At a recent heavy metal festival in New Zealand, Antemasque frontman Cedric Bixler Zavala allegedly threw boiling hot water into the audience, injuring a few fans in the front row.
The incident allegedly took place during Antemasque’s set at Westfest on Tuesday. Now in its second year, Westfest was held at Auckland’s Mount Smart Stadium, and featured Fall Out Boy, Soundgarden, and Faith No More. And, the festival attracted some 10,000 fans, The New Zealand Herald reported.
Fans in attendance contacted The New Zealand Herald to share their recollections of the incident, in which Bixler Zavala hurled plastic kettle into the front row. One festival goer, Hugh Smith, told The Herald via email that he and his friends were in the front row and bore “the full brunt” of the “boiling hot” liquid that was thrown before the punk-rock band took to the stage for their mid-afternoon set.
“Cedric threw a plastic kettle full of boiling hot water towards me and my friends,” he said in an email to the Herald. “We were standing about four-five metres back. I threw my hand up to catch it before it collided with my friend’s face … this bruised my hand and then splashed hot water all over him and my face. It bloody hurt. My friend’s arm went all burny pink.”
Smith supplied the following photo to The Herald, showing the alleged injury.
Another Westfest attendee, who was not identified by name in the piece that ran in The Herald, stated that the liquid was steaming.
“The singer had a full jug of recently boiled water on one of the risers, which was obviously for him to drink, but maybe it was too hot, or maybe he just felt like throwing it anyway. He hurled it into the crowd and [it definitely] looked like some people got burnt as steam was coming off the water as it went through the air. It landed near us and an audience member picked it up and waved it around for the rest of their set, which must have been 15 minutes tops,” the unnamed attendee told The Herald.
Another male attendee, who asked not to be named, told The Herald, “Something whizzed over my shoulder and into the crowd behind me. I didn’t see what the object was but other punters and I were splashed with hot water, or hot coffee, as it flew by. It wasn’t scalding hot, but it was hot. I didn’t get the lion’s share of the splash,
I got it on my face and down my right arm.”
The man did not seek medical attention, following the splash, and choose to stay until the end of Antemasque’s performance. He told The Herald that Bixler Zavala seemed very agitated. And, photos have emerged of the singer throwing other items, including speaker stacks, instrument cases, and his microphone stand, which came to on the grass between the stage and the audience.
“Every time he picked something up I was like, ‘Is he going to throw that? You just knew he was pissed off.”
Video footage has emerged of Bixler Zavala throwing the kettle.
Lastly, a spokesman for Westfest told The Herald that festival is investigating the incident, and added that the band’s management had requested the story not be published.
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