UPDATE as of Wednesday, May 29: The man, 28-year-old Jake Rutger Hanson, allegedly returned to the festival the following day and was arrested for being under the influence of a controlled substance and for paraphernalia, TMZ reports.
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During the BottleRock Napa Valley Festival, the Madison Beer concert came to a hault when a “disturbance” startled the audience.
Beer was performing at the festival’s Bai Stage. Halfway through singing a cover of Radiohead’s “Creep,” someone in the crowd screamed, causing others to react. She stopped the song and asked the audience what was going on.
This is what happened at the @madisonbeer concert. Please stay safe!! pic.twitter.com/naYXJzjUAs
— Tea Account (@swaggyg85785818) May 26, 2019
At first, fans in the crowd reported that a man shouted “Gun!” and pointed toward the stage. Beer, unaware of the situation, began to back up onstage and members of the audience frantically started to look around. However, according to Napa police, “no weapons were involved” in the disturbance and there is “no threat to the community.” A video shows the man in question being escorted out of the area in handcuffs.
arrest at madison beer concert pic.twitter.com/gtvNEMGwCM
— reaction vids (@reactchun) May 26, 2019
The following day, Beer took to Twitter to discuss the situation, thanking fans for their concern.
“I’d like to inform everyone that I am in fact fine and no one, including me was injured and the man was taken out / no real weapon was found,” she wrote. “We should all continue to be diligent when attending music events / events of any kind and report anything we feel is suspicious without hesitation. Obviously there was a disturbance and watching videos of my fans run away in fear truly breaks my heart.
“After police confirmed the incident was handled I returned to the stage and we finished the show. Concerts should be a safe place for us to enjoy music together.”
The scare at Beer’s show follows various false and real reports of gun violence at concerts over the past few years. Earlier this month at Miami’s Rolling Loud Festival, chaos ensued after fans thought there was an active shooter on the grounds, similar to scares at the Global Citizen Festival in New York or Kevin Gates’ show in Texas. Many concertgoers have been on edge at festivals and concerts in general following very real cases of gun violence at the Eagles of Death Metal show in Paris, the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, and the Christina Grimme gig in Orlando.
