House Of Pain's Everlast Gets In Spat With Alaskan Town

House Of Pain frontman Everlast may not be in a hurry to return to the town of Sitka, Alaska, any time soon. Following a scheduled acoustic show at local eatery the Bayview Restaurant & Pub, reports have surfaced that the gig didn't go according to plan, with neither performer nor audience walking away impressed with the other.

Sitka has a population of about 8500 people, and estimates from the Bayview and those in attendance put the audience at about 300-350 – or 3.5% to about 4% of the town's residents, making this one of the biggest controversies to happen in the US' sixth-largest port by value of seafood harvest in a while.

In a statement on its Facebook page, the Bayview gave a grave impression of the evening's events, saying that they appreciate their patrons' support and that “we are going to continue to bring you badass music from all over the globe” – “But that'll be the last time you'll see Everlast in Sitka.”

It further commented: “Technically, it sounded good. Everlast didn't inspire anyone tonight, we'll leave it at that. Also, delete all his stuff off your iPod.”

For his part, the Grammy award-winning rapper and singer-songwriter seemed miffed by a perceived lack of respect from his Sitka show attendees, resulting in him cutting his set short by about 45 minutes or so.

“An 'Acoustic Show' means it's a very quiet stage no band no drums everything can be heard on stage if you come to an acoustic show of mine I expect you came to listen and I throw everything I got in it,” he wrote on his Facebook wall.

“When all I can hear in a room is people chatting, literally to the point where I can't hear myself sing and play, I figure that means it's time to go. When I'm contracted to play it's an hour and fifteen or 75 min. I often play over 2 hours when I'm feeling good about performing and the crowd actually wants it. I will say to the few real fans in Sitka sorry you didn't get the 2 hour version of the show.”

However, first-hand accounts in response to the Bayview's original statement suggest that the audience's “lack of interest” was just the opposite. Sitka resident Levi Albertson posted:

“We don't get live entertainment here … I can understand why you got upset about people taking pictures, it's probably irritating for you to produce and perform this music, then look down and see people paying attention to their camera phones … But do you know why they're so concerned about taking pictures? Because this might have been the biggest/first/only concert they've gotten or will ever get to go to. This is going to be something people talk about with their friends for a long time. And I'm going to tell you right now, they're not speaking positively about it.”

And Alaska usually loves it when rappers visit, too.