Circle Jerks vocalist Keith Morris stirred up some controversy during the band’s May 24th show at The Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas, NV. The punk rock veteran’s commentary between songs during that night appears to have enraged a pair of apparently MAGA-aligned audience members in attendance during that show.
Roughly 11 minutes into the set, Morris said to the audience during a break in between songs [transcribed by theprp.com]:
“Some of our subject material includes some violence. We’re not violent people, but we live in such sh*tty times. It’s real easy to to run out and purchase a gun and want to shoot somebody. Now, of course, we wouldn’t do that. What we would do, is we’d just rent a tractor and just f*cking jam down the sidewalk. Just get back in that shop, get in your car, get off the f*cking sidewalk. Anyways, we live in incredibly horrible times right now. I’m going to be 71 in 4 months.
In all of my time on the planet Earth, living on the continent of North America, I’ve never seen such a motherf*cking sh*t show of such… It’s a f*cking sh*t barge of f*cking politicians. They’re the f*cking worst. And even you Republicans that think your guys, your people are doing all of these great things for you, they only want to f*ck you in the ass. And I do believe their motto is, ‘the younger the better.'”
The group then launched into their early 80s track “When The Sh*t Hits The Fan“, after which , Morris further addressed the audience. Seemingly triggered by Morris‘ previous commentary mentioned above, and his apparent refusal to sign a Circle Jerks record mid-set, Morris was called a “traitor” by a member of the crowd in the front row, who repeatedly flipped him the bird. Morris directly addressed him and another individual in close proximity as follows:
“I’m a traitor? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. F*ck you. I vote in every election and I always vote for the least stinkiest piece of sh*t. So, you’re not here for my political bullsh*t, you’re here for the music. Do you f*cking understand our f*cking lyrics? Do you understand what we’re singing about?
Do you f*cking understand here that I think that I think f*cking Donald Trump is the biggest piece of sh*t that ever walked upon the f*cking earth? Are you f*cking Nazis? Are you f*cking fascists? Well here’s the deal, gentlemen. You guys, First: I’m not signing your record. Second off, the next time we come to town, stay the f*ck home. It’s really simple.”
During the next song, “Under The Gun“, the performance was interrupted, as a fight appears to have broken out involving the audience members who had called out Morris and others in attendance. Security wound up ejecting several individuals as a result of that altercation, including the two who took issue with Morris. Much of the crowd were heard chanting ‘f*ck you’ in unison towards those being ejected. After that ejection took place, Morris offered:
“You know what? We’re all citizens of the United States. That does not mean we have to align ourselves with those mother f*cking dipsh*ts. None of them!”
Later into the set, Morris once again brought up the incident mentioned above, stating:
“We have songs with f*cking wonderful lyrics. We have songs about all the sh*t that bothers us. And we hope that it bothers you to the point where you want to do something about it.”
After another fan in the audience told Morris to “f*ck off”, Morris replied:
“I’m not going to f*ck off. And if you’re not digging this, you can take the route those two guys that were up front [did.]. You can go out and hold hands with them, out front.
One of our situations is, and I accused those two guys of being Nazis. USA, USA. Hooray for the f*ckin’ USA, except when we’re selling weapons to f*cking wipe out people. F*ck that noise. We have a situation going on right now, where we have this group of people, these know-it-all people, these religious people, these white Christian nationalists who are nothing but f*cking Bible-waving Nazis. When we wrote this song, when Greg and I wrote this song 800 years ago, we had a group of people back then, we called them the white f*cking moral majority.”
The band then launched into a performance of their early 80s track “Moral Majority“. You can watch the series of incidents referenced above unfold in the below timestamped fan-filmed video from the set:
