Down Under headlining the Big Day Out festival, Arcade Fire and Pearl Jam were involved in a little pickup basketball prior to the Auckland, New Zealand, leg of the tour where both bands played pickup basketball with some locals, leaving one fan with a broken nose.
Sherif Hassan was invited to play some pickup with festival stars, including Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler and Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament, in the leadup to last Friday’s leg in Auckland and left the experience with a broken nose.
“He’s aggressive, I’ll tell you that much,” Hassan said of Ament in an interview with Triple J.
“He broke my nose. It was actually the last play of the game – the one time I decided to play proper defence. All I heard was Win going off about how the rules are rubbish down here, and throwing balls around and chucking a bit of a hissy fit.”
Butler confirmed the incident, telling Triple J that Ament “was on our team” for a scrimmage “against a bunch of locals“ before “Jeff broke someone’s nose and they put him on the guest list”.
Hassan said Ament hooked he and his friends up with backstage passes where he met the likes of Lorde, Major Lazer and Mac Miller and received a shout-out from Eddie Vedder.
Pearl Jam have a significant affinity with basketball- the band originally went by the moniker Mookie Blaylock, after the former NBA player, before being signed by a record label. They named their debut album Ten after Blaylock’s playing number.
The Big Day Out headed out to Australia last Saturday, drawing 35,000 people to Metricon Stadium on the Gold Coast. The festival moves to Sydney and Melbourne this Australia Day weekend.
Get amongst CraveOnlineAU on Twitter and Facebook for daily sport, music, entertainment and gaming news.
Photo: Johnny Firecloud
