When YMCA gets real as hell.
2019's Riot Fest saw an insane weekend of fun in the sun celebrated in Chicago, IL. Among the bands on the line-up were Slayer, blink-182, Bikini Kill...and the Village People? That's right, the infamous New York disco group performed at Riot Fest this year. And not only did fans get into their music -- they went absolutely apeshit to it. If you don't believe us, watch the footage below of the audience doing a Wall Of Death to the band's classic single YMCA.
As you can see in the video, fans knew what was coming when they heard the opening peals of YMCA blasting through the air, and split the audience down the middle. But they stayed patient and waited, singing along to the band's classic anthem to young men and whether or not they need to feel down. But when the string hits announced the song's chorus, the crowd ran at each other and exploded in a series of violent thrashings and hand motions that spelt out letters.
Watch the melee below:
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Of course, YMCA wasn't the only free-for-all during the Village People's set. The People also incited a massive mosh pit to Macho Man, most metal of disco classics:
Deep down, we, too, wish to be macho men.
While most heshers apparently love the YMCA, the YMCA does not always love them back. Nergal, frontman of Polish death metallers Behemoth, was thrown out of a YMCA earlier this year for wearing a Darkthrone shirt and refusing to say that he loved Jesus. Darkthrone frontman Fenriz called out the organization on Instagram, writing, “So @nergal69 was kicked out of a gym in the states where @behemoth are currently on tour yesterday because he was wearing a Darkthrone shirt and they asked him if he believed in Jesus Christ...I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry when I heard about it. The fun thing for me about all this is that the shirt he was wearing was an old original #Darkthrone shirt that I gave him about a year ago."
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