Gavin Rossdale & Institute and a fight

Copyright 2005 Danny Clifford

I headed off to the East end of London to Rivvington Street. There is a small club called Cargo. Gavin Rossdale, Gwen Stefani's husband was performing with his band Institute. I met George Chin when I got there and in we went. Got our passes and headed into the club. I have been here before and the lighting was almost non existent. Well this time was no different.. I think there was one red light up there.. Ummm that would look good I thought... Red is about as bad as it gets in this situation. I was going to have my work cut out as I don't like using flash. Unless of course its life and death. I think this was heading that way, I mean life and death, if you know what I mean. On came Gavin and no lights, but hey, I just got on with it.. By the way there was no photo pit here so, we were shooting from within the crowd. Almost as soon as the first song started, some complete idiot started running and jumping full speed into the back of me and all around me. He was obviously mad, drunk or stoned or maybe just psychotic. Anyway, he kept running and jumping into us all. He knocked a lady next to me right over and she hit the floor. He boyfriend was worried as he wasn't able to really defend his girlfriend. This guy just kept doing it. Everyone was getting very annoyed. I asked this guy to take it easy.. He then got right up in my face and told me to fuck off. I turned around and tried to carry on shooting. This was very difficult as he kept running into me. Now he was targeting me after I had asked him to stop. We were now into the second of my 3 songs.. I was more concerned about him causing problems with me than shooting. During this second song he punched me, quite hard in my back as I was shooting. I made a point of not turning round at all or acknowleging that he had done this. When we got to the end of the 3rd song, I was looking for George Chin. I wanted him to grab my cameras as I dealt with this nutter. I couldn't see George. As I was looking though, this guy went for me. So, this time I obliged and belted him 3, 4 or 5 times. I cant remember. Sadly I was still holding all of my cameras as well. George arrived in the middle of this. We then both left and got out of there as swiftly as possible.. We wandered off and got my car. I gave George a lift home as he had traveled into town by train. Anyway, I am not happy with my photos for all of the reasons above.. Meanwhile, my hand is very swollen and I think I have broken a couple of bones in my right hand. tomorrow morning I will head off to hospital for an X-ray..