The first ever EST Fest kicked off this weekend at Nelson Ledges and a stoned and intoxicated crowd that was surprisingly tame and well behaved showed up for the gig. However, the first year of every festival is always plagued with some problems. Bathrooms ran out of hand sanitizer and toilet paper and when Machine Gun Kelly took the stage around 9:30 p.m. last night, security was having some difficulty keeping fans back from the stage. Every festival has to learn to walk before it can run and considering those complaints are fairly minor, this festival got off to a great start. We caught up with Machine Gun Kelly before his performance and spoke to him in his trailer backstage. The rapper had just finished a meet and greet with fans who had won an online contest and in true Machine Gun Kelly fashion, he lit a joint to start the interview.
I’m an Ohio University student so I wanted to ask what happened at Halloween last year when they called the show a riot and tried to arrest you?
Oh, the shit where the police came and shit? Fuck Athens police; that shit was crazy. I mean that’s how we do it that’s how we like to go out. We got to finish the show, so I didn’t give a fuck, but if the show had been compromised that would have been a whole different story. It is a riot, that’s what it is, but that’s what’s so punk rock about it is that every show is a riot.
This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 6, 2013.
I really hope that bad boy looks at the black flag mixtape, the praise and reception it’s getting and just makes him keep is his sound/ lyrics, the one the fans fell in love with and the one everyone loves on black flag, if they still try to change his music after this than bad boy is stupid and doesn’t deserve to have mgk on their label.