US band Bloodhound Gang barred from festival in Russia after bass player shoves flag in pants
8/3/2013MOSCOW — The American rock group Bloodhound Gang was kicked out of a Russian music festival and pelted with eggs after it emerged that its bass player had shoved a Russian flag down his pants at a recent concert in Ukraine.
Videos posted online of Wednesday’s concert in the Ukrainian city of Odessa show bass player Jared Hasselhoff pushing the Russian white, blue and red flag down the front of his pants and pulling it out the back. He then shouted to the audience: “Don’t tell Putin,” a reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Maria Minina, a spokeswoman for the festival in southern Russia, said today that the band’s headlining performance the previous evening had been canceled because of the incident, which had outraged the Russian government.
The American band is known for its sexually explicit songs, including “The Bad Touch,” with its unforgettable lyrics: “You and me, baby, ain’t nothin’ but mammals, so let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.”
Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky tweeted Friday night that he had spoken with officials in the southern Krasnodar region, known as Kuban. “Bloodhound Gang is packing its bags,” he said in the Twitter post. “These idiots will not perform in Kuban.”
Members of a pro-Kremlin youth group threw eggs and tomatoes at the band members’ vehicle as they drove to the airport today in the city of Anapa, the local Yuga.ru news portal reported.