Royal Blood, a British rock duo consisting of vocalist and bassist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher, recently performed at Radio 1's Big Weekend, where they played between such massive acts as Lewis Capaldi and Niall Horan. However, when the Worthing-based band hit the stage, they were seemingly not happy with the reaction they received.
In a viral video, the singer and bassist Mike Kerr yelled to the placid crowd, "Well, I guess I should introduce ourselves, seeing as no one knows who we are. We are called Royal Blood, and this is rock music... who likes rock music? Nine people, brilliant," he responded.
After Royal Blood played a few more songs, Kerr began hitting out at the crowd once again for not giving them the reaction they believed they deserved.
"We're having to clap ourselves because that was so pathetic. Can you clap for us? You're busy," said Kerr, pointing out people in the crowd.
What caught everyone's eye was Kerr's last action at the end of the set, where he finished off their final song, dropped his guitar to the floor, raised his arms, and shot out both his middle fingers as he strutted off stage. Meanwhile, the drummer could be seen telling people in the crowd to "smile".
Kerr’s annoyance with the crowd was met with a variety of responses on social media. While some pointed out that, as a rock band, Royal Blood were an outlier on Radio One’s Big Weekend pop-oriented show, hence asking for a same reaction from the audience was wrong.
Others understood their frustration, others wondered what they could have expected.
“Royal Blood are too sick that crowd is boring,” wrote one Twitter user, while one added: “Royal Blood are brilliant and possibly at the wrong festival. That crowd was waiting for Niall Horan.”
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