File this one under: seemed like a good idea at the time. Matchbox Twenty singer Rob Thomas likely owes his longtime bandmate and best friend Paul Doucette a nice meal after braining the band’s drummer/rhythm guitarist with a microphone stand during a show at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield on Sunday (Aug. 16).
In a video posted by a fan, Thomas is having a blast swinging his mic stand around his head when the metal pole part cuts loose and goes flying across the stage. Thomas continues to bounce around doing his thing while Doucette can be spotted in the background, bending over as if in pain and then hustling off into the backstage area.
While Thomas is singing the band’s Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit from 2000, “Bent,” Doucette is noticeably absent. Thomas appears to address the wayward winging a short time later, telling the audience, “Every night I’m over there and I’m throwing this goddamn thing around … oh I went, it nailed him,” Thomas said of his decades-long mic twirling ritual gone wrong.
“Yeah, it nailed him hard,” the 54-year-old singer continued as he looked to the side stage area with concern about the pal he’s been playing with since 1995. “My best friend in the world and I think I almost killed him and I feel really bad about this.” He then asked the crowd for one second to reconnoiter the situation, saying, “By the way, it felt like a really good idea right up until now. I feel like an ass.”
According to People, after replacing the in-ear monitors that got smashed in the incident, Doucette, 53, made his way back on stage and told the crowd, “I don’t know how many times I’ve told you about swinging that f–king thing. I knew it was only a matter of time. It’s been 30 years. Now, admittedly I’ve been in the back for the first half of that, and maybe I’ve gotta go back there because obviously it’s safer.”
Thomas then pledged that he knows “one thing I’m gonna stop doing” as Doucette raised what appeared to be a glass of alcohol and said, “there’s one thing that’s gonna help me right now. It’s gotta be this.”
In another video, a contrite Thomas begged for forgiveness again and said, “I’m going to be apologizing to you all month” as a smiling Doucette said he’d take it.
After the show, Doucette posted an Instagram video in which he was having broken pieces of the old in-ear monitor plucked out as he joked, “So, here’s what’s happening right now. Rob took me the f–k out with his swinging the f–king mic stand during that show and I have bits of my inner, which he f–kin’ smashed, that are now in my ear … that is not fun.” After the last shards were removed, Doucette jokingly snarled, “F–kin’ Rob!”
The post’s caption said it all: “After 30 years of mic swinging, Rob claimed his first victim: @repairmethod of course.” Matchbox Twenty have an upcoming pair of shows in September at the Utah State Fair on Sept. 18 and the Oceans Calling Festival in Ocean City, Md. on Sept. 27.
