The Darkness lead singer Justin Hawkins talked about the time his band opened up for Disturbed, calling it his “worst experience as a support act.” Recalling the experience on his YouTube series “Justin Hawkins Rides Again,” the Darkness singer took his listeners back to the time the Darkness opened for Disturbed in 2002 at Brixton Academy. Apparently the audience was pretty rowdy, and someone “threw a piece of chewing gum that had presumably been in their mouth, and it actually landed in my mouth.” Hawkins (understandably) admonished the crowd, and Disturbed’s David Drainman “wasn’t very pleased with me.”

Here’s the whole story:

I really love Brixton Academy; I think it’s probably my favorite venue. It was the worst and also one of the best experiences because people were just throwing stuff. But some of the things they were throwing were, like, shoes, bottles and coins and stuff. But the thing about coins is it’s money, so in a way that was a good thing, really. It’s funny, though, ’cause I was right at the front of the stage. It kind of made me perform more, which made them more angry. And somebody — one of the Disturbed fans who… I’ve got a lot of time for Disturbed as a band; I think they’re just brilliant — if you like that sort of thing. But one of their fans threw a piece of chewing gum that presumably had been in their mouth, and it actually landed in my mouth. I was singing [makes choking sound]. It was just a brilliant shot; I had to respect it, really. And then afterwards, David Draiman wasn’t very pleased with me. I don’t know; I think I may have issued an admonishment to the throng, which didn’t go down very well with him. But what are you gonna do? Who gives a fuck? I’m just kidding.

When things like that happen… If a band is supporting my band and then our crowd is not very nice to them, I would always go and apologize. That didn’t happen with Disturbed. I think it actually had the opposite effect and they were angry with us. But… not my problem.

It would seem that Hawkins is in agreement with Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds, who last year revealed that he regretted touring with Disturbed for Mayhem Festival in 2008: “I did a lot of tours I didn’t want to do though, like Disturbed and all that Mayhem stupid bullshit. G** a** shit. You gotta fuckin’ open up for Disturbed. You gotta play to people that like Disturbed.”It was the Mayhem Fest, you know, just a fuckin’ bunch of drunk Americans… [Disturbed fans are] receptive to anything, I imagine. There’s tons of tours I want to do, but there’s most tours… our first tour for Relapse was with Dying Fetus and some other fucking band. It was horrible. I didn’t want to do that tour.” (Note: Mastodon later apologized for Hinds’ use of a homophobic slur.)

Anyway, watch Hawkins’ talk about opening for Disturbed below, which absolutely tracks, given this atrocity.

https://twitter.com/davidmdraiman/status/1544796863370592258