Tompkins Square in New York City hosted a concert of well over 2000 people yesterday at the East Village Outdoor Venue, challenging Governor Andrew Cuomo’s performance venue limits. The concert was headlined by hardcore band Madball, also featuring Murphy’s Law, Bloodclot and The Capturers.

The guidelines set in place by Governor Cuomo last month stated that live performance venues in New York could open indoor spaces at 33 percent capacity, or up to 100 people indoors and 200 people outdoors, according to Blabber Mouth. Capacity may increase to 150 people indoors and 500 people outdoors if all attendees have presented proof of negative test results for the virus.

New York is still one of the hardest-hit states in the country with cases remaining high through the majority of the length of the pandemic, according to Reuters Graphics. Because of this, many city dwellers are nervous that New York will be experiencing a spike in cases in coming weeks due to not only the number of attendees, but the clear lack of mask-wearing, significant crowding and amount of moshing going on among the concertgoers.

John Joseph of Bloodclot took to Facebook to challenge those criticizing the popularity of the event. In a post, he wrote:

“And let me say this – to all those talking shit. For the last year in NYC there were protests – tens and thousands of people in the streets – some rioting and looting engaging in bias attacks – on 4/20 weed day – thousands filled Washington Square Park – sharing blunts and weed pipes. Nobody said shit. This was our PROTEST – OUR RALLY. People who didn’t want to come – stayed away. Good – nobody missed their ass.

“Wanna thank Cousin Joe and The Black-n-Blue crew for doing an amazing job. All the bands killed it THE CAPTURES, WISDOM AND CHAINS, MURPHY’S LAW, and the KINGS of NYHC MADBALL. PMA was had – smiling faces everywhere – we all needed this! I hope other cities do the same.”