Fresno's Selland Arena Anti-Fun Nazis

me | 6/28/02 | Goodie D

[goodieD]

Attending a concert at Fresno, CA's Selland Arena has always been dampened by their "event staff"'s overbearing 'crowd control' techniques. And it's always interesting what they choose to overlook and what they crack down on. But at last nite's Sammy Hagar/David Lee Roth concert, they outdid themselves with one small act. Choosing to ignore the blatant weed smoking and partial nudity, they went straight for a deadly menace: 2 beach balls. These two dangerous and evil beach balls were tossed out by the crowd during intermission. The crowd was having a great time batting these around. But the Event Staff SS in their ultimate wisdom, decided that 5 minutes of this nonsense was enough. They confiscated the bad balls (not before one of the more sick event staff members swatted a ball away from a retarded young man) and deflated them, with a self-satisfied look on their faces that said volumes. As far as I know, the event staff is there to make sure no one gets hurt and the crowd doesn't get "out of control". But it is my experience with these killjoy jerks that they could care less about all of that. I remmeber several concerts there where the crowd was not allowed to even stand up in unison during a concert. We were forced to sit down for the entire concert..no standing, no dancing, and no having a good time or else! Last nite will probably be the last time I attend a concert there, I'm tired of the staff treating everyone like criminals, getting dirty looks when I move from my seat, the crappy sound system that is so distorted you can't hear anything properly and inflated prices on comestibles. It's just not worth the price of a ticket.

[goodieD]

Let me say on the flipside, Sammy puts on a great concert (much better than the cold and not much talented David Lee Roth), but I was a little put off by all the blue material and half naked chicks on the screen and up on stage. This concert really should have been listed as "18 and over". There were kids in the audience and a lot of older folks who don't need to see a bunch of topless dancers on the screen or a stripper type flashing the audience on stage.