People Rioting because of a Pop Punk band? New Found Glory and Saves the Day @ Reno Knitting Factory

Before I focus on where the show went terribly wrong I'll talk about the good of what happened that evening, and there is a lot to cover.

The first band up were Pop-Punk band Fireworks, Fireworks did a great job playing and really got the crowd stoked up. Their set wasn't long enough in my opinion. I would gladly see these guys if they come around again.

Then there was Hellogoodbye...I have to admit first that, I DON'T LIKE HELLOGOODBYE, but their set was good, and despite some early technical difficulties, due to their synth, they played a fun set. It was obvious the crowd was enjoying it, as did I to.

Then the reason I came to the show Saves The Day hit the stage, they literally played a 15 song set with out stopping and talking, which was needed after Hellogoodbye's frequent stops to fix their sound. Half way through the set a mosh pit started bye a couple of drunk girls, me, and a fat guy, became a really big and fun pit after more people joined in. It was my first real time being inside a mosh pit, but it was extremely fun. Saves the Day played every song I wanted to hear except Freakish. One of the last songs that they played that night was At Your Funeral, which was when the pit got a little to crazy, but still fun.

Here's where it starts to get bad. New Found Glory hit the stage to play their entire self titled album, and I was out of the pit area by then, after their 3rd song I decided to move over to the pit (because Chad Gilbert and Jordan Pundik of New Found Glory asked the crowd to start moshing), after 2 minutes of it, I get kicked, by a large Hispanic man, and decided, to sit back just behind the pit. I stood around for a couple more songs, when I saw the Hispanic man that was kicking start throwing punches, New Found Glory stopped the show for a second, told people not to fight...and then people fought.

It got its worse after that, the band stopped the show again, and started to scream "Fight outside" then started playing again. Following, that two people heading out the door started fighting in the door way, fights broke out at both sides of the stage, and a fight broke out in a little pocket formed out side of the circle pit. At that point security was engaged in one on one fist fighting, because their wasn't enough security personnel, I even saw 3 to 4 roadies come out to help security, the band finished their song and told people to stop fighting, played the whiniest version of Kiss Me they could, and we thought everything would be fine.

It wasn't, during the last song played, someone started skanking and moving their arms to a song, well, security got involved because they thought he was throwing punches, the band then stopped the show to tell the to let him go that's just how he dances, the crowd then started to swarm security due to egging on from the band, NFG finally caught their mistake and asked people to back off, that didn't work, so they walked off stage, the crowd settled down, Jordan tried coming back on stage his mic got cut off, and security told everyone to leave.

The Scariest moment for me was, when the big brawl happened and I got pinned between the separator for the reserved seating area, until I managed to kick a trash can that was blocking the way, I was stuck in that spot because security wouldn't let me through the reserved seating area, and the crowd was so rowdy and thick I couldn't get out the other way.

Cops and a firetruck showed up, and it all could of been avoided. The Knitting Factory should of never allowed drinking on the all ages floor, the band should have asked for people to mosh, and security should have been double. Should, Could, Would, but didn't.

In the end we got 4/5ths of a show, 3 and a half great sets, and we had some fun. Such a shame, the show had to end 30 minutes early, but i would gladly see, any of the bands again, except I will never see New Found Glory if they come to the knitting factory again, if they go to the New Oasis or The Underground, where security is much tighter, then I would.