My favourite rock band is The Calling. While they were in Brazil in 2008, they were actually held hostage in their dressing room. Here's an exert from the tour diary that the lead singer, Alex Band wrote about this particular event:
"Our dressing room was in the back of this one dirty building and about 200 feet away was the odd venue we were playing. In the middle of the two buildings was like an outdoor motor court where all our buses and vans and gear were hanging out. The whole place had a main gate to enter and exit through, which was guarded so it was secure. The walk from the dressing room outside to the venue was through mud and metal barbs sticking out of the ground�oh and did I mention it was pitch black? This venue was ridiculous inside and my people were throwing a fit over our safety with the local promoter. The stage was made out of bathroom tile and had a 2-foot high step up right in the middle of it behind where I would normally stand. Pretty much just an accident waiting to happen. Then the crowd would be standing on giant revolving platforms painted with black and white stripes, each having a drop off of maybe a foot or so to another level below them. It was the oddest thing I had ever seen! The place was called "New Time" but I'd like to call it "Dumb Time". Sound check kept getting pushed back farther and farther cause the power generator they supplied us was **** and was shooting out unsafe levels of power that would have electrocuted us on stage. Joey actually got shocked pretty bad and we delayed sound check further until they figured out the issue. I overheard the local promoter yelling at my people and threatening to throw one of them out, which would be uh...dumb. Dumb Time! Things were getting pretty hot and heavy and I didn't like it. We finally got on the slick tile stage (WTF?) and began sound checking. Now I don't know if this was out of spite or cause the guy was just a dick, but the local promoter opened the house doors right then and let all the fans in as we were sound checking. I had had it by this point and we all left the stage pissed.
We hiked back through the mud and metal spikes of death to our dressing room "hole". They didn't have the food or drinks we requested and no hot tea for me, which would have been nice at this point. We decided to just play cards and take our mind off the situation. Joey grabbed an office chair that was around and took a seat. The thing split in half sending him down to the ground! It was funny for a second but we were all were just angry at the level of crap we were dealing with tonight, and I did not like this promoter guy one bit. Some nasty looking fruit was thrown around the dressing room in retaliation, a banana here, a watermelon there. I had really never done that ever in my whole career, but of all places that deserved it, it was here. We are all professional though, so I cleaned some of it up and we hit the stage for our concert. We put aside the issues of the day and played our best for the thousand or so fans that spent their hard earned money to see us. Other than all of us slipping around on the tile stage and me almost tripping numerous times on the giant stage step, the show was fine. We did an odd signing directly from the high stage afterwards and I did my best to get to everyone without falling off. We left the venue and walked back to the dressing room.
Now this is where things got interesting.
The dressing room was looking a little more worse for wear than we had left it and before I could even register this as odd, about 8 huge body guards came in and locked the door behind us. It was me, the band, Jonathan, and our Brazilian tour producer Gabriel in the room and we were trapped. The huge men started rambling something off in Portuguese and Gabriel translated it to us. They were saying they were holding us hostage until we paid them $3,000 US dollars to "repair the room". I laughed at this at first, but then the severity of the situation hit me. We were outnumbered here, with no safety or security, no one to call for help, in a strange venue in a small city we didn't know with no rules what so ever. I immediately played it off as trite and small and said this is silly, announced I was leaving, grabbed my laptop bag and headed for the door being guarded by the men. One of the larger guys pushed me back, hard. I could feel the gun he was carrying against my side as he shoved his body weight against me. These guys were not messing around and it really sunk in fast. This was completely insane! We were all scared. The first thought in my mind was to call the American Embassy, but I had no clue how to do so from my phone, so my next thought was to escape somehow and get help for the others. So I went to the bathroom quietly, found a spiral staircase that lead to the roof and with laptop bag still in hand (don't know why), I jumped about 20 feet down back to the motor court where help could be found. Luckily Jethro just walked over and he helped me down a bit, but it was still a long fall. I told him what was going on as I ran to hide behind one of our big trucks. There were guys all over the place I could run to for help, but they all worked for the venue or promoter so I figured that was not the best option.
A nice gentleman and his twin daughters were in close range and I had recognized them from earlier, so I ushered them over to behind the truck where Jethro and I were hiding. I explained to them in simple English the best I could of what was happening back in the dressing room and that I needed help, ASAP. They said they had a car that they could only fit maybe two people in to escape, but I wasn't going to leave everyone behind. As I started to ask them whom I could call for help, the man actually pulled out his phone. I was excited for a second like he was going to make a call or do something helpful, but instead he pointed to his twin daughters and said "picture?" PICTURE? F****NG PICTURE!!? Are you nutz?! My band and crew are being held captive against their will, do you not understand!? Just as I was about to really lose it, palms sweating, head racing, I saw Arms come around the corner and then a few of the others, trailed by the 8 giant men. If I understand correctly, my people convinced them to let us go and hold our gear hostage for the money instead. So we all immediately jumped in a van and raced out through the gate and back to safety, leaving behind our crew to deal with the situation. Supposedly they were there until the sun came up, dealing with the police and actually PAID the $3,000! I guess "someone" went back in to the dressing room before the cops got there and REALLY made it look bad, ripped the air conditioner out of the wall, peed on the floor, you name it. UNREAL! What the hell is wrong with these people?! Obviously this promoter had it out for us from day one and was waiting for any excuse to snake some money. Evil. I found out later that they released a report saying, "The Calling destroys dressing room, pees on floor, etc etc." These guys are damn lucky they got away with this and should be counting their blessings that I don't file a lawsuit against them or shut down the "New Time" club altogether...Or hey, maybe I'll buy it, fire them all, then shut it down? I learned one very important lesson in all of this, and that is to have MY OWN bodyguards. See, each local promoter is in charge of supplying us with them and those very same 8 guys that held us hostage were OUR GUARDS. Thanks guys!"
(In case you're wondering who "Arms" and Jethro are, Arms is of the guys in the band. "Arms" is just a nickname, with his real name being Daniel. Jethro is Alex's friend who was filming all the concerts from the tour to make a Live DVD).