Dani Filth went literally nuts during Cradle Of Filth’s performance at Lez’Arts Sceniques festival (France) last Thursday. The festival took place over three days at Sélestat (France), Cradle Of Filth headlining on the Main Stage. The show should’ve taken place from 0:30AM to 1:30AM but didn’t start before 0:45 because of technical issues.

The facts during this apocalyptic show: Dani Filth was clearly beyond himself, taking it out on technical staff members on the side of the stage, because of feedback. As a result, the vocalist headed to the side of the stage on numerous occasions, notably to yell at a staff member, to kick him in the shins (!), and ended up trying to punch him in the face (!!!).

And let’s not forget the full bottle of water the vocalist threw towards him during the “show”! A technician who was – most unfairly – booed by a few blind or stupid Cradle Of Filth fans at the end of the show, before being thrown a few objects by them as well.

As a consequence, this Cradle Of Filth “concert” was just un-be-lie-va-ble.

Overall, the audience witnessed a disgrace of a performance for such a renowned band, moreover being the headliner, the whole vibe of it being completely pernicious to the point where many festivalgoers left the show. It’s understandable that Filth doesn’t enjoy getting his ears blasted with feedback. However, it is much less understandable that he would not mention the technical difficulties which completely ruined the show, leaving the stage without a word or a look for the few brave people in the audience who stood through the performance – because it really was brave of them.

The sound of a microphone thrown in an outburst of rage could be heard as he left the stage…

Though we don’t know all the details about the matter – the Lez’Arts Sceniques festival management, having been contacted many times, and clearly embarrassed, said to be working on an official statement* – the self-evident lack of respect Filth has shown both to the fans who came all the way, and to all the people curious to see what a Cradle of Filth show was like must be pointed out. And, to be thorough, let’s not forget to mention the frontman’s catastrophic vocal performance. The sight of a vocalist squealing a foot away from his microphone might have been amusing for a while, but quickly became tedious given the overall negative conditions.

Cradle Of Filth is a strong recording band, able to give very decent live performances (the bands musicians managed to do their job on stage despite all the aforementioned problems) but this show in Sélestat was really catastrophic, mostly due to Filth’s attitude.

Furthermore, it is important to mention that the problems with the frontman started earlier in the afternoon as our sources tell us that Filth arrived 45 minutes late for his press conference scheduled at 3:45PM (having our photographer Julien Perez wait for nothing), and was rather pissed off when he learned that most of the photographers had left for the Korpiklaani show, starting at 4:30, to do their job!

On this 14th of July, Mr. Filth was ridiculous all across the board.

With all that, there’s no surprise in seeing him held down (probably right after the show) by security staff members. The picture we just referred to was taken by Hoya Roc, Madball’s bassist (also performing at the festival) who shared it on the social network Lockerz.com with the comment:

“Fantasy-Metal gone wrong!! Haha, Cradle Of Filth vocalist put back in his place by security”.

Hoya Roc is right to laugh about it, because Cradle Of Filth at the Lez’Arts Sceniques festival was one hell of a joke. But a joke not unlike the musicians faces during their performance: not that funny.

* EDIT 6:41 PM: Here is the festival’s official statement available on its website: “Cradle of Filth: incident at the Lez’Arts Sceniques festival. With the coming of Cradle of Filth Thursday evening, the Lez’Arts Scéniques festival had its one damper. Faced with Dani Filth’s aggressive and uncontrollable behavior, both on stage and backstage, the festival organizers had no choice but to have festival security and the police handle the person who had become a danger for himself and for others.”