Heartbreak in Gurgaon: Metallica fans speak out

So once again Delhi is in the news for all the wrong reasons! Toss in hooliganism, rioting, and badly behaved fans, and everyone is nodding their heads in disapproval: “Why even bother organising a big event in Delhi. It’ll never work out.”

“It’s Metallica this time round, next time, I won’t even bother. What’s the point?” laments Raghu Balakrishnan, 28, Manager, who has worshipped the band since he was 16, and flew down from Ahmedabad for the F1 Rocks concert in Gurgaon.

But he also insists that the ground reality at the concert arena was very different to what is being shown or reported by the media.

“Fans were obviously upset with the organisers for lying to them the whole time round. They kept on changing the time constantly, and I know of people who had been waiting to get in since 2:30 in the afternoon. What happened inside was provoked. The organisers lied and all this talk about the crew equipment being broken is nonsense. I know that the organisers moved the equipment before announcing the cancellation. They knew what was coming their way. It was un-cool that some went and destroyed the stage, but this would have happened in any other city and could have been much worse. So please, stop blaming the ‘hooligans’ for scaring off Metallica. Get the organisers,” says Raghu.

This isn’t the first concert to run aground in Delhi. Earlier this year the Bryan Adams gig was cancelled because the Delhi police said the location for the show in the NSIC exhibition grounds in Okhla industrial area of south east Delhi was not suitable for it.

From last minute fire clearance certificate to no-objection certificates, Delhi is notorious for its bureaucratic nightmares that plague big international concerts. But  in this case it’s not the city or the bureaucracy that’s being blamed, but the organisers themselves.

Things didn’t look promising from the start. The press conference that was scheduled to start at 4:15, only kicked off at 6:15, much to the agitation of the media waiting for the band members. Add to that, once Metallica came, sat, chatted and left, a lot of media houses that were promised coverage and tickets for their reporter and photographer were refused last minute. The reason cited: The organisers didn’t have enough space to handle so many journalists — as in, six journalists who didn’t have their names on the F1 list.

But in the end, it’s the ticket buyers who feel most betrayed. Blogger Rahul Sarin who was inside the venue has written an open letter to DNA Network (the event organiser) that’s generating a lot of buzz on Facebook:

I strongly feel that what you got tonight, is less when compared to what you actually deserved. The concert you organised in Gurgaon was a mess from the start to the finish. It started with the open consumption of alcohol, hash and what not at the entrance of the venue. With absence of any real security, it was a free-for-all. The seeds were sown the moment the crowd tried to push itself inside the venue and you made them wait for hours together. A woman could be seen weeping, lying on the floor with a bruised foot…

At the end of the day, I lost 3 grands, lost an entire day to your nonsense and landed myself in a riot. I’m not even a hardcore heavy metal or Metallica fan. Imagine the level of disappointment to those who are. I wish someone sues all of you into oblivion.

Kanaj Gupta, 23, flew from Qatar to Delhi especially for the concert, as did his friends from Singapore. They are all here till Sunday, and since they are die-hard Metallica fans they hope to get Bangalore tickets and postpone their flight for a day, so that they can atleast see their favourite band live, regardless of the cost involved. Another Metallica fan, Ojhas Dubey, 24, laments, “Look at the size of this place! I hadn’t come to Leisure Valley before, but it doesn’t look like it can accommodate 25,000 to 30,000 fans. The delay in giving tickets, complete lack of security on ground, and useless barricades—this had to happen.”

The Delhi concert cancellation has already started a heated debate on social networking sites about ‘uncouth Delhi’. However, most who were at the venue left peacefully. Sankalp Bhatnagar, 24, who flew down especially from Lucknow said that if the same had happened in Lucknow the entire place would have been trashed. The Delhi junta had been very well behaved in comparison. He too will be flying to Bangalore with his friends.

After rumours about technical snags and Metallica’s anger at stage set-up, the band issued a statement claiming that the concert was cancelled due to the failure of one of the security barricades, raising “a serious question as to whether the show could proceed with regard to the safety of the concert audience. And our first and foremost concern is always for the safety of you, the fans.”

That is surely poor consolation for their devoted  fans who waited patiently for hours on end to hear their gods play.