On March 10, 2002, Tomahawk played one of their most famous shows at the Astoria in London, England. The story of what exactly happened remains a rather controversial topic even still.
As told by several show go-ers, towards the end of their set, Mike Patton called out to one of the venues' security guards, requesting that he come near. After the security guard approached Patton from below the stage, Patton then exposed himself, and proceeded to urinate on the security staff member.
Here is an excerpt from "The Final Word", (published on October 17th 2004) from which Mark Reed wrote a review of the show for...
"Within five songs he’s telling the audience to go the “Flamingo Bar”, the neon-lit dayglo pink upstairs sleaze lounge at the Astoria, and directing all the house lights and the audience to wave at it. A few songs later he’s ordering security guards to “Go out and catch criminals.” and mocking them to appreciative cheers, before slapping them gently with a Bondage Whip. In the next song he gets a security guard on stage and spanks his flabby ass.
This is before the encore, where the giant neon sign above the stage, normally only used on Saturday Nights, is brought out of retirement and flashes tackily above the noise fest "G.A.Y.".
For the encore, Patton returns, and serenades the crowd with a straight-laced “Angel Eyes”, sung gently with the passion and ability of a virtuoso. As is his tradition, at any moment, you expect all hell to break loose into a cacophony of feedback, screaming and mayhem at the drop of a hand as Patton takes his role as conductor of this demented musical ensemble. But “Angel Eyes” - originally by Sinatra - is sung gently and beautifully.
However, it is the final, apocalyptic encore of “Laredo” that sees the band fleeing the venue into a hastily arranged cab as venue security scour the backstage area for him as the police drive to the venue. Patton screams across his five octave range, curled up into a ball, thrashing around like an animal to the fantastic payoff line of “The Cats In The Bag And The Bags In The River” before prowling the stage and pissing on the security guards.
And who hasn’t felt like doing that at least once in their life?
Raw Fucking Power!"
Not long after the show, the official website for Ipecac Recordings (Patton's home label), posted a statement from Tomahawk (text excerpt from Blabbermouth.net article, published on March 14, 2002) ...
"So Mike Patton and the band TOMAHAWK roll into London on March 10th for their triumphant packed show at the Astoria. Before the show, though, there was business to attend to. It turns out that several members of nu-metal's inner circle (who happened to be in London) had requested a pow wow with the Godfather of nu-metal, Mike Patton. The topic for discussion was to get Mike's approval for a FAITH NO MORE tribute record as well as to mull over the multi-million dollar offer for a FAITH NO MORE reunion, nu-metal festival tour. Attending the meeting were potential tour participants, Chino (DEFTONES), Brandon (INCUBUS), Fred (LIMP BIZKIT), Coby (PAPA ROACH), Joey (SLIPKNOT) and Gavin (BUSH) along with Mike Patton and Bill Gould (FAITH NO MORE).
The meeting was going smoothly until for an unknown reason, Patton stormed out of the meeting. He later told TOMAHAWK bandmate, John Stanier, that Chino was very drunk and making unrealistic demands having to do with financial issues. As Patton left the venue a member of the Astoria security crew grabbed him and told him to get his 'skinny little ass back in the meeting and make it happen!'. Mike refused and a shoving match ensued. After cooler heads prevailed the meeting was adjourned and TOMAHAWK prepared to take the stage. Before taking the stage TOMAHAWK bandmates Kevin Rutmanis and Duane Denison lightened Mike's dark mood by showing him the toys they purchased earlier in one of London's finest fetish stores. One of the items was a rubber dildo that squirts water. Mike decided that this would be the perfect prank to get even with the nu-metal lovin' hooligan security guard.
I think everyone knows the rest of the story and has seen the pictures. When Mike was apprehended back stage and pulled the dildo from his pants, the tension was relieved and all parties had a laugh about it except the photographers at the front of the stage that thought it was real.
On a side note Mike did give his blessing to the tribute record but vetoed the nu-metal festival... For now!"
" I am not going to grab my ankles to open for Limp Bizkit or somebody. I just don't fucking care..." - Mike Patton
(Skratch Magazine)
One can surely see a point to publishing a statement after such an incident, professing one's innocence. And of course, not without adding a touch of the much loved "Patton-Flair" and sarcastic sense of humor.
As several years have passed since the, um, "piss-cident" (sorry, I really couldn't help myself there), more stories and articles have surfaced that shed a bit more light on what really happened at the show on that fateful night. Below is another excerpt, this one is from an "AntiQuiet" article, published on November 10, 2009 by Kevin Cogill...
"There is a legend, passed down through the ages, that for me started in a record store (remember those?) on the outskirts of Philadelphia in 2002.
As it goes, vocalist / madman Mike Patton was playing a show at the Astoria in London with Tomahawk. Before the gig, a ‘meeting’ was set up. It turned out to be an intervention, where all the nü-metal guys tried to get Faith No More to reunite. It didn’t go so well. We wrote all about it back in June.
This story supposedly leads to the infamous (and well documented) incident involving Mike Patton urinating on a security guard at the gig. The legendary prologue seems to have originated from a statement Tomahawk published, and the deep-seated sarcasm may just have been lost in translation among dumb kids in record stores.
At the time, it made Patton my hero. Without context, I believed it for years. Until some questions were raised in our comments section in June, and research suggested that it was a big, ridiculous joke “explaining” why Mike Patton saw in one security guard an open urinal.
We decided to get to the bottom of it, once and for all. And we got our chance in Brazil over the weekend, where our man Fernando Scoczynski ran into Chino Moreno of the Deftones at Maquinária Festival. Moreno confirmed that while he did attend the Tomahawk gig, the nü-metal intervention story was bullshit.
With that said, we never believed this [photo below] was a rubber penis.
So let’s officially revise the legend for historical accuracy: At the London Astoria in 2002, in front of 1,500 people, Mike Patton urinated on a security guard. For no apparent reason. And got away with it.
I guess we can live with that one."
Although the first reports make for one hell of a good story, Mike Patton also later on denied any such "meeting" ever took place. He also since has more than alluded to the fact, that whatever it was that he pulled out of his pants that evening was indeed, shall I say, "The Real Thing"...
(See last question & answer typed below photo, I apologize for the "piss-poor" quality (Ok, that one you must've half expected).
*From above article (photo) Kerrang Magazine
Q: (Gavin Dennett) You were accused of pissing on security and photographers when on stage with your band Tomahawk in London 2002, but it was then reported to be a phoney penis gag. It looks like urine in the photos. Was it?
A: (Mike Patton) "[Laughs] I'll have to consult my lawyer before answering this. Hey, man, there's a dick, there's piss, you do the math. You're a big boy"
So what really happened that evening? Well, it doesn't seem like anyone but Patton himself, and maybe that security guard... and maybe perhaps the line of photographers in the front will ever really know for certain. So in the mean time, whenever the topic arises, I guess it's back to "fisticuffs" over whichever version you believe is to be the truth. But it still is fun to reminisce about, don't you think? ;)
- P.C.
.....
I have exhausted just about all of my resources in search of any video footage that may have been captured from this show on March 10th of 2002, and have come up empty much to my dismay. At least there is always a soundboard recording that eventually gets leaked as an audio bootleg, so there is that! And you can find it just below this text!
TOMAHAWK | LONDON ASTORIA | LONDON ENGLAND | MARCH 10TH 2002 | FULL AUDIO RECORDING
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