Bristol Fleece management deny claims they’re encouraging a boycott of Fat White Family

The band claim they were ejected from the venue on August 17

Management at Bristol venue The Fleece have denied claims made by Fat White Family that they are trying to encourage other venues boycott the Brixton band’s forthcoming tour following an incident at The Fleece after the band’s August 17 show.

On Wednesday (August 27), Fat White Family posted a message to their Facebook page, since deleted, saying that “the people that run the fleece in Bristol need [to be] lined up against a wall and shot”.

The post explained: “They sent a load of bouncers to chuck my girlfriend out of our dressing room. Horrible bully boy bouncers that basically attacked her. Then the owners/managers of the venue told us we had to leave. For no reason whatsoever. Now they’ve been calling up other venues warning them about us and trying to stop them from booking us! All this because my girlfriend wanted to sit in our dressing room. What a bunch o’ bastards!”

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Following the deletion of the message, the band followed up with another post yesterday (August 28) in which they reiterated their claims that the venue was trying to encourage other venues to boycott the band.

The new post reads: “Our manager decided to take it into his own (terrible) hands and remove the status we wrote about The Fleece in Bristol. We accept that it may have been a little over the top. We don’t actually want to see anyone from The Fleece lined up against the wall and shot but it has to be said that the bouncers and managers at that venue were some of the strangest power tripping creeps we have ever come across. After chucking us out of the venue because one of our girlfriends didn’t have an access all areas pass they went on to contact all the venues we are playing at on our up and coming tour and try to encourage some kind of boycott of the Fat White Family. If anyone wants to cancel our shows on account of what they’ve heard from The Fleece then we have no interest in playing your venues anyway.”

A spokesperson for the venue denied the claims, but says that venues do discuss experiences with individual acts. “There has been no attempt to convince venues not to book the Fat White Family or cancel upcoming shows,” a member of The Fleece management told NME. “There is a network of venues in the UK who discuss how shows go and notify others if they have a show which is out of the ordinary so that the future dates can be prepared with additional bar staff, security or any other requirements. Unfortunately the band has got the wrong impression on this and we are sorry they feel this way, however, we were acting in a way to make sure the rest of their tour was a success, and not in any way hinder them.”

Fat White Family tour the UK in September:

Bestival (September 6)
Glasgow Art School (16)
Manchester Sound Control (17)
London Electric Ballroom (18)

To check the availability of Fat White Family tickets and get all the latest listings, go to NME.COM/TICKETS now, or call 0844 858 6765

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