As previously reported, Disturbed recently came under fire after their pyrotechnics allegedly damaged the Chicago Bulls’ NBA championship banners during a March 8 show at the United Center in Chicago, IL. However, during a recent interview with MetalUniverse.net, drummer Mike Wengren denied those claims, calling them “fake news.”
Wengren said the following:
“That’s actually false. So one of the stagehands ran with the story and now it’s turned into something… We didn’t burn anything. If you think about the size of it, even if you watch the show tonight, you’ll see how high it is. We have extensive pyro and the flames are very high, but it gets tested every day. The fire marshals look at it… Everybody looks [at it] before [the concert] during the day. There’s no way we could come even close to the banners. So it’s bullshit.’
It’s frustrating for us. Because on one hand, the fan perspective is, ‘Wow, their pyro is that incredible, so I’ve gotta see the show,’ so maybe that’s kind of cool but then the other hand is as we’re continuing on this tour with the same show, every building we go into is now nervous about us causing damage to their building.
We’re big sports fans, especially myself. We were at the game last night. We would never be disrespectful to anyone’s building. We are hometown Chicago boys. Why would we desecrate our own team? It’s ridiculous. Today, for example, the marshals tested everything. But this building is actually very smart; they have a system where you just have to press a button and the banners roll up. So there’s a safe [way to deal with it], but some of the buildings don’t have that.”
[via Blabbermouth]
Metal Anarchy 
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