Lars Ulrich explains why he had to stop fans stealing cushions at their shows

nme.com:

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich has recounted how he had to stop fans from stealing cushions from venues they were playing and throwing them around during their sets.Ulrich recently appeared on the podcast Conan O’Brien’s Needs A Friend, in which he reflected on Metallica’s tour history in Los Angeles, the city where he formed the band with James Hetfield, and a place which he says has played host to “some of the best shows of our career” thanks to some particularly “passionate” fans.However, this sometimes escalated into fans throwing around cushions and leaving the band with a hefty bill to pay.Speaking of the Long Beach Arena specifically, Ulrich said: “What are there, 16,000 seats in there?

We’ve paid for about 15,000 of those 16,000 seats over the years because every time we were playing Long Beach Arena, people would just take the cushion, you know, play frisbee with it inside the arena.“The next day [the venue staff] would be like, ‘Okay, Metallica, here’s those $300,000 worth of cushions that you have to pay for’.”Ulrich added that the band had to explicitly warn fans off doing anything similar to avoid them having to foot the bill. “We had to go on KNAC [radio station] multiple times and go ‘Listen, whatever.

You know, you’re our fans, and we’re your fans and we’re all in this together. We want you to have a good time and we support that,” he said.“But understand one thing, if you think you’re rebelling against the building or rebelling against authority or rebelling against the man or whatever the fuck it is, do you think you’re rebellious?

The only people you’re really rebelling against is Metallica.”Ulrich also discussed a show at the LA Coliseum where Metallica had to stop a performance when fans started.