The rock band Filter was set to perform at the Speaking Rock Entertainment Center in El Paso, Texas on Thursday when the concert was cancelled last minute due to a Facebook post and the American flag.
The band shared a video of them doing a soundcheck as they also went over images to project like an American flag upside down.
Filter frontman, Richard Patrick explained what happened next to Billboard.
He was picking out some images to run on the screen being them one of them being an American flag. “We have this song, ‘American Cliché,’ and at the end of it, I say Donald Trump quotes, but I do it in a bad German accent — ‘Vee have to build za wall!’ — so I told the lighting guy to turn [the flag image] upside down and make the colours all trippy and weird like it’s a bad acid trip,” Patrick said.
As soundcheck wrapped up a manager came up to him “really pleasant, very decent” and told him, “‘I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but you can’t do that to the flag.’ When I asked him why not, he said, ‘It’s illegal.’ And I said, ‘No, it’s not.’ And he said, ‘You can’t hang it upside down unless it’s an emergency.’ So I said, ‘Well, President Trump has declared a national emergency because our southern border is being invaded by rapists and drug dealers, and babies have to be taken from their mothers, so this is an emergency.’ And then he said that El Paso is a big military town, so I pointed out that I’ve been to Iraq three or four times and once to Afghanistan to play for the troops.”
He adds that he has “a great deal of respect for the American flag and our troops. I care about this country and I’m not allowed to talk about it and express my opinion? But you know, I understood where he was coming from and it was the club’s equipment, so I let it go and said we’d take the video down.’”
They thought it was the end of it but before they knew it the show was cancelled because of their “Facebook post.”
He goes on to say they were “back at the hotel and our tour manager was backstage and the general manager and the production manager came in with five security guards and started yelling at him, looking for me, and they were ready to kick my tour manager’s ass if they couldn’t kick mine. The production manager told him that the show was cancelled and that we had to clear out, that because of the Facebook post they were getting credible threats — bomb threats — and they were cancelling the show for our safety. And my tour manager said, ‘I have to call Richard and our management because this is Richard Patrick’s First Amendment right to say what he wants to say and the band stands behind him.’ And the general manager flipped him off, put his finger in his face, and yelled at him, ‘The First Amendment doesn’t exist here! Now get the fuck out of my venue! And these five men are going to stay here and watch you pack your shit!'”
The venue still had a band play that night.
As for how Patrick feels about the entire event: “Gutted, Just gutted.”
“This country is so polarized. This isn’t the America that my family fought for. This is some guy trying to make a quick buck while he’s in the White House for a couple of years. Carl Bernstein said: ‘It’s not the first time that half of America has hated a president, but it’s the first president that’s hated half of America.’ And I agree with him. And I think no matter what, people should be able to speak their minds. And you know what? You can serve your country without ever putting on a uniform by exercising your First Amendment rights.”
Speaking Rock Entertainment Center general manager, Karl A. Maahs had a different story to tell Billboard including that the band was trying to start a “political rally” and Patrick wanted to “desecrate” the flag “with different markings and everything else.”
“We’d rather cancel the show than be in the spotlight with all this anti-American political thing, especially when it came down to the American flag being hung upside down for the show and being desecrated.”
