- 90s rock band
Smash Mouth has shared some of the hate mail they received following a controversial performance at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota. - In a post on their
Instagram account, the band shared an image of a furious handwritten letter condemning their actions, and the letter was accompanied by a smashed copy of a Smash Mouth album. - The throwback band performed at the motorcycle rally earlier this month and videos shared by attendees on social media showed that no social distancing was taking place at the crowded performance. In one particular video lead singer, Steve Harwell can be heard saying: "F--- that COVID s---!"
The 90s rock band Smash Mouth has shared some hate mail they received following their controversial performance at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota.
In a post on their Instagram account, the band shared an image of a furious handwritten letter condemning their actions, and the letter was largely covered up by a smashed copy of a Smash Mouth album. The post was captioned: "recent fan mail."
The throwback band performed at the motorcycle rally earlier this month and from the videos shared by attendees on social media, it was clear that no social distancing was taking place at the crowded performance.
In one particular video, lead singer Steve Harwell can be heard saying: "Now we're all here together tonight, and we're being human once again."
He added: "F--- that COVID s---!"
—Connor Matteson (@mattesontv) August 10, 2020
According to USA Today, the annual motorcycle convention typically attracts around half a million bikers to the small city of Sturgis, South Dakota, but this year organizers scaled down operations with only 250,000 attendees, which still makes the rally one of the largest events to take place in the US since the start of the pandemic.
The Associated Press reported that 103 new cases of
Smash Mouth's manager Robert Hayes has since released a statement to Billboard insisting that the performance was "pulled off as safely as possible."
He said: "The promoter did a fantastic job with their COVID protocol. They had a very strict social distancing and mask policy in place for all workers. Everything backstage was sanitized, etc. The band has their own COVID addendum to their rider as well and the promoter and venue adhered to all of our requests. We spent endless hours advancing this event to make sure that it was pulled off as safely as possible and we are very happy with the outcome."
Smash Mouth isn't the first band to hold a concert during the pandemic. The Chainsmokers held a concert in the Hamptons in July, and in June, country singer Chase Rice performed in front of a crowd of 800 guests in Tennessee.
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