A couple who attended the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Spark Arena at the weekend say the experience was ruined by a group of drunk men swearing and assaulting them from seats behind. Photo / Getty Images
A couple who attended the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Spark Arena at the weekend say the experience was ruined by a group of drunk men swearing and assaulting them from seats behind. Photo / Getty Images
Two Red Hot Chili Peppers fans say the band's Auckland concert was ruined by a group of drunk men who vomited on them, hurled abuse, and nearly strangled one of them.
John and Michelle Rea, from the North Shore, paid $200 a ticket to attend the gig at Spark Arenalast night, but said they could barely recall anything about the actual concert.
The couple instead spent the entire evening trying to ignore a group of about nine men, estimated to be in their mid-20s, who were seated in the rows behind them.
Michelle said they arrived at the concert about 10 minutes before the band was about to go on stage and they were warned by a man sitting next to them that one of the men had just vomited on him.
Another concertgoer had alerted security, but while they were still waiting for them to deal with the drunk man Michelle was assaulted by the man standing directly behind her.
"As I was standing there watching the concert, the next thing I knew I had his T-shirt and it had been wrapped around my neck and he was trying to strangle me," she said.
"I had to take two step backwards. It wasn't like it was around my neck, I actually physically had to take two steps backwards at which point he sort of dropped it and I had the T-shirt and I turned around and smacked it and gave him a bit of a shove because I got such a fright."
Another woman who was attending with her son complained to security about the group of men again. When security arrived, Michelle said they were only focused on dealing with the man who had been sick and didn't care about the fact she had just been strangled.
After another complaint, the second man was removed from the concert by security guards.
The couple left their seats to make a further complaint about the remaining group. When they eventually returned to their seats they were greeted with more yelling and abuse.
"One guy took it upon himself to tell me how he was going to f*** me and just kept repeating it basically in my ear ... It was really aggressive behaviour," Michelle said.
The abuse continued for the remainder of the concert, and people in their row were struck on the head by some of the men. One of them also threatened to start a fight with John and another fan.
They were unable to get security to take further action.
Spark Arena has been contacted for comment.
After the event, Michelle said she was told to go to the police station to lay a complaint about the strangling incident.
