A Splendour Band Were Allegedly Evicted From The Festival By Police

26 July 2016 | 2:49 pm | Neil Griffiths

"There was blood all over the floor."

Fat White Family @ Splendour 2016. Pic by Bec Taylor

Fat White Family @ Splendour 2016. Pic by Bec Taylor

More Splendour In The Grass More Splendour In The Grass

UK indie-rockers Fat White Family were allegedly evicted from Splendour In The Grass shortly after they finished their set last Friday.

The band’s performance was a massive talking point on the first day of the three-day event, due to frontman Lias Kaci Saoudi completing half the set entirely nude.

Speaking to theMusic today, owner of Melbourne’s Cherry Bar, James Young, claims that he witnessed police officers standing with Saoudi after the gig when he approached the band to introduce himself ahead of their show at his venue this week.

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"I was in the backstage area and I wanted to pop my head in to their van to say ‘hello’… and there were three cops standing in front of the lead singer and he had an ice pack against his broken nose. There was blood all over the floor," Young claims.

"I’d heard from someone else that they’d invited [the band] into their trailer and they drunk all their booze and trashed their van. They got evicted from site.

"It was the whole talk of the backstage area. I mean, there’s lots of bands playing and things are very professionally run at Splendour. Pretty much everyone from the police, to the site organisers, to all the other bands wanted the drunken wired cunts out of there which is exactly what happened."

Lias Kaci Saoudi on stage at Splendour. Pics via James Young.

Though he alleges the group have been "extremely obnoxious" since arriving in Australia, Young insists their behaviour was never better than at their sideshow at Cherry Bar last night.

"Apparently from my staff they were very well behaved, they were polite. The show was great," he says.

Young can not confirm however if the band’s eviction from the North Byron Parklands last week means a permanent ban from Splendour.

"I’d be very surprised if they got invited back again."

Fat White Family’s trip to the country hasn’t been the smoothest either, after guitarist Saul Adamczewski pulled out of the trip shortly before they were to make the flight over.

Melbourne musician Aiden McMillan stepped in for Adamczeski, also one-time frontman for The Metros, amidst speculation that he has quit. However, the group’s tour promoter says they are unaware of any such decision and claim that Adamczeski pulled out of the tour for personal reasons.

One punter on Facebook alleges that Saoudi told fans Adamczeski had split from the band.

We spoke with Fat White Family last month ahead of their trip Down Under and it was…an experience. Much of the interview is spent talking about buying crystal meth and cocaine. Read it all for yourself here.

Meanwhile, check out our full review of Fat White Family's controversial Splendour show here

The Music is awaiting further comment from Splendour organisers.