During a Circle Jerks performance on May 24 at The Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas, Nevada, vocalist Keith Morris engaged in a series of verbal exchanges with members of the audience, leading to an altercation and subsequent ejections by venue security. The punk rock veteran’s between-song remarks that evening seemingly angered two audience members who appeared to support the MAGA movement.
The initial exchange occurred approximately 11 minutes into the band’s set. During a pause between songs, Keith Morris spoke to the crowd regarding the current political climate and elected officials before the band performed their early 1980s track “When The S**t Hits The Fan“.
“Some of our subject material includes some violence. We’re not violent people, but we live in such sh**ty times. It’s real easy to to run out and purchase a gun and want to shoot somebody. Now, of course, we wouldn’t do that. What we would do, is we’d just rent a tractor and just f**king jam down the sidewalk. Just get back in that shop, get in your car, get off the f**king sidewalk. Anyways, we live in incredibly horrible times right now. I’m going to be 71 in 4 months. In all of my time on the planet Earth, living on the continent of North America, I’ve never seen such a motherf**king s**t show of such… It’s a f**king s**t barge of f**king politicians. They’re the f**king worst. And even you Republicans that think your guys, your people are doing all of these great things for you, they only want to f**k you in the a**. And I do believe their motto is, ‘the younger the better,'” he said (as transcribed by theprp).
Following the conclusion of the song, an attendee in the front row called Keith Morris a “traitor” and directed obscene gestures toward the stage, reportedly following the vocalist’s refusal to sign a vinyl record mid-set. Keith Morris directly addressed the individual and an associate from the stage, referencing U.S. President Donald Trump.
“I’m a traitor? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. F**k you. I vote in every election and I always vote for the least stinkiest piece of s**t. So, you’re not here for my political bulls**t, you’re here for the music. Do you f**king understand our f**king lyrics? Do you understand what we’re singing about? Do you f**king understand here that I think that I think f**king Donald Trump is the biggest piece of s**t that ever walked upon the f**king earth? Are you f**king N*zis? Are you f**king fascists? Well here’s the deal, gentlemen. You guys, First: I’m not signing your record. Second off, the next time we come to town, stay the f**k home. It’s really simple.”
During the band’s subsequent performance of “Under The Gun“, the track was briefly interrupted as a physical altercation broke out in the crowd involving the individuals who had parleyed with the singer. Security personnel intervened and escorted multiple individuals out of the venue. Following the removal of the attendees, Keith Morris added:
“You know what? We’re all citizens of the United States. That does not mean we have to align ourselves with those mother f**king dips**ts. None of them!”
Later in the performance, after another attendee shouted toward the stage, Keith Morris defended the band’s catalog and introduced their track “Moral Majority“, which he originally co-written with guitarist Greg. He compared modern socio-political movements to the era in which the song was originally authored.
“I’m not going to f**k off. And if you’re not digging this, you can take the route those two guys that were up front [did.]. You can go out and hold hands with them, out front. One of our situations is, and I accused those two guys of being N*zis. USA, USA. Hooray for the f**kin’ USA, except when we’re selling weapons to f**king wipe out people. F**k that noise. We have a situation going on right now, where we have this group of people, these know-it-all people, these religious people, these white Christian nationalists who are nothing but f**king Bible-waving N*zis. When we wrote this song, when Greg and I wrote this song 800 years ago, we had a group of people back then, we called them the white f**king moral majority.”
