Lamb of God Singer Reveals What He Remembers of Deadly 2010 Czech Show
In 2012, Lamb of God singer Randy Blythe was arrested in the Czech Republic and charged with manslaughter for allegedly pushing 19-year-old Daniel Nosek offstage at a show two year prior and causing injuries that led to the fan’s death. Blythe was held in Prague’s decrepit Pankrác Prison until finally being released on bail 37 days after his arrest; he was ultimately found not guilty in 2013, when he chose – against the advice of legal experts – to return to the country to face trial. The experience inspired two songs, “Still Echoes” and “512,” on the new Lamb of God album, VII: Sturm und Drang; it also led him to write the memoir Dark Days, in which he shares his whole side of the story publicly for the first time. (The book is available for pre-order via Amazon.) In chapter six, he reveals what he remembers of the fateful date, May 24th, 2010, when Nosek was injured at Lamb of God’s concert at the Prague venue Abaton. The excerpt below picks up the action on that day once the singer returned to the club following an afternoon spent exploring the city. Blythe recounts a dangerous, chaotic show in an unprofessional venue with little to no security, and he recalls wrestling an out-of-control fan onstage. Initially confused for Nosek, that fan, Milan Poradek, would eventually come forward and testify as a key witness for Blythe’s defense.
We arrived back at the club just before our set. I recall walking quickly up the stairs and remembering there was one way in and out of the club. The only way to win in a single-entrance club situation is to go undetected, so on that night I was swift and stealthy, never even looking up from the floor as I wove my way uninterrupted through the crowd to the dressing room. The dressing room was a small room through a short hall crammed with equipment beside stage right (the left side of the stage from the audience’s perspective). I put on my monkey suit (the stinking pair of shorts, dirty t-shirt, and smelly shoes I wear every night so my regular clothes won’t get sweaty), did my vocal warm-up, and walked onto the stage from stage right. I had to walk carefully through the back line of amplifiers, guitar cabinets, and crawl over Chris’s drum set until I reached stage left, where my guitarist Mark and I are stationed before a show and during our few short breaks. I remember it being a particularly difficult trip to stage left; there were piles of cables and guitars and pieces of drum hardware in my way. I could see why our crew had been so grouchy looking earlier in the day. The stage was tiny, and getting all that stuff up there and working had to have been quite a chore. It was extremely cramped, and as I heard our intro track begin to roll, Mark’s guitar tech Drew told me, “Be careful – it’s a small stage and it’s really tight.” I handed Drew my glasses for safekeeping, Chris counted in the first song, Mark walked on stage, and I followed shortly, just as I have on countless other nights.