunt words from the stage.
Billy Strings walked out for his August 7 show in Fishers, Indiana wearing a helmet borrowed from the local minor league hockey team, the Indy Fuel. The choice wasn’t theatrical. The night before, the first of a three-night run at the Fishers Event Center, an object thrown from the crowd hit him in the head.
The moment was caught on video: Strings acknowledging the headgear with a brief, wry smile before launching into a song, the crowd cheering the response. But the humor arrived only after a visibly angered performer had addressed the incident directly. After being struck—some fans speculated it was a lighter—he told the audience, “Maybe I shouldn’t have come back.”
He didn’t leave the stage, but his message was sharp. “Why the fuck would you throw something at me? Is your dick really that small?” He added that he’d been about to tell the crowd how happy he was to be there, then was hit “right in the fucking head.”
Strings also had a suggestion for identifying the person responsible: “Find out who that was and sodomize them, please.”
The bluegrass guitarist is currently on tour through December and has a new album, So Much for Goodbyes, due in late August. The tour will continue with dates across the U.S., but the Fishers stand gave audiences a reminder that even the warmest rooms can contain moments of blunt friction.
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ROMBO Editorial Staff
The collective voice behind ROMBO Magazine’s news, reviews, features, and cultural coverage.
